Team Information
Dinamo Riga are a professional hockey club, based in Riga, Latvia that plays in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and play their home games in the Arena Riga.
They have a farm team HK Liepaja and youth team HK Riga, which plays in the Russian Junior Hockey League (MHL).
Riga are a base club for the Latvian national team, More than 50% of the Latvian national-team players in the World Championship and the Olympic Games have come from Dinamo Riga in the past 10 seasons.
History and Facts
Dinamo Riga were founded in 1946. The biggest achievement was in the 1987-88 season when it won the silver medal.
Players such as Helmuts Balderis, Artūrs Irbe, Olympic champion Vitālijs Samoilovs, Mihails Vasiļonoks, three-time Gagarin’s champion and Olympic champion Oleg Znarok have all played for Riga.
Riga team were reformed on 7th April 2008 and their first coach was Július Šupler. Meanwhile, Aleksandrs Ņiživijs was the first player to score in the history of the KHL on 2 September 2008 in Khabarovsk against Amur.
In the second season of the KHL, the legendary Stanley Cup winner Sandis Ozoliņš returned to Riga, where he went on to finish his professional career.
On 21st January 2018, Riga played an outdoor game for the first time when they took on Minsk at home.
Meanwhile, Riga have participated in the prestigious Spengler Cup in Switzerland twice.
Ģirts Ankipāns (Dinamo Riga head coach) “We are playing some good hockey this season and are still fighting for playoff spot.
“At the moment is seems that it could go down until the last match of the regular championship, but everything is in our hands.
“This game against Great Britain is going to be an interesting experience and I can’t wait for it.
“I’ve heard that there’s going to be a lot of Latvian fans. It will be a lot of fun.”