Linards Feldbergs | Never stop believing

Make no mistake, despite the title which covers this text, there will be no question here of the life of a boy from the south of Detroit as told in a great success of Journey.

Instead, we’ll talk about a 19-year-old goaltender from Latvia, named Linards Feldbergs, who became a hero of his homeland and a real sensation during the World Junior Hockey Championship in recent weeks in Ottawa.

The story went around the hockey world. The largely overlooked Latvian team caused a resounding shockwave by winning 3-2 in a shootout against Canada during the preliminary matches of the competition. Feldbergs was the main architect of this victory, stopping 55 of the 57 shots aimed at him and remaining perfect in eight rounds of shooting.

Imagine: it was only the third victory in 39 Championship preliminary matches for Latvia. What’s more, Canada had won four consecutive clashes between the two clubs with 41 goals scored in total compared to 4 for the Latvians. And in December 2023, the Canadian team had inflicted a rinse from 10-0 to the latter in the preliminary round…

“We were in shock. It was an incredible feeling. We were so happy, so excited,” recalled Feldbergs in an interview with The PressMonday.

A won over crowd

A few fellow cerbers sent him their congratulations after the match, including Carey Price and his compatriot Elvis Merzlikins, of the Columbus Blue Jackets. And in Latvia, the population obviously did not hesitate to celebrate the triumph of their club, sailing somewhere between disbelief and ecstasy.

“People there watched the match live in the middle of the night, at something like three in the morning. Some even listened to it again, because they couldn’t believe that we managed to beat a big country like Canada! “, he says.

As much as the fans on site, Canadians or not, were just as stunned by the final result, they fell in love with this goalkeeper who had suddenly transformed into an almost impenetrable wall. This wave of affection continued to wash over Feldbergs and his teammates for the remainder of their tournament, which ended with a 3-2 quarterfinal loss to Sweden, a match in which Feldbergs blocked 50 shots.

“People were shouting: ‘Latvia! Latvia!” We definitely had the impression that we were playing in Latvia. None of us had played in front of 18,000 people before that. The crowd gave us energy,” describes the young doorman.

In the end, Feldbergs faced 226 shots during the Championship, far more than any other goalkeeper present. Of these, he arrested 210.

Question of trust

Now back from the cloud on which he was propelled in Ottawa, Feldbergs is back with the Sherbrooke Phœnix, who chose him in the first round (25^e in total) from the Canadian Hockey League European Draft last year. In 21 games in the QMJHL this season, he has accumulated a record of 11-4-2 with a goals against average of 2.51 and an efficiency percentage of .899.

Recovered from his emotions, the goalkeeper remains humble in the face of his new glory and the avalanche of laudatory comments aimed at him after his prowess against Canada. “I was playing my match, I was focused,” he describes. When it was tied 2-2, I told myself our chances of winning were 50/50. The whole team knew it. »

Asked whether Latvia will now have to deal with a certain pressure to repeat its exploits in future tournaments, Feldbergs believes that the important thing will be to maintain the same state of mind which animated the team this year.

“We believed in ourselves. We knew what had to be done,” he summarizes.

After Latvia’s elimination against Sweden, a reporter on site asked Feldbergs to sum up her team’s tournament in one word. His answer: “to believe”, precisely. A theme that he will indeed highlight several times during this telephone interview.

“You must first believe in yourself,” he reiterated. Then it’s just about playing your game. Otherwise, it won’t work. You must believe in yourself. This is what we did against Canada. »

Feldbergs will be eligible for the next NHL draft this summer. With his performance at the World Junior Championship, we bet some scouts took some notes about him in their evaluation reports…

“It has always been my dream to play in the NHL,” he says. I’m happy to have been able to showcase myself during the tournament. »

A dream in which he will continue to believe more than ever, of course.