LGHF

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About this website

This is website about table hockey in Latvia, so all parts of it are in Latvian only.
If you are also interested what happens here, you can take a look to site map in English to get some understanding what is published on this site.

History

What TABLE HOCKEY is?

Table Hokey is sport played in more than 30 countries in Europe, North America and Asia. There are many different table hockey standards, but only table hockey model "Play-off" produced by Swedish company STIGA has got good recognition by players because it was improved during years taking into account recommendations by players. On STIGA tables National, International and even World and Europe Championships are played.

Table hockey is dynamic and exiting game with long history, but the first Championship - Swedish Masters in 1982 was conducted in Sweden. It is very exiting to watch a game of table hockey masters. A table hockey player has to practice a lot to increase his/her technical skills, has to have good reaction, think fast and analyze situations of a match, and have to be in good physical condition, but at the same time table hockey is available to every body no matter of age or gender.

Table Hockey in Latvia

Table hokey in Latvia is played for many years. Many still remember soviet time models that were simplified so did not gain too high popularity as sports. In 1998 there were the first tournaments on STIGA tables. December 16, 1999 was established Riga Table Hockey Club (Rīgas Galda Hokeja Klubs (RGHK)), but August 3, 2000 - Latvian Table Hockey Federation (Latvijas Galda Hokeja Federācija (LGHF)). Already in the year 2000 LGHF together with mobile operator Latvijas Mobilais Telefons organized the first Rīgas Kauss (Riga Cup or later also known as Riga Open) where around 200 players participated.

In 2003 and 2004 Rīgas Kauss joined Euroleague of table hockey, but since 2005 Rīgas Kauss has status of the Big Six tournament and is a part of World Table Hockey Tour. The first Rīgas Kauss gave good impulse to development of table hockey in Latvia and in short period of time number of clubs were established in different places of the country.

In December 2005 LGHF by the decision of Ministry of Finance got status of "Public benefit" and that gives possibility to receive denotations for table hockey development, but donor receives tax reductions.

March 16, 2006 after approval by National Sport Council, The Office of Sport of the Ministry of Education and Science presented certificate of recognized sport federation to Latvian Table Hockey Federation (LGHF).
LGHF has rights to manage and coordinate work of table hockey in Latvia, to form Latvian national teams for participation in international tournaments, as well as represent country in International Table Hockey Federation (ITHF).

September 6, 2006 LGHF joined Council of Latvian Sports Federations (LSFP).

Latvia in the World of Table Hockey

E.Caics - Eiropas junioru čempions
Edgars Caics (in the center) got 1st place at
Europe Junior Championship 2006
Since 1989 every second year Table Hockey World Championships (WCh) take place. Latvia participated already in five of them and managed to gain place within the best six countries. At WCh 2003 in Zurich, LGHF received rights to organize the next WCh. June 3-5, 2005 at big hall of Riga Technical University 9th Table Hockey World Championships took place. This WCh left important marks in table hockey history- the biggest number of WCh players - 182; the biggest number of Nations - 23 (both records are still valid); the first time Ladies Team and Veteran competitions took place expanding WCh nominations to 6 (together with Open, Junior, Ladies and Team competitions) as well as during the meeting in June 3 representatives of 15 National Table Hockey Federations, including the President of Latvian Table Hockey Federation signed the Constitution of International Table Hockey Federation (ITHF) by this establishing ITHF. At the moment there are 18 members of ITHF.

The first bigger achievement of Latvian table hockey players was Edgars Caics (Riga) 2nd place at World Table Hockey Tour (WTHT) Season 2005/2006 final standings. That season WTHT had 13 tournaments in Denmark, Canada, USA, Hungary, Slovakia, Germany, Finland, Latvia, Sweden, Norway, Russia and Czech Republic.

June 2-4, 2006, after 14 years pause, Europe Championship took place. Name of Latvia was mentioned there many times. First Edgars Caics won the bronze in Open category, but in the next day after hard fight Latvia got its first Champion title - E.Caics became Europe Junior Champion. The same day also Team tournaments took place where Latvian Team got 3rd place, but Latvian Ladies Team got 2nd place.

The first medals of World Championship Latvia got June 10, 2007 in Moscow where 10th WCh was organized. Junior World Championship 2nd and 3rd places were won by Edgars Caics and Atis Sīlis.

At 4th Europe Championship in Riga 2008 Atis Sīlis managed in tough play-off to get the bronze medal for Latvia.

Summer 2009 in Budapest brought unprecedented achievements in World Championships.
In the OPEN category Latvian players for the first time ever managed to enter play-off stage, moreover four players did it! The best performance was by Edgars Caics- 6th place after loosing 1/4 final to the next double World Champion Roni Nuttunen.
In the Team category Latvia for the first time got medals. By overcoming favorites Sweden, Finland and Czech Republic, Team Latvia lost only to Russia and that resulted in the silver medals of World Championship!
Ladies Team got bronze medals.

The next Europe Championship 2010 will take place in Sweden, but the next World Championship 2011 - in Finland.

Team Latvia got 2nd place at World Championship 2009
Latvijas dāmu komanda 10.Pasaules čempionāta labākie juniori
Latvian Ladies Team got 2nd place Europe Championship 2006 Worlds best Junior in 2007 - Edgars Caics (2nd), Roni Nuttunen (1st), Atis Sīlis (3rd)