Only two Latvian clubs will participate in the open Belarusian ice hockey championship

July 7, Minsk / Sergey Vishnevsky - BELTA /. Only 2 Latvian clubs will participate in the open championship of Belarus in ice hockey, which starts this autumn, instead of 4 as previously planned. This became known today during the visit to Minsk of the head of the Latvian Ice Hockey Federation, Kirovs Lipmans, reports BELTA correspondent. According to the press service of the Belarusian Ice Hockey Federation, Latvian teams "Metalurgs" (Liepaja) and the farm club of Riga's "Dinamo" (preliminary name "Dinamo-Juniors") will take part in the 18th open championship of Belarus (OCHB). Thus, the total number of participants will be limited to 14 teams. From our country, "Yunost" (Minsk), "Gomel", "Metallurg" (Zhlobin), "Khimvolokno" (Mogilev), "Vitebsk", "Keramin" (Minsk), "Neman" (Grodno), "Khimik-SKA" (Novopolotsk), "Shinnik" (Bobruisk), "Brest" and "Shakhter" (Soligorsk) will participate. Latvia will be represented by "Metalurgs" (Liepaja) and "Dinamo-Juniors" (Riga), and Ukraine will delegate Kyiv's "Sokil" to the joint tournament, which returned to the Belarusian extra league after a two-year break, during which it played in the second-tier Russian championship, known as the higher league. According to the preliminary draft, in the first stage, participants will play each other in 4 rounds, after which the 8 best teams will continue to compete for medals in a playoff system. Moreover, a fundamental agreement has been reached that in case of reaching the playoffs on a sporting basis, foreign clubs will continue to participate in the competitions on equal terms with Belarusian clubs. It should be noted that last season, 4 Latvian teams themselves refused to continue competing for awards in the playoffs. The reduction in the representation of Baltic teams in the OCHB is due to financial difficulties faced by two other candidates - "Latgale" (Daugavpils) and "Riga-2000". Therefore, the board of the Latvian Ice Hockey Federation did not approve their participation in Belarus. However, "Dinamo-Juniors" and "Metalurgs" still need to provide guarantee letters on the financial solvency of the clubs to be included among the OCHB participants. Last season, 4 Latvian teams participated in the Belarusian championship. Only the Latvian champion, Liepaja's "Metalurgs", managed to enter the playoff zone by taking 8th place in the regular season. "Riga-2000" was 11th in the regular season, "ASK-Ogre" was 12th, and "Latgale" was 13th out of 14 clubs. During the visit of the LIHF head, special attention was paid to the issue of participation of children's teams from Latvia in Belarusian championships. As Lipmans stated, the Latvian Ice Hockey Federation will agree to continue the usual practice only if the parents of the players competing for junior teams have no objections to frequent trips of hockey players to Belarus. The fact is that missed classes sometimes negatively affect the academic performance of young players in educational institutions. Questions regarding friendly matches between the national teams of Belarus and Latvia were also discussed. In August, the Belarusian "youth team" will travel to Riga for the traditional Sergei Žoltok Memorial, and several sparring matches are also planned. -0-