Dinamo Riga (original)
- Promotion to the first Soviet League 1973
- Soviet vice-champion in 1988
Dinamo Riga was a Latvian ice hockey club from Riga, who played in the first Soviet league. The home games of the team were in the first covered ice rink Latvia, the Rigas Pils Sporta discharged.
History
Dinamo Riga was founded during the occupation of Latvia by the Soviet Union. After the Second World War, the club was re- founded in 1946 and was one of twelve teams that played off the first Soviet Championship in a tournament in the winter 1946/47. Dinamo Riga finished the tournament in fourth place behind the HK Dynamo Moscow and HC CSKA Moscow and HC Spartak Moscow. Three years later, the club was renamed the Daugava Riga and stayed until the season 1958/59 in the top division of the Soviet Union, but was never able to intervene in the battle for the championship.
With the descent Daugava in the second division began for the Latvian hockey a time of mediocrity, which lasted until the end of the sixties. Despite repeated attempts, the club did not make it to rise from the second Soviet league. Daugava in 1968 was renamed back to Dinamo Riga and the team got down to the third tier.
In 1968, the Russian coach Viktor Tikhonov, the coach of Dinamo. He was known for his penchant for discipline, and revolutionized training methods by he used a VCR for game analysis. He also placed great emphasis on the physical fitness of his players. Due to the low potential of the Dinamo players he used a strategy that until then no Soviet team used: the game with four rows attack. This might be better playing teams by speed and better condition his team so that Dinamo rise again in 1970 even in the second and 1973 in the first division.
In 1975, Victor Hatuļevs Dinamo Riga, the first player of the Soviet Union, which was drafted by a team from the National Hockey League, but of course never got the chance to play in the NHL.
In the season 1976/77 was Helmut Balderis, one of the stars of that Dinamo team, leading scorer and top scorer of the Elite League and consistently honored as player of the year. Even in the season before he had scored the most goals of the Soviet league. In 1983 he was again top scorer of the league - a total he scored 333 goals in the Soviet league and over 230 assists.
In the season 1987/88 Dinamo Riga celebrated the biggest success in club history: Second place in the Soviet Championship behind CSKA Moscow. This season, the leagues management had introduced a play-off system on the American model. In the first round Dinamo finished yet rank ten, but in the second round of the championship could be rising to third place. In the play-offs first Dynamo Moscow was defeated 2-0, 3:5 and 4:2 before being defeated in the series against CSKA 3:7, 2:1, 2:4 and 2:5.
After the end of the Soviet Union Dinamo continued to play in the CIS Elite League until the dissolution of the association in 1995. During this time you first played under the name Stars Riga ( after the sponsor A / S Stars ) and later Pārdaugava Riga. In parallel, was founded under the name Riga Juniors a new team that played in the East European Hockey League and to the many players move resolution for Dinamo.
Founded in 1997 with Dinamo Riga '81 a kind of successor club, who took part in the Latvian Hockey League and EEHL. 2000, this club also broke up and was replaced by the HK Riga 2000. This was a member of the Latvian Hockey League and was repeatedly win the Latvian championship.
Season statistics since 1978
* The Soviet league was finished only in the season 1987/88 with play-offs.
Legend: Sp = Matches, W = Wins, L = Loss, D = Draw, Pts = Points, Torv = Goal difference
Famous Players
- Viktors Hatuļevs
- Helmut Balderis
- Harijs Mellups
- Artūrs Irbe
- Vitālijs Samoilovs
- Oleg Znaroks