Other events in Baltic States

The Latvian national men's ice hockey team has moved up to ninth place in the International Ice Hockey Federation's (IIHF) world rankings, informs LETA.

Latvia currently has 2,385 rankings points, and surpassed Slovakia in the rankings, which has 2,370 ranking points. Belarus is in eighth place in the IIHF rankings with 2,449 ranking points.

Russia, which has won two consecutive IIHF World Championship gold medals, tops the men’s pre-Olympic ranking report with 2,925 points ahead of Canada (2,905 points) and Sweden (2,795).

Finland (2,760) is ranked fourth, followed by the United States (2,665), Czech Republic (2,635) and Switzerland (2,465) in seventh.

Lithuania is in 24th place in the rankings with 1,655 points, whilst Estonia is ranked 27th with 1,475 points.

The Vancouver Winter Olympic Games will take place from February 12 to 28.

As reported, Latvia will play in Group B in the preliminary round at this year's Winter Olympics, together with Russia, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Latvia will play its first game on February 16 against Russia.

Before flying out to Vancouver, Latvia will play an exhibition game against Germany on February 10 in Frankfurt.