Latvia's best defense: Sandis Ozolinsh

  • 2000-02-24
  • By Ieva Raubisko
For most National Hockey League stars playing the All-Star Game even once would be the apex of their sports career. But not so for Latvia's Sandis Ozolinsh, who played his fourth All-Star Game in his seven-year NHL career recently. Ozolinsh also helped lead the Colorado Avalanche to the Stanley Cup in 1996. Ieva Raubishko reports from Washington, D.C.

Ozolinsh now ranks fourth in the list of NHL defensemen. For him it is a wonderful honor to be in the All-Star Team. Yet in a certain way the All-Star Game is a relaxed show -- perhaps even a holiday, Ozolinsh said in a recent interview with the Baltic Times.

"There's at last one game when you don't have to worry about the result," the Latvian star said this week.

"It's different from the regular season where every game is important and you can't let your rival score a goal. In the All-Star Game everyone tries to score a goal, show his best skills and entertain the spectators."

The most difficult work in professional hockey is standing up to the grooling 82-game season, plus play-offs, where every contest is filled with relentless pressure.

"The season is too long," says the 6-3, 205-pound Ozolinsh. "In hard times, there is a feeling of being tired of hockey. But that's the challenge. All the teams are under the same conditions, all of them play 82 games, and only one wins the Stanley Cup in the end." The Avalanche remained at the top position in Northwest division of NHL's Western Conference but it suffered a defeat by the Washington Capitals 2-1 on Feb. 15 and three other losses in the last five games. The team must now rebuild its self-confidence, said Ozolinsh.

Today Ozolinsh and five colleagues face an even more difficult question than rebuilding the Avalanche's team spirit. Their contracts will expire in the end of the season giving them the status of restricted free agents.

Ozolinsh said he is uncertain whether he will stay with the Avalanche. He can be traded off by the team as any other player.

"It's impossible to foretell the future," he said. Hockey business "involves no personal relationship or emotions."

The markets control the world of high-class hockey. You can hear many hockey players say "we are not humans anymore, we are commodities, " according to Ozolinsh. "The view of the owner and the team management is dominant," he said.

Ozolinsh today enjoys huge popularity and the respect of his fans, due to his "now-you-see-him-now-you-don't" style of play, according to the press reports. Nearly 8,000 web pages, many built by fans, carry Ozolinsh's name. Yet he remains down-to-earth. "I think other people have achieved much more," he said.

Ozolinsh hopes to return to Latvia when he finishes his pro-hockey career. Future plans? Well, he has many, but they change from year to year.

"Sometimes I feel I don't want anything to do with hockey after finishing a pro-hockey career. But the other day I was thinking, 'why not coach for some time?'"

Ozolinsh co-founded The Arturs Irbe and Sandis Ozolinsh Youth Hockey Fund in Riga in 1997. Ozolinsh and his friend Irbe, a goalkeeper with the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes, have both invested a part of their private resources in the fund. Yet the project is on hold for the moment, because "you can't manage things using remote control," he said.

Ozolinsh's little sons, Robert, and Cristopher, don't skate yet. They have been "standing on the ice" a couple of times, but he will not force them to take up the art he practices.

Even so, they already have shown interest in hockey. They have seen lots of dad's games and keep playing "table hockey" at home, Ozolinsh said. Back to the ice in the United States, of the two NHL teams he has represented, the San Jose Sharks and the Colorado Avalanche, Ozolinsh likes the latter much more.

"We have had more success here, we have won the Stanley Cup. It's always more fun to be with a team that wins more games than it loses."

How did it feel to help win the Stanley Cup for the Avalanche? - "I can't easily reconstruct those feelings," he said. "It's joy. Unbelievable joy and pride."