Ted Nolan has Latvian players believing in themselves – The Globe and Mail

Feb. 19 2014

Two months ago in Ottawa, Ted Nolan, “interim coach” of the Buffalo Sabres, was asked what he planned to do about Latvia now that he had found himself back where he’d long wished to be and long should have been.

He said he had made a commitment and would keep it.

He might be interim head coach of a National Hockey League team, but he was also head coach of a ragtag team of players he’d mostly never heard of from a country he had no idea even where it was when they called.

That was going on three years ago. Now he knows exactly where Latvia is: in the Sochi Winter Games, playing a quarter-final match against the three-time gold-medal and defending-champion Canada.

Up against the country of his birth with the country that adopted him. A country with just over a thousand registered players up against a country where millions play the game.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/olympics/ted-nolan-has-latvian-players-believing-in-themselves/article16954824/