Metalurgs Liepaja at the verge of bankruptcy

It has been announced that as of next season Metalurgs Liepaja will cease its existence as a Professional club, thus will not participate in the Belarusian Extraleague anymore. However, team director Mihails Vasilonoks later revealed that the club is still hoping to establish a partnership with a Kontinental Hockey League club (he cited CSKA Moscow or Dinamo Minsk)  that would allow Metalurgs to remain in the league.

This season Metalurgs Liepaja had signed an agreement with the Latvian KHL club Dinamo Riga that allowed Riga to send up to five players to Liepaja. As a result, players like Juris Stals, Janis Andersons and Gints Meija spent part of their seasons with Metalurgs.
Metalurgs Liepaja is the only ice hockey club in Latvia that is typical to many other post-Soviet clubs - the club is almost entirely sponsored by the local metallurgy enterprise. Unluckily, the factory has been working with losses for several years now, so it was decided to partly cut funding for the ice hockey team.

On the other side though, Metalurgs will continue its youth system. It is also estimated that the U20 team of Liepaja will continue to play in the Latvian league. The youth system of Metalurgs, led by many well-regarded coaches, regularly supplies the Latvian U18 and U20 teams, Liepaja players make up a notable proportion of the junior national team rosters.
Just two weeks ago, Metalurgs-2, which was joined by major enforcements from the first team that had already been eliminated in the Belarusian Extraleague playoffs, became the Latvian champion already for the sixth time in its short history.

 

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