They’ve shown it repeatedly in international hockey. The Latvians are never an easy out. No matter how outmanned they are in terms of skilled players, they never go quietly. The Latvian team at the 2026 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 Men’s World Championship showed that throughout the group stage in Trencin and they sure showed it in their improbable 5-2 quarter-final upset over the USA in Bratislava on Wednesday.

No matter how improbable it seemed to everyone else, they were confident they could do it before the game even started.

“We feel pretty great because we’re not in relegation,” forward Kristers Obuks said after the team’s last Group A game. “We’re here to do big things and I hope we can do something sensational.”

“I told the boys after the Norway game that I think this is the year we can make history,” said goaltender Patriks Plumins. “I think we’ve done pretty well, but this isn’t the end.”

Plumins, who stopped 43 of 45 USA shots in the game said, “I think we believed before the game even started, and after we scored the first goal and we played really great, I thought, okay, this is a game we can win.”

“We were prepared, definitely, and we probably wanted it more the Americans,” said head coach Olegs Sorokins. “I’m so, so proud of my guys – each one of them, those who played more and those who played less – just really proud of the guys.”

The Latvians actually came out of the gate hard and generated some offensive chances right away, which went against the expected script that would see them sit back and let the Americans come to them.

“I think the Americans were pretty surprised by the way we played,” said Sorokin. “We had a couple of good shots at the beginning and I think we deserved the lead. For the rest of the game, we were really tight in front of the net. As the statistics show, the guys were all fighting for the most dangerous spots on the ice. Definitely, there were more shots from the Americans, but I think the attitude of the guys … it came from above.”

“We came out hard,” said Ricards Rutkis, who assisted on Martins Klaucans’ game-opening goal at 9:48, and then scored the 2-0 goal on the power play at 27:55. “We knew what we had to do and we just believed in ourselves. They’re strong but we were stronger today.”

Once they had the lead, the Latvians did sit back more and the American attack became more urgent as the minutes passed. They finally drew near on a Lukas Zajic wraparound goal at 48:39. But instead of panicking, the Latvians stuck to their game and the two-goal lead was restored off the rush at 50:20, courtesy Magnuss Avotins.

“I was stressed at the moment, but then we scored our third goal and it was just like nothing had happened,” said Plumins.

“We kept it calm, and in the next two minutes we scored, so we kinda got back up and were fine,” said Rutkis.

“At that point, it was our mistake that we didn’t do the thing that we wanted to do,” Sorokins said about the 2-1 goal. “The guys were looking to still go forward but we were still talking about our defensive game. It’s so great that we got that third goal. It was something that gave us more belief in ourselves.”

Several of the Latvians pointed to the 4-1 goal – the first empty-netter, Klaucins’ second tally of the game with 4:15 remaining – as the point where they really let themselves believe it was, indeed, going to happen.

“After every goal, you look at the time clock and you see that there are still a lot of minutes left, and you see that the Americans are pulling the goalie – they played with six guys with about five minutes to go in the game,” said Sorokins. “That was a point where we had to tell the boys to be calm, but at the time, of course, everybody was very emotional.”

“I think when we scored the first empty-net goal, it was 4-1 so everyone was hyping up,” said Rutkis. “There wasn’t a lot of time left, so we kinda knew that it was our day today.”

“After we scored the fourth goal, I thought we were going to win,” said Plumins. “Then a minute later they scored again ... Yeah, it was a tough game.”

“Some of the coaches said that it was the fourth goal, but I would say the first period,” said Sorokins. “I felt that in the first period, I saw how they were acting, and I had a feeling that this could be our game. In the end, of course, the third goal was very decisive in believing that it would really go our way.”

Victor Plante made it 4-2 with 3:24 to go, but Daniels Reidzans really put the final nail in the U.S. coffin with 49 seconds to go, scoring the second empty-net goal. And then mayhem.

“I can’t even describe my feelings right now,” Rutkis admitted. “I’m still in shock. The USA’s a really good team and we made history today, so it’s unbelievable.”

History indeed. For the first time ever at the U18 Men’s Worlds, Latvia is in the semi-finals. But they’re not satisfied with that. They want to go home with medals around their necks. Now they go back to Trencin to face Slovakia, a team they have every reason to believe they can beat. In the final game of Group A, Slovakia won 5-2, but it was close for much of the contest.

“Against Slovakia, I think we played really great most of the game, but we took some bad penalties and that cost us the game,” said Plumins.

“We had a lot of PK time that game, so we have to be smarter in our decisions,” Rutkis agreed. “But I think we have a pretty good chance to beat them, so we’ll do a pre-scout and see what happens.”

“I’m not going to tell you what we’re going to do better,” Sorokins smiled. “Our game against Slovakia was the day after we played (a huge game against) Norway. This time, we’ll have a day off, so that’s a plus. We’re definitely going to be prepared. They know how we played and showed us that they can crack something from our system, so now we know how they can play. It’s gonna be a coaches’ game as well.

“But I think the guys are really eager to get medals at this point.”