WEST VALLEY CITY ? In a matter of only two days, Slovakia transformed from being the Olympic hockey tournament's seventh hockey Dream Team to becoming the NHL Nightmare.
At the same time, Latvia has gone from being an Olympic nobody to suddenly being the Cinderella of this hockey ball.
The clincher for those two contrasting scenarios happened Sunday night when Latvia posted a thrilling three-goal rally to tie Slovakia 6-6 in the preliminary round at the E Center.
This was not one of those kiss-your-sister type of ties for Latvia, either. After earning its first hockey win ever in the Olympics on Saturday ? a 4-2 victory over Austria ? the Latvians have now put themselves in position to qualify for the exclusive final round of eight with the U.S., Canada et al with their comeback Sunday.
"You can't realize how big it is," said ex-Utah Grizzlies defenseman Viktors Ignatjev. "It's like 4 o'clock in the morning there (10 p.m. MST) and one-third of the country is watching it. People are celebrating right now. During hockey games, the streets are empty. Stores close."
A national holiday may be in order if the Latvians upset Germany on Tuesday and advance. After two games, Latvia has three points; Germany has four. A win is worth two points, a tie worth one. The math is simple for the final preliminary game.
"It's up to us," Ignatjev said. "It was unbelievable to come back against Slovakia, and it doesn't matter how many players they have."
The lack of players ? specifically the NHL variety ? is what is going to haunt Slovakia as it ends this tournament without reaching its goal of joining the elite later this week. The Slovakians played without a half-dozen or so of their best NHL players in Saturday's stunning 3-0 loss to Germany. And one of the NHL stars they used, Los Angeles Kings' Ziggy Palffy, was only used sparingly as he was only supposed to play Sunday.
Because Palffy played Saturday, the Kings would not allow him to dress for Slovakia Sunday. That soured the good news Slovakia received when NHLers Marian Hossa, Jezef Stumpel, Zdeno Chara and Pavol Demitra were supposedly given the green light to play by their pro clubs. And it turns out, only Stumpel and Demitra saw any action after all.
The problem for Slovakia is that only 16 skaters took the ice, leaving them too tired to fend off the late Latvian charge. Slovakia was ahead 6-3 before Aleksandrs Macijevskis, Aleksandrs Belavskis and Atvars Tribuncovs netted consecutive goals to knot things up. Macijevskis' goal was particularly damaging as it came with four seconds remaining in the second period, giving Latvia momentum.
"Playing with three lines (instead of four) was tough, especially with all the travel," said Slovakia captain Robert Petrovicky. "It was 22 soldiers playing against 12 soldiers."
Palffy's absence was especially tough to deal with.
"Ziggy is a great player," said Hossa. "It was a huge loss for our team him not playing."
GERMANY 3, AUSTRIA 2: The Germans only got three shots off in the first 18:46 of the third period, but their fourth and final shot of the stanza was a doozey. Andreas Loth was the one who came up with the game-winner, taking the puck off a faceoff in the Austrian end and flipping it in.
Klaus Kathan and Leonard Soccio opened the game with first-period goals as Germany raced ahead 2-0. Austria stormed back on goals from Gerald Ressmann and Gerhard Unterluggauer in the second period to tie it going into the third period.