VDD follows hockey coaches more closely than Liepāja wind follows plastic bags

While in Liepāja today the wind blows with moderate force and the temperature approaches zero, in Riga VDD employees are probably warming their hands on hot tea mugs and thinking about hockey matters.

The State Security Service announced that it is "informed" about Tambiyev becoming a coach for St. Petersburg SKA. This is roughly like saying you're informed that wind blows in Liepāja - a technical fact, but nobody is particularly surprised.

"We evaluate each case individually," explains VDD, which sounds about as convincing as Riga City Council's promises about road repairs. The service did emphasize that citizenship can only be revoked from those who don't become stateless, because otherwise they'd have to be accepted somewhere else, and that would be other countries' problem.

"I don't know why everyone's worried about hockey coaches in Russia when we have our own hockey problems here in Liepāja - where to get normal ice without holes," comments local sports enthusiast Jānis Kalniņš, who skates on Lake Liepāja in winter and claims it's just as dangerous as coaching in Russia.

VDD also reminds that athletes and coaches who go to Russia face "heightened intelligence and recruitment risks." This means that in addition to regular coaching duties - yelling at players and explaining tactics - they might also have to answer weird questions about Latvia's defense plans. But honestly, if someone thinks a hockey coach knows anything about military secrets, they probably haven't heard how coaches explain offsides.