Zholtok’s memory lives on

Originally published in the IIHF News Release in 2006

By Lucas Aykroyd

It is a supreme and tragic irony that Sergei Zholtok will not take the opening faceoff for Latvia when the host team plays its first game of the 2006 IIHF World Championship versus the Czechs on May 5.

The Riga-born center was arguably the greatest forward his country has ever produced, with only Helmut Balderis, the legendary puck wizard of the 1970’s and 80’s, challenging for that title. But during last year’s NHL lockout, Zholtok was playing for HC 2000 Riga in a game in Minsk, Belarus when he suffered an apparent heart attack with five minutes left. Paramedics tried to revive the 31-year-old, who had a history of cardiac arrhythmia, but he sadly died in the dressing room.

Participating in the biggest event in Latvian sports history this spring would have been second nature for the 6-0, 185-pound veteran, even with the added thrill of competing in front of friends and family. Zholtok never shirked a chance to play internationally.

In his late teens, he got his first taste of that experience when he was named to Soviet and Russian World Junior squads. But when Latvia gained its post-Soviet independence and began battling to gain respect in the hockey world, the swift-skating forward was even more excited to don the maroon-and-white jersey. After sparking the offense with six goals and an assist at the 1994 B Pool tourney, he went on to play at five elite-division World Championships. Zholtok set the tone up front in Latvia’s historic seventh-place finish in 1997, and while larger or better-known hockey nations were relegated, he helped Latvia stay up in 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2004.

Zholtok also made his mark in the NHL, playing 588 games and racking up 258 points. He began his NHL career with the Boston Bruins and scored a career-best 26 goals for the Montreal Canadiens in 1999-00, also making appearances with Ottawa, Edmonton, and Nashville. But he played 228 regular season and playoff games with the Minnesota Wild from 2001 to 2004, more than with any other franchise, and his former teammates there probably knew him better than anyone in his final years.

“He was one of our leaders, for sure,” says Czech defenseman Filip Kuba. “He competed for us every night. He was a guy who cared a lot for his family and his country as well. We have a big picture of him in the locker room with a big smile on his face. That’s just how he was. He was always in a good mood.”

Russian blueliner Andrei Zyuzin was particularly close to Zholtok: “My family is still in touch with his wife and kids, who still live in Minnesota. It was a tough loss. I saw him three weeks before he died, back in Minnesota during the lockout. We hung out together a lot away from the rink. His second son–he has two sons, one is 16 and the other is five or six–and my son is three, so they would play together. Our wives are pretty good friends, so we’d go to dinner together and do stuff together.”

Zyuzin testifies that Zholtok’s love of the world’s fastest team sport was never in doubt: “Sergei was one of a kind. He was a warrior. Hockey, for him, was everything. He cared a lot in his heart about his teammates and every play, every time he went on the ice. Sometimes I’d tell him: ‘Hey, Sergei, enough talking about hockey. Let’s talk about something else!’ But he was so in love with hockey. Number one for him was always hockey, along with his family.”

“I have a lot of good, funny memories of Sergei, from the locker room and on the ice during practices,” adds Zyuzin. “He always made some jokes. We were always laughing, especially me and Andrew Brunette and Jimmy Dowd, because of things he would do. Sergei did so much for the Minnesota Wild. He was just a great man and a great hockey player. I’m proud to have been part of his life as his friend.”

The IIHF salutes the memory of Sergei Zholtok and his contributions to hockey around the world.