Born-and-raised Hatters Darren Dietz and Curtis Valk are suiting up for Team Kazakhstan at this year's World Hockey Championship in Latvia. Both athletes play for the same team in the KHL.--SUBMITTED PHOTO
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Two Hatters are representing Kazakhstan at the 2021 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Latvia and they’re off to a good start with a regulation win, two shootout wins and one loss in four games – ranking fourth in group B.
Defenceman Darren Dietz moved to Kazakhstan four years ago to play for Barys Nur-Sultan in the KHL, and childhood friend Curtis Valk joined the team a year later.
“After you play two years in any country, you develop the ability to accept sports citizenship and play for the national team if you haven’t already competed in an IIHF tournament for your own country,” said Dietz.
Dietz and Valk are suiting up in blue and white instead of red and white at the tournament, but Dietz, an assistant captain, says representing Kazakhstan has been a really cool experience for him.
“Medicine Hat I will always call home, but really Kazakhstan, specifically the city Nur-Sultan, has become my home. I spend the majority of my time there. I live there 10-11 months out of the year,” said Dietz. “It’s a pretty special and unique feeling when you move to a different country and they accept you as their own, that they give you the opportunity to play for their country and just how the ordinary people accept you as one of their own. It’s a really unique feeling.”
This is Dietz’s third tournament for the national team, and he says they come to each with the goal of winning, and every game they play they expect to win. He adds they are here to represent the country the best they can and to put Kazakhstan on the map.
“We know people hear Kazakhstan and are not expecting big things out of us as a hockey team. So, it’s a chance to show ourselves on a big stage and represent us. I think some teams take us lightly and that’s been an advantage for us for sure and we’re just trying to have fun with it,” he said.
Another reason Dietz believes they are having success at this year’s tournament is because a lot of the team is already familiar with playing together, while other countries quickly throw a team together that hasn’t played together.
The IIHF championship is taking place in a bubble in Latvia this year, which Dietz and the rest of team Kazakhstan entered May 10. He says they stay in their hotel rooms, wear a mask when they leave the room to go to their meal room and then take a bus with a police escort to the arena for games. He adds they have daily COVID tests and there are four teams in his hotel, each on a different floor.
Dietz says it’s been easier to transition from life in the Hat to Nur-Sultan because he’s been able to do it with his childhood friend. Valk and Dietz played minor hockey together or against each other growing up and even in the Western Hockey League – Valk played for the Medicine Hat Tigers and Dietz played for the Saskatoon Blades.
“When I moved over here, I found it really great and I wanted to share that opportunity with him or at least make him aware of the opportunity and it lined up well where he was in a position in his career as well and ready to make a transition over to the KHL and the opportunity presented itself,” said Dietz.
“I’ve been pretty lucky in having a guy like him that you’re really close to with you. It takes away some of the challenges of being in a different country by yourself – we didn’t have to do that, we got to do it together, so that was a cool thing to experience with a childhood friend.”
Dietz says playing in this tournament allows family and friends who have supported him throughout his career to watch him live and cheer him on. He also hopes this tournament shows there are really talented hockey players outside the NHL who play for different leagues all over Europe.
“It’s been a lot of fun and I hope that we get Medicine Hat and other Canadians supporting the underdogs, supporting Kazakhstan as well,” said Dietz.
