Sport in Latvia includes basketball, football, ice hockey, athletics (track), rugby, tennis, cycling, and others. Ice hockey is historically the most popular of the Latvian sports and is closely followed by basketball. Some of Latvia’s most notable athletes include hockey player Sandis Ozoliņš, football player Māris Verpakovskis, olympic javelin thrower Jānis Lūsis, two-time Olympic BMX champion Maris Strombergs, and basketball player Kristaps Porziņģis. The national sport of Latvia is ice hockey. Ice hockey Ice hockey is second most popular sport after basketball in Latvia. Its professional league is the Latvian Hockey Higher League, held since 1931. In Latvia there are also several amateur hockey leagues. Ice hockey has been played in Latvia since the 1920s. Latvia is a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), its national team has participated in several World Championships and the 1936 Winter Olympic Games. After Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, its membership in the IIHF was interrupted. Latvians had a significant role in establishing ice hockey in the Soviet Union. Latvia's Dinamo Rīga team was one of eleven teams which played in the first Soviet championship tournament in the winter of 1946/1947. The Latvian Harijs Mellups was the goaltender for the Soviet Union National team in its first international game in 1948. Latvian hockey experienced a decline in the 1960s, with Dinamo Rīga being relegated from the Soviet High League (vysshaya liga) to the first league and then even to the second league. It began a comeback in the 1970s, under the coach Viktor Tikhonov who would later go on to coach CSKA Moscow and the Soviet national team. In the 1973/1974 season, Dinamo Rīga returned to the Elite League where it stayed until the end of Soviet Union in 1991. In 1975, Viktor Hatulev of Dinamo Rīga became the first ice hockey player from the Soviet Union drafted by the National Hockey League (NHL) but never had a chance to play, as Soviet players were not allowed to play for foreign teams. Helmuts Balderis was the brightest Latvian hockey star of the 1970s and 1980s, and achieved all-time scoring records (scoring 333 goals in Soviet championships) for Latvian forwards. He was the leading scorer in the Soviet Elite League twice (1977 and 1983) and the Player of the Year once (1977). Balderis also played for the Soviet National team, being on the losing side of the Miracle on