(Photo: Sun Devil Athletics)
The clock crept towards 2 a.m. in Latvia and Filips Buncis and Gvido Jansons were wide awake. As the majority of their country slept, the Arizona State hockey seniors attended online classes and team Zoom meetings. They operated on Tempe time but, due to circumstances nobody foresaw, both were stuck nearly 6,000 miles away from the desert with the Arizona State hockey season drawing nearer.
Seniors at ASU, Buncis and Jansons went back to Latvia when the 2019-2020 season came to a premature end due to the COVID-19 pandemic and planned to return to Arizona for the start of the new school year in August. As the state of the virus worsened throughout the world, though, that plan quickly faded.
“During the summer it seemed kind of impossible,” Buncis said.
Jansons and Buncis waited in Eastern Europe as their teammates traveled back to Tempe to prepare for a season they were not sure would even happen. By mid-August, they were the only two players who had not yet arrived on campus, a situation Jansons simply described as “weird.”
The unique situation forced the two players to find sources of motivation. Both teammates pointed towards their friends and family at home not only as a source of motivation, but also a source of happiness. They were able to spend more time with them than normal, and were able to celebrate big Latvian holidays they generally miss due to their usual commitments for the team.
Another source of motivation was frequent coach and team zoom calls, and more specifically coach Greg Powers’ words of encouragement.
“Coach Powers emphasized that everyday counts and we’re going to play. I’ve lived by that and realized that I have to work,” Jansons said.
Both players were able to workout in Latvia to make sure they were ready for their season. The team strength and conditioning coach, Liane Blyn, was the main individual who helped them throughout the process.
Jansons said they did “pretty much the same thing,” as their teammates in Arizona since they had all the resources they needed in Latvia. While they were doing the same workouts, they did emphasize it wasn’t the same without Blyn and other teammates around.
“It [would’ve] been better to be with her (coach Blyn), so she [can] push you even more day by day by her attitude and her positivity around you,” Jansons said.
Buncis missed the presence of others around during workouts, and said “[I learned to] talk to myself and push myself.”
After a couple months of work and classes in their home country of Latvia, going back to Arizona became a real possibility. However, there was everything but an easy way to book a trip and get there. Even when they thought they knew their plan of returning in early October, Buncis made it clear that he thought those plans “might change tomorrow,” due to, “crazy rules.”
In October, both players returned to campus following an experience Jansons called “once in a lifetime.”
When talking about the team as a whole, Buncis said, “[this experience has] gotten us a lot closer than we were.”
“Don’t take anything for granted, like hockey and all the things we were able to do before Covid. You have to appreciate what you have and what you get,” Buncis added.
After a journey that lasted months and a trip of 6,000 miles to get back to their teammates, Jansons and Buncis are simply thankful to be in Tempe again. They were waiting for the chance to get there.
“The fact that we’re both seniors, we’ve been looking forward to this season for quite some time now,” Buncis said.
