PORTLAND — Rodrigo Abols has had a good few weeks.
Last month, the Portland Winterhawks forward was instrumental in Latvia qualifying for the World Junior Championships for the first time.
And on Saturday, his footwork delivered what just might be the goal of the season for the Winterhawks.
In the second period of a game against Spokane at the Moda Center, Abols kicked the puck out of mid-air to send Keegan Iverson free for a breakaway goal.
The sequence started with Iverson’s stick blocking a shot attempt by Spokane’s Jason Fram. The puck hit Iverson’s stick at such an angle that it flew high into the air. Standing in the middle of his defensive zone, Abols swung his right foot at the puck. His skate caught it just right in the air and the puck landed on the stick of Iverson behind the defense.
“You don’t really see too often that a puck flies that high up,” Abols said. “I figured if I tried to play it with my hand it’s a hand pass (violation) and with my stick it might bounce over and the puck might end up in our net. So I thought it would be the safest play to kick it up to Keegan.”
Abols said the soccer games that hockey teams play before games — players in a circle try to keep a soccer ball from hitting the ground — probably helped him make good contact with the puck in the air. He said he never played organized soccer growing up, but that he played the game a lot with friends during one summer when he lived near a soccer field.
For his part, Iverson didn’t want to let that kick pass go to waste.
“I saw him kick it and it landed perfectly right on my stick. I just rolled right into it and made the simple play and shot it five-hole (between the goalie’s pads),” Iverson said. “You don’t see too many plays like that, but when you do see them the guys usually finish with a nice goal. So I had to bury that, otherwise it would just be another play in the air.”
Abols said he was flying high when Latvia won the 2016 Under-20 World Championship (Division 1, Group A), a qualifying event for the 2017 World Juniors Championships. Latvia went 5-0 (with one shootout win) in the round-robin tournament at Vienna, Austria, that ended Dec. 19. Abols had four goals and one assist during his third time playing in this tournament for Latvia’s junior national team.
“It was definitely a goal to go there and do something nice for our country,” Abols said. “We came back to the airport and you could see it was big for our country.”
Abols, who turned 20 on Tuesday but is in his 19-year-old hockey season, said the transition to the Western Hockey League this season was more challenging than he expected. The busy schedule and the intensity of the games took some getting used to. So, too, did being so far from home. He said he experienced homesickness once the newness wore off of life in Portland.
“It was good to go back for Christmas and just re-energize,” he said.
The feeling of winning a tournament for Latvia also energized the 6-foot-5, 185-pound center.
“The feeling of winning, that’s something I want to do here in Portland,” Abols said. “Everyone’s hugging each other and feeling that you’ve done something special. That feeling’s indescribable.”
