My point exactly. You could see how such bleading would be annoying. For example, without going any deeper and judging only by their name, 3/4 top Latvian goalies could have bolted to Russia.
I get your point, but you are trying to make this into a binary issue when it is a multi-factorial issue. Or you think I think it is a binary issue, which is not the case.
One of the factors applicable to Kazakhstan does not apply to Latvia at all. Latvian kids can move to any hockey country they wish to further their development. Not the case in Kazakhstan. Plenty of Latvian kids move abroad. In fact, most of them. They still opt for representing Latvia in 98%+ of the cases.
Which is where the other factor comes in - that of national identity. Hockey was localized to Northern Kazakhstan and was an ethnic Russian sport in Kazakhstan. That is changing. And that is the main reason why so many are staying put.
The ethnic Russian factor still limits the growth of hockey in other countries as well. Such as Estonia, where it is still largely looked down upon as a Russian sport. I think it was the case in Lithuania at some point as well, I bet you can enlighten me on that. And if you look up the names on the Latvian national team in the 90s, you would see a very large amount of Russian names there.
Growing out of that is a great thing.
In an ideal world with equal opportunities, your entire society should be represented equally, which is obviously also the most efficient way of developing talent -- avoiding untapped talent among minority (or majority) groups.
