Vitālijs Pavlovs (born 17 June 1989) is a

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

n professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

player who is currently playing for

HK Prizma Riga HK Prizma Riga/IHS is a professional ice hockey team in Riga, Latvia, that plays in the Latvian Hockey Higher League, the top tier of the sport in Latvia. The team is based in Riga and play their home games at the Volvo Sports Centre. HK Prizma ...

in the

Latvian Hockey Higher League The Latvian Hockey Higher League (), also known as the Optibet Hockey League () since 2017 due to sponsorship by Optibet, is the top tier league of ice hockey in Latvia. The league is competed by nine teams from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Pr ...

Playing career

Pavlovs signed a two-year contract with

Dinamo Riga Dinamo Riga () is a professional ice hockey team based in Riga, Latvia. It most recently was a member of the Latvian Hockey Higher League. The club is affiliated with HK Zemgale/LBTU. The club was re-founded on 7 April 2008 as a successor of a D ...

on August 9, 2012 and made his debut on December 5, 2012, in a loss to

Yugra Yugra or Yugor Land (; also spelled ''Iuhra'' in contemporary sources) was a collective name for lands and peoples in the region east of the northern Ural Mountains in modern Russia given by Russian chroniclers in the 12th to 17th centuries. Du ...

. Pavlovs started the 2012–13 season with

Jokipojat Joensuun Kiekko-Pojat is a Finnish semi-professional ice hockey team that plays in the Mestis, the second-highest men's ice hockey league in Finland. The club has spent three seasons in the top flight of Finnish hockey, season 1971–72 in SM-sa ...

Mestis Mestis (from , meaning 'Championship series', stylized as MEST1S) is the second-highest men's ice hockey league in Finland. The league was established by the Finnish Ice Hockey Association in 2000 to replace the I-divisioona ('First Division ...

, he had 6 goals and 8 assists in 19 games which is good for 3rd place in points inside the team. Pavlovs was sanctioned by the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...

for failing an anti-doping test in the

2014 Sochi Winter Olympics The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXII Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Sochi 2014 (), were an international winter multi-sport event that was held from 7 to 23 February 2014 in Sochi, Russia. Opening ro ...

. He tested positive for

methylhexanamine Methylhexanamine (also known as methylhexamine, 1,3-dimethylamylamine, 1,3-DMAA, dimethylamylamine, and DMAA; trade names Forthane and Geranamine) is an indirect sympathomimetic drug invented and developed by Eli Lilly and Company and marketed ...

, a banned stimulant found in certain

food supplement A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement a person's diet by taking a pill, capsule, tablet, powder, or liquid. A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources, or that are synthetic ( ...

s. On October 1, 2014, Pavlovs left Dinamo as a free agent to sign his first North American contract on a one-year deal with the

Colorado Eagles The Colorado Eagles are a professional ice hockey team based in Loveland, Colorado. The Eagles play in the Pacific Division of the American Hockey League. The Eagles were founded as an expansion franchise in 2003 in the Central Hockey League and ...

of the ECHL.

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

References

External links

* 1989 births Colorado Eagles players Dinamo Riga players Doping cases in ice hockey Fife Flyers players HK Liepājas Metalurgs players Ice hockey players at the 2014 Winter Olympics Latvian ice hockey forwards Latvian sportspeople in doping cases Living people Olympic ice hockey players for Latvia Ice hockey people from Riga HK Dukla Michalovce players HC 19 Humenné players Prizma Riga players Latvian expatriate sportspeople in Kazakhstan Latvian expatriate sportspeople in Austria Latvian expatriate ice hockey players in Russia Latvian expatriate ice hockey players in Finland Expatriate ice hockey players in Kazakhstan Latvian expatriate ice hockey players in the United States Expatriate ice hockey players in Austria Latvian expatriate ice hockey players in Slovakia {{Latvia-icehockey-bio-stub