Elevated beyond higher-ranked players in the league, Girgensons – the only Latvian currently signed to an NHL team – gathered more than a million-and-a-half votes from fans who phoned in and clicked on their computers to get the 21-year-old player into the annual event, an entertaining annual promotional extravaganza for the sport. From the beginning of the poll, he led the pack hands down by many hundreds of thousands.
Artūrs Irbe, goalie coach for the Sabres and a former NHL all-star himself, told the Buffalo Hockey Beat before the game that Girgensons’ Latvian fans “definitely fast-forwarded that process with their devotion and sense of mission.”
Girgensons said of the Latvian fans: “They’ve always been crazy. You can look up YouTube videos, like 10 years ago. They’ve been the same way the whole time. Crazy.”
Michael Arace of the Columbus Dispatch suggested that the skepticism over whether or not he deserved to be at the game was just misplaced envy: “Girgensons is already the fourth-leading Latvian scorer in NHL history, behind Sandis Ozolinsh, Sergei Zholtok and Karlis Skrastins. He is the third Latvian All-Star, behind Ozolinsh and Arturs Irbe. It is an excellent bet that he will be better than them all.”
This month, Olas (Eggs), a Latvian rap duo, dedicated a music video to celebrate Girgensons, who remarked, “It just shows how much people back home really care about stuff like this.”
The Buffalo News managed to solicit a translation of the song “Zemgus Girgensons” from fellow Scotland-based Latvian sportwriter Aivis Kalniņš:
1.5 million votes - Zemgus Girgensooons
Raises Latvia a little higher - Zemgus Girgensooons
Who's the one with so much money? Zemgus Girgensooons
Who's the one whose name are we shouting? Zemgus Girgensooons
I am so clean, I am so white, I am so free, I am so young
I enter a club and drop some cash, Just like Zemgus Girgensooons
Sit on a couch, my foot on the table,
I don't care if anyone is in front of me
Go through the club and have a shot, Just like Zemgus Girgensooons
You saw me, I am in front of you baby
You like my songs, you want to be near me
You come at me but I deke right by you, Just like Zemgus Girgensooons
I see the coolest chick in the club and say
I'm your destiny, Yo
But she says I'm not as famous as Zemgus Girgensooons
Zemgus Girgensooons Zemgus Girgensooons Zemgus Girgensooons
Am I calm? Am I precise? (Yeah, yeah)
Shooting right in the aim,
Money in the pocket
Chicks, BMW, money and everything
Always I'm ready just like it was a derby
the Nation is crazy and that is my background
I am like Girgensoons
Don't judge me cause I don't care
Believe me, bro’ Nobody believes you
There is no faith in you
I am still a son
I am the style
I am free
Eggs are in the house and your legs are quivering
Girls are dreaming while cooking eggs in the oven
You're making me laugh when you say you’re a fierce opponent
You can't beat me while I'm alive
Girls dance, million in the bank,
Soon they will play my music everywhere
I'm not a copy but I have one clone None other than...
Zemgus Girgensooons Zemgus Girgensooons Zemgus Girgensooons
