The 49-year-old will succeed Leonids Beresnevs, who was doubling up coaching the men’s and U20 national team last season and led the team to promotion to the top division, when some of the best U20 players of the Baltic country will assemble for the U20 pre-season camp.

Pending formal approval by the board of the Latvian Hockey Federation, Miluns could become the head coach of the team for the remainder of the upcoming season.

Miluns has been involved in various coaching stints with Latvian junior selections since 2000. At the 2012 World Juniors he took over the recently promoted U20 national team and led it to a ninth-place finish and another year in the top division.

For the last three years he has been coaching the U18 national team which he led to the top division in 2014. In 2015 and 2016 he led Latvians to relegation-round wins and ninth-place finishes. Next year it will be the fourth time in history Latvia will be represented in the top division of all men’s hockey categories.

With his experiences Miluns, who has also been coaching Latvian club team Prizma Riga for several years, will meet many familiar faces at the U20 national team at the first camp that opens on 4 July in Riga.

Latvia will host the Sergejs Zoltoks Memorial Tournament for U20 teams with Belarus, Austria and Denmark as other participants 2-4 November. On 16 and 17 December the Latvian national team will play two exhibition games against Kazakhstan on home ice and will play two exhibition games in Canada against Denmark (21 Dec.) and a local club team the day after to prepare for the World Juniors.

At the 2017 IIHF World Junior Championship the Latvians will play the preliminary round in Toronto against the United States (26 Dec.), Russia (27 Dec.), Canada (29 Dec.) and Slovakia (30 Dec.).