Sammi Silber of The Hockey News relays that the International Olympic Committee will officially bar the Russian Federation from participating in the 2026 Winter Olympics. It’ll mark the second consecutive Winter Olympic Games that Russia has been barred from due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Silber included a few quotes from IIHF President Luc Tardif regarding the decision. Tardif said, “The IOC is the organizer – we only deal with the competition (the hockey tournaments) itself. We have been pressuring them to make a decision, one way or another, because we’re getting closer to the Olympics and we need to know. Recently, they asked us to send them a schedule without Russia, so that’s where we are. The official statement is pending but the IOC has told us that they are informing the Russian Olympic Committee that they are not participating in the Olympics.”
It will be interesting to see how concrete the announcement will be and whether the United States and European Union’s ongoing peace efforts will impact Russia’s participation. There has been plenty of conjecture from all parties involved about the peace efforts, and there doesn’t seem to be an agreement on the horizon. Still, that could change before the Olympic torch is lit in Milan.
The news impacts the NHL and its players quite heavily. The 2026 Olympic Games were likely the last time NHL legends such as Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin would have participated as active players.
Each player’s last time participating in the illustrious international competition came more than a decade ago, in their home country. Still, Russia didn’t make it past the quarterfinals of the playoff round, losing to Team Finland. Ovechkin scored one goal and one assists in five games, while Malkin scored one goal and two assists in five games.
There’s a small chance that each player could still participate in the 2030 Winter Olympics after their NHL careers have concluded. Regardless, two of the game’s best players of all-time won’t participate in the next one.