The NHL has not changed its tune on allowing a Russian team to participate in league-run international events, commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters this morning (including Mark Lazerus of The Athletic). As of now, that means there won’t be a Team Russia at the 2028 World Cup of Hockey, Bettman said.
Moving forward, the league will fall in line with the “international community” regarding working the country back into international events. Essentially, until the IIHF allows Russia to return to events like the World Championship and World Juniors, the league will continue to operate without a Russian team at the World Cup or any 4 Nations Face-Off-like tournaments.
Russia and Belarus not been allowed to participate in any major international competition since the former’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. With the war ongoing and many eastern areas of Ukraine still occupied by Russia, the IIHF continues to cite “security concerns” in keeping the country, which remains second in the IIHF world rankings behind Canada, out of competition.
Russia’s last World Championship appearance was in 2021, featuring Sergei Bobrovsky, Dmitry Orlov, and Vladimir Tarasenko, among others. Their athletes won gold at the 2018 Olympics and silver in 2022 without NHLers present.
The NHL confirmed the return of the World Cup event last year. Instead of its usual preseason timing, it’ll occur mid-season in 2027-28, similar to the timing of the Olympic break this year and the 4 Nations break last season. The tournament will be organized without involvement or input from the IIHF, reports indicated last August.
Would much rather the World Cup happen after the Stanley Cup playoffs. The pause in the season is killing me. This year’s schedule is manic. Injuries during the season is also a major concern.
Killing you seems a bit dramatic. Plenty of season left, over three months including playoffs ; a break is good and Olympic hockey much more exciting.
I rewatched Miracle this week and saw the 1980 Miracle Team documentary on Netflix. If in 1980 we followed the policies we do now, we never would’ve had that game and even if the team won gold, it would be a great accomplishment, but not at the same level.
Also, think about all the great Russian players of the past decade plus we’ve never had the chance to see in international play and all the great up and coming Russian players. Think about the storyline and excitement in the Olympics this year if we had a potential final Olympic showdown between Crosby and Ovechkin.
Bottom line is this is a shame and is costing and will cost hockey fans so much.
“the league will fall in line with the “international community””
I wonder if they’ll do the same thing when the US is an international pariah by 2028
Given that the NHL is headquartered in the US, I don’t think that will be an issue. That said, if the US has indeed become an international pariah by then, certainly other nations could elect not to participate in the tournament.
I agree. I just don’t know what these boycotts accomplish. Putin saying “ohh no. I gotta pull the troops out because we can’t play hockey!” seems pretty arrogant
I liked the 1980 analogy. The way to crush any world domination hopes is what happened there. Confident aggressive disruptive Russians humbled in the hockey rink.
As a hockey fan we can enjoy 4 Nations and this year’s Olympics and try to hype it up as great but it is marred with an asterisk until all the great teams participate.
McKinnon, Celebrini, et all have not beaten a Russian team yet so how good are they really.