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.
Sorry I can’t shed a tear for how much “it will cost hockey fans” when I see the graves of tens of thousands of innocent dead Ukrainians.
This is one of those answers that sounds really moral and filled with perspective, but is frankly meaningless. It’s not as if Nikita Kucherov’s Olympic status changes even a single thing about war, Russia, Ukraine, Putin, or the cost of a Big Mac in Moscow. One has nothing to do with the other. Russians in the Olympics won’t perpetuate a war anymore than banning them ends it.
Of course the Ukraine war is a tragedy. And of course the Olympics are a meaningless exhibition. Of course. But if every conversation about about all of our meaningless diversions in life just ends with, ‘well here’s this horrible tragedy we should focus on instead,’ life will be extremely unpleasant for everyone (and none of us should be on this site at all). This is sports. It’s not that serious, and doesn’t need to elicit that serious of a response.
That’s not the moral one up you think it is. No one here is condoning or happy about innocents dying. Whether Russia is in the Olympics or not has not cost or saved any lives. If Russia was in the 2028 World Cup they wouldn’t embolden them or suddenly be the thing that justifies it for them.
Nice attempt at the moral high ground, but if the Olympics eliminated every country that has caused the deaths of innocent victims, there would be no Olympics.
Well, there is the Russians using PEDs before the war too………
It’s 2026. How do you not know the truth about Ukraine? Even the Church Lady from SNL figured it out.
“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.
What do you mean by 2028? Aren’t they pretty much there in 2026?
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.
Yet the “international community” seems to have no issues with China being a part of the Olympics, even hosting the games on occassion. The hypocrisy is amazing.
Well, communist California is allowed to host the Olympics too!
I think it’s the correct call to keep them out of competition until the war criminal is dealt with, but I do find it funny how we’re about to have a World Baseball Classic with Israel and nobody in the west has even thought about barring them from the tournament.
If we are seriously going to pull the hypocrisy card, let’s not forget the US record for bombing and invading everyone under the sun. Have a quick look at how many countries China has bombed or invaded in the past 100 years compared to Uncle Sam.
Chairman Mao is credited with the deaths of at least 50 million people alone, so spare me the moral equivalency BS.
The US and Canada should be banned for their support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
It is all so fake and gay.
I’m sure the events of Oct. 7 didn’t bother you one bit.
Russia not included as some Moral Litmus test….how tone deaf coming from the west.