Any players from Finland and Sweden who compete in Russia will not be able to represent their countries
Finnish and Swedish players competing in the Continental Hockey League (KHL) or other championships in Russia will not be selected for their national ice hockey teams, it has been announced.
The Finnish Ice Hockey Federation revealed its move, which was made in response to the military operation in Ukraine, on Monday and stated that “players playing in Russia next season will not be able to play for the national team.”
The Swedish Ice Hockey Association (SIF) said that they are considering not choosing Swedish players based in the KHL and will make a formal decision when the season is over.
“But what we can now state is that none of the players who participated in the playoffs in the KHL are eligible for the World Cup tournament in Finland,” SIF said in its own statement.
“From the Swedish Hockey Association’s side, we will ensure that players who choose to play in the KHL for next season will not join our national team. Officially, the decision will be made by the federal government after the season,” it also clarified.
Although there were previously up to 31 Finnish and 30 Swedish players on the KHL lists, the Finnish ice hockey club Jokerit left the KHL in February days after the conflict escalated only a handful of players from these countries in Russia because other individual professionals decided to leave their clubs.
One left was defender Mikko Lehtonen in SKA St. Petersburg, with the agent of the Olympic and world champion who reportedly said that they tried to terminate his contract but received multi-million fines if they pressed on.
This forced the player and his agent to make an agreement to end the season in St. Louis. Petersburg, and then let Lehtonen abandon his contract three years ahead of schedule.
In the KHL play-offs on Saturday, where CSKA Moscow beat Metallurg Magnitogorsk in match seven of the championship, three Swedes played the main role but have not been selected by their country for the Euro Hockey Tour in Sweden this week.
The Euro Hockey Tour serves as a warm-up for the World Cup and Finland will also participate.
These latest moves come after the Latvian parliament, known as Saeima, prevented the country’s athletes from competing in Russia or playing for Russian teams in a move that affects ice hockey and the KHL the most.
In Canada, the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) announced last week that Russian and Belarusian players will not be selected in the draft for next season on July 1, which will affect the Western League, Western Ontario and Quebec hockey leagues the CHL is. made of.
Last year, 16 players from Russia and 11 from Belarus were selected by CHL teams in the hockey-crazy North American nation, but future younger colleagues who dream of breaking through to the elite professional National Hockey League (NHL) will one day have to take their first steps. elsewhere.
Big Russian stars like Washington Capital’s captain Alexander Ovechkin continue to line up in the NHL, which consists of franchisees from the US and Canada, but Russian and Belarusian ice hockey players and teams are suspended from all events under the jurisdiction of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF).
This includes the World Championships for Men 2022 which Finland will host on May 13-29, which means that Russia has no chance to take revenge on the hosts for beating the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in the ice hockey final at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
In addition, Russia has also been deprived of its right to host the 2023 World Cup with a new home for the competition, which will be decided at the IIHF’s annual congress in the Finnish city of Tampere during the last week of the 2022 edition.
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(RT.com)
Source: sn.dk