All eyes are on other countries as Russia returns to international play

The hockey world is a stir following a massive decision, allowing Russia to return to International Ice Hockey Federation competition, effective immediately.

On Friday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled that the Russian Ice Hockey Federation can sponsor teams in IIHF tournaments this season, with the IIHF World Junior Championship being the nation’s return to the spotlight. However, rumors are swirling that some nations competing, along with the IIHF, aren’t on board with this decision. Will we see teams pull out of upcoming tournaments?

On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Jeff Marek joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to discuss what other nations could do now that Russia has been forcibly admitted to participate in IIHF events.

Jeff Marek: We’ve seen the different federations issue statements as well. We saw Czechia, Germany, and Finland issuing statements today, and the Finnish one I found was particularly interesting because it wasn’t, you know, ‘We’re not going to compete against Russia.’ They’ve always said going back to this ban, what they’ve said is essentially, ‘We’ll support players who have misgivings and don’t want to play for Finland in this situation.’

This is one of those like this is one of those historical moments where the rubber hits the road, right? This is a situation where a lot of countries have said, ‘No way, we’re not playing against the European aggressor. We’re not going to do that.’ Well, now that’s going to be tested because they’ve been Russia has been granted green lights. … This is the moment…We’re gonna find out real quick today. Right now, it’s just the shock of all of it. We’re gonna find out what Canada does, what the United States does. We’re gonna find out, you know, Sweden, Czechia, Germany, like all of us. We’re gonna all find out really fast.

The one thing that I would caution is, this is a this is a situation that has a lot of like international political nuances to it, and I just hope that as hockey broadcasters, we’re mindful of that, and we just don’t look at the low hanging fruit here because this one is more difficult and more sensitive than than it appears on on the surface. It’s one where the nerves are really close to the skin, and the emotions are high, and understandably so.

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…