NHL Returns to Olympics Minus Russians
The NHL has returned to Olympic play at the Milan-Cortina Winter Games after a turbulent buildup. However, Russia remains excluded from all Olympic team sports, meaning several top NHL players of Russian origin cannot participate. This absence is particularly notable in men's hockey, a domain long dominated by Russian teams.
- This marks the first Olympic appearance for NHL players since the 2014 Sochi Games. A dispute over costs, including travel and insurance, kept them out of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, and a surge in COVID-19 cases that disrupted the NHL schedule led to their withdrawal from the 2022 Beijing Games. - Russia's exclusion from all team sports is a direct consequence of the country's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has also suspended the Russian Olympic Committee for incorporating sports councils in occupied Ukrainian territories, which violates the Olympic Charter. - While a limited number of individual Russian athletes who pass a vetting process may compete as "Individual Neutral Athletes," this eligibility does not extend to team competitions like ice hockey. - The absence of a Russian team sidelines a significant number of NHL superstars, including forwards Alex Ovechkin, Nikita Kucherov, Kirill Kaprizov, and Artemi Panarin. - Russia's goaltending depth is particularly affected, with top NHL netminders like Andrei Vasilevskiy, Igor Shesterkin, Ilya Sorokin, and Sergei Bobrovsky all ineligible to participate. - Historically, Russian and Soviet teams have been a dominant force in men's Olympic hockey, winning a combined nine gold medals. The Soviet Union team, known as "The Red Machine," won seven golds between 1956 and 1988. - With Russia out of contention, Canada and the United States are widely considered the top favorites for the gold medal. Both rosters are composed entirely of NHL players. - Other strong medal contenders include Sweden, with a defense corps featuring stars like Victor Hedman and Erik Karlsson, and Finland, the defending gold medalists from the 2022 Games.
