They've completely thrown off their skates

Once again there are those who are dissatisfied with the fact that Match TV is broadcasting matches of the World Hockey Championship, where the Russian national team is not present

It’s time to get used to it - the World Championship is taking place without Russia for the fifth year, it began in the 2022 Olympic year, so without big hockey we have gone through the full Olympic cycle. The main sports channel “Match TV” did not leave the Russians without broadcasts from Switzerland, which greatly excited the iconic ultra-patriots - as usual, two-time Olympic champion, famous hockey player and State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Fetisov was in front with the banner: “What am I going to watch there? Polyakov? Are you interested in this?” Another statement looked more weighty: “This is a direct betrayal, at least in my understanding. There’s nothing to see there, and I don’t recommend it to anyone.”

Nothing new. Regarding the showing and viewing of “not our world championship,” Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich used a strong word not for the first time, a year ago adding “betrayal” with the following passage: “I’ve been talking about this for the third year now - why are we doing this and for whom? They kicked us out of there like dogs, and we still broadcast these matches. This is definitely not for me."

The position spoke and speaks more about Fetisov himself and his problems, rather than inviting discussion on a not very important issue. In the end, if you don’t want to, don’t watch, the broadcasts take place late in the evening, they don’t block other events, and those who are interested watch, without in any way feeling like a “traitor.” True, if you shoot at one point from a fairly high platform for several years in a row, then a certain number of television viewers may indeed feel awkward. I can see a poster depicting the ex-captain of the USSR national team with a stick at the ready, “shooting” the question: “Have you watched matches involving unfriendly countries?”

Well, I looked. I won’t say that with the same interest as in pre-sanction times, but I watched. It is clear that the main tournaments of the year with and without the participation of Russia are events of different levels of interest for Russians, but this does not mean that without us there is no international hockey in principle. If you forbid seeing him (and if Fetisov had such an opportunity, he most likely would have done this), then the normal reaction is to definitely look at what is happening there, on these same ice fields. Because if watching a hockey match on a federal channel can be sedition, then we must have time to take advantage of this remaining freedom.

Few people arouse sympathy for Match TV as a monstrous monopolist, but in the case of the World Hockey Championships, its desire not to give up broadcasting rights (I assume this is a small amount) can be understood.

Our sport is already in isolation, and a comprehensive return is still oh so far away. Emphasizing your isolation by closing the windows, cherishing your outcast, is fraught with huge losses both in the present and in the future. The fact that we can see at least partially (both with Match TV and without Match TV, as was the case with the Winter Olympics in Italy) how world sports lives is already quite a lot.

The position “without Russia there is no hockey,” despite all its ultra-patriotism, is extremely flawed. On this basis, if we go all the way, we must admit that the world championships since the early 70s should be considered inferior, because for seven years (!) there were no founders of hockey. In seeking permission for NHL professionals to participate in competitions under the auspices of the international federation, the Canadians were right (and who played against them - our “amateurs”, who sat at the base for 10 months and were only listed as mechanics, physical education instructors and military personnel?), but, having received a categorical refusal, they left the arena. Do you think we were very upset and ran to persuade the big hockey bosses to restore justice? Hell, I don’t remember the mournful faces when celebrating another victory. The Soviet Union was completely satisfied with the absence of a potentially main competitor. By the way, without that boycott, there would not have been the 1972 Super Series and the 1974 Super Series, the first club super series in 1975–1976, which changed the world hockey space.

...Nowadays everything is more and more serious. But, perhaps, when buying the rights to show the next “flawed” World Cup, Russian TV bosses had a simple thought in their heads: what if the Russian national team is allowed in, such a miracle could happen, and if at this moment we seem to be out of business, how can we explain ourselves to the people who have been waiting five years to return? But next year the decision will be much more difficult - the Ukrainian national team has made it into the elite division for the first time since 2007, with all that it entails. Which adds headaches and makes the admission of Russians to the World Championships, even as neutral athletes, almost unrealistic. Things won't be any better with possible broadcasts.

But this is still a long way off, and for now all we have to deal with is the current “betrayal” in the form of broadcasts from Switzerland. Respected Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich Fetisov kicked Poland just like that, for the sake of a catchphrase - the Poles have not played in the elite division for a long time. However, the Polish national team somehow surprised the invincible USSR national team in the opening match of the World Cup in Katowice 1976, but that’s not the point: if we are all so noble and so reverent about observing the Olympic Charter, then we should remember that one of the main Olympic principles, as you know, is a respectful attitude towards an opponent, even a obviously weak one.

When figures on a lower scale joined Vyacheslav Fetisov, it became quite interesting. The former famous hockey player and controversial coach Andrei Nazarov, who had been unemployed for several years and never missed an opportunity to remind the hockey community of himself in any way, took the lead. Now he reminded the following: “Our old Pyrenean donkey Tardif has ruined the entire world hockey, the world championship is objectively of no use to anyone... The whole world is watching and watching the final of the Gagarin Cup.”

Luc Tardif as IIHF President - the last months. There were problems with the world championships before him, and there will be problems after him, so the idea that it was he who ruined the entire world hockey is absurd, to say the least. Tardif did not comply with the IOC’s December recommendation on the admission of Russian youth teams with the flag and anthem, after which the Minister of Sports and head of the Russian Olympic Committee, Mikhail Degtyarev, called him a rare scoundrel (apparently, hoping that such a revelation would change attitudes towards Russia for the better). But we must understand that on the path of Russia’s return to the big hockey world is not Tardif or someone else who will take his place (it will definitely not be a Russian), but three or four powerful national federations, which believe that allowing Russia in the current circumstances is still fraught.

As for the whole world, which is watching the final series of the Gagarin Cup between Yaroslavl Lokomotiv and Kazan Ak Bars, then with all the tension of our internal confrontation, the whole world has enough other interests - at least in the Stanley Cup, which, no offense, will still be cooler. Well, the World Cup is also of interest to the world community, probably a little more than the wonderful Yaroslavl-Kazan final.

...The World Championships in an Olympic year are always a special story. For the Olympic losers, this is an opportunity for some kind of revenge - after the failure of the Russian team in Sochi, its victory in Minsk was recognized as almost triumphant (by the way, it was the last one at the World Championships). The quality of the Olympic winners is, as a rule, worse than in normal years (the current US team has only one member of the Milan 2026 gold squad), but the chances of the average players increase. They have already become higher than usual since 2022 - it is foolish to deny that with the Russian team, the path to the podium for the Swiss, German and Latvian teams would certainly have been more difficult.

However, the Swiss also reached the finals under the Russians, as at the same World Cup in 2013. And Russia, which has always assembled the strongest squad by name, was last in the finals in Prague in 2015 - when its players left the closing ceremony of the tournament without waiting for the anthem in honor of the Canadian team, which defeated the challenger with an indecent score.

Today, Canada is being led to gold by the 19-year-old San Jose star, one of the NHL's top scorers, McClean Celebrini, who has been named team captain. Even when two-time Olympic champion and three-time Stanley Cup winner Sidney Crosby arrived in Switzerland, the founders of hockey did not change anything, and this was the request of the 38-year-old veteran himself. It’s already interesting how Celebrini will cope, but for now both of them are coping in the same line - Crosby has already scored an assist hat-trick in the match with Denmark.

The Danes, who sensationally knocked out Canada in the first round of the playoffs at last year's home World Cup, were now holding zero until the first minute of the third period, until old Sid got down to business.

There are few sensations so far, the main one is the victory of the Slovenian national team over the Czech national team in overtime (by the way, the same irrepressible Slovenians only lost to the Slovaks in overtime).

For the current world champions and Olympic champions of the US team, everything is going smoothly so far, but there are still enough “students” to spoil the nerves of the favorites.

And everyone is waiting for a major breakthrough from the hosts, who are hosting the World Cup for the first time since 2009. Three appearances in the finals over the past 13 years are not enough for the Swiss, and the current chance for the generation of the most valuable player of the 2013 World Cup, Roman Josi, and his peers is one of the last.

It is all the more surprising that the highly respected ex-golden coach of the Russian national team in the country, who lives in the tournament host Friborg (the main city of the current championship is Zurich), Vyacheslav Bykov, said that he will not watch the World Cup, since “it does not arouse my interest.” I believe that the Swiss hockey community was very surprised by the words of their adored Slava, who found himself in a company that acts under the motto “I won’t watch,” apparently out of patriotic feelings. By the way, it was in Switzerland that Bykov won for the last time with the Russian national team in 2009.

So another ex-head coach of the Russian national team, Vladimir Krikunov, says that he will not follow the World Cup: “He left us, there is no Russian team.” Last year this didn’t seem to bother Vladimir Vasilyevich. What then can we say about the position of the Olympic champion, State Duma deputy Svetlana Zhurova, who did not fail to note that “all teams will only be glad that they can rise to a higher place due to the absence of Russia. Human nature works that way, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

The Russian celebrities and experts interviewed seem to be even somehow ashamed to admit that the World Cup interests them at least to some extent, even to the smallest extent. Thank you, at least they don’t call those who press the third button during broadcast hours from Switzerland traitors and renegades.

Regarding Vyacheslav Fetisov, obviously, being the “first student” (according to Evgeniy Schwartz from the immortal “Dragon”) is obligated by his position and the desire to keep up with those who previously managed to privatize and capitalize patriotism.

Good luck to him.