The 2024 Ice Hockey World Championship will take place from May 10 to 26 in Prague and Ostrava. These two Czech cities have already hosted competitions under the auspices of the IIHF in 2015. Then many NHL stars came to compete for gold medals, and the attendance record was broken at the tournament itself.

However, the World Cup final was remembered more for the scandal involving the Russian national team, rather than for the game of hockey.

“What the Russian team did was completely inappropriate”

The Russian national team brought stars from the NHL to the 2015 World Championship: Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Artem Anisimov, Dmitry Kulikov, Sergei Bobrovsky, Vladimir Tarasenko and others. In addition, the roster was replenished by Artemy Panarin, who had not yet played his first match for Chicago, Sergey Mozyakin, as well as national team captain Ilya Kovalchuk.

Ilya Kovalchuk / Photo: © FHR

With such players, Oleg Znark’s team confidently defeated Norway in the first match, but then the Russian team began to have problems. The Russians won a hard victory over Slovenia, and lost the third game against the USA. After that, our team gained momentum and beat the Danes, Belarusians and Slovaks. However, we were unsuccessful in the match against Finland for second place in the group.

No one was in a hurry to criticize the Znarka team for reaching the playoffs from third place. Moreover, in the quarterfinals, Russia defeated Sweden (5:3), and then beat the USA dry (4:0) and earned a ticket to the main match of the tournament, where the Canadians were waiting for us. The excitement from the battle for gold was enormous.

Here is the classic confrontation between Russia and Canada, and the duel between Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. In addition, the Maple Leafs were also full of big stars: Brent Burns, Claude Giroux, Tyler Seguin, Nathan MacKinnon and others.

True, the audience did not see a stubborn fight in the final. The North American team unexpectedly inflicted a crushing defeat on the Znarka team – 6:1. But the result of the match quickly faded into the background due to a big scandal. After the game, the Russian hockey players received silver medals, lined up along the blue line, waited a little and began to leave the site. At this point, the announcer announced the playing of the Canadian national anthem. Ovechkin, Malkin, Kulikov and Panarin tried to get the rest of the players back on the ice, but they failed. As a result, only nine hockey players from Russia listened to the Canadian anthem.

Alexander Ovechkin / Photo: © Martin Rose / Staff / Bongarts / Gettyimages.ru

The behavior of our players displeased even Rene Fasel, who at that time served as the president of the IIHF.

“I have had the honor of attending 29 world championships, but this is the first time I have seen something like this. What the Russian team did was completely inappropriate. Anything can happen on the ice during a game – collisions, fights. However, after it is completed, it is always necessary to show respect to the opponent, Fasel said.

Vitaly Mutko, who then held the post of Minister of Sports of Russia, also condemned the action of Russian hockey players.

“I think that our hockey players who left the ice early did the wrong thing. Defeat must be accepted with dignity, and the winner must be treated with respect,” Mutko said.

After the criticism that fell upon the team, the players of the national team themselves took the floor. Ilya Kovalchuk completely blamed the organizers.

“We shook hands with Canadians who won in professional sports wrestling and expressed our respect to them. We went to the presentation of silver medals and listened to the ceremonial speeches. Then the championship song, which usually closes such ceremonies, seemed to sound, and confetti rained down. At that moment, the gate opened, which leads to the area for communicating with journalists. We thought that this was a signal for us: the time of champions is coming, the ceremony is ending, we are, in general, superfluous in it. And we went to talk with the press, including the Canadian one. That’s the whole “demarche,” said Kovalchuk.

However, the IIHF did not believe the words of the captain of the Russian team. The international federation said Kovalchuk made an “unequivocal head gesture” as a signal for other players to leave the ice immediately after receiving their silver medals.

“The commission is of the opinion that the events on the ice show that this is not the result of an “unfortunate misunderstanding”, as Russia claimed,” the international federation said.

As a result, the IIHF decided to fine the Russian Hockey Federation 80 thousand Swiss francs. And the culprits were named Znark and Andrei Safronov, who at that time was the general manager of the national team.

Watch matches of the World Hockey Championship on the Match TV channel, as well as on the websites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru from May 10.