The International Olympic Committee announced on Tuesday what had already been foreshadowed by the IIHF: The ban on Russian teams that was in place for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics will remain in effect for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina. As a result, there will be no teams representing Russia at the men’s or women’s Olympic ice hockey tournaments.

“The IOC Executive Board recommendation from March 2023 with regard to teams of athletes with a Russian passport remains in place,” the IOC said in a statement on Tuesday, as reported by Reuters. “It is based on the fact that, by definition, a group of Individual Neutral Athletes cannot be considered a team. We take note that the IIHF has confirmed that it will follow this recommendation.”

As such, no teams of Russian players, as was the case in 2018 under the name “Olympic Athletes from Russia” and in 2022 under the name “ROC”, will be allowed to compete. 

On Friday, numerous media outlets, including The Hockey News, reported on a claim by Latvian website SportaCentrs that, during its annual congress in Stockholm, the IIHF had agreed that Russian teams would not compete in the 2026 Olympic ice hockey tournaments. The federation had previously announced that Russia and Belarus would not be re-integrated into international competitions for the 2025-26 hockey season.

On Sunday, IIHF President Luc Tardif clarified the federation’s position on the matter, stating that the IOC had requested a competition schedule that did not include Russian teams, and that an official announcement from the IOC that Russian teams would be excluded was imminent.

Russia Quarter-Century Teams Unveiled: A Wealth Of Talent To Choose From In the spirit of the <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/news/nhl-quarter-century-teams-tracker-each-franchises-best-players-since-2000">NHL announcing quarter-century teams for each of its 30 franchises that have played since 2000</a>, I thought I’d try a similar exercise by country – first and second teams. It’s not limited to NHL performance, although that carries a lot of weight. International play for the country also weighs heavily. To be eligible, a player needn’t have necessarily played for the country at a major tournament, but he had (or has) to be eligible.

“The IOC is the organizer – we only deal with the competition (the hockey tournaments) itself,” said Tardif. “We have been pressuring them to make a decision, one way or another, because we’re getting closer to the Olympics and we need to know.”

Tardif continued, “Recently they asked us to send them a schedule without Russia, so that’s where we are. The official statement is pending but the IOC has told us that they are informing the Russian Olympic Committee that they are not participating in the Olympics.”

That statement has now come to pass.

As such, these will be the groups for Olympic ice hockey:

Men’s (Feb. 11 - 22) 

Group A: Canada, Switzerland, Czechia, France

Group B: Finland, Sweden, Slovakia, Italy

Group C: United States, Germany, Latvia, Denmark

Women’s (Feb. 5 - 19)

Group A: Canada, United States, Finland, Czechia, Switzerland

Group B: Gemany, Sweden, Japan, Italy, France

Photo: Russian players wearing "ROC" jerseys at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing © George Walker IV-Imagn Images

Latvia, Denmark, Slovakia (and maybe France) qualify for 2026 Olympics Three teams qualified for the men’s ice hockey tournament at the 2026 Winter Olympics on Sunday by winning de facto play-in games on the last day of the final qualifying tournament.