IIHF to Meet About Russia's Participation, Hosting Duties

The IIHF will hold a meeting early next week to determine if any consequences will be levelled against Russia in the wake of their military attack against Ukraine. Russia is set to host the 2023 WJC and men's World Championship.

The decisions made over the next few days will undoubtedly have a major impact on the international hockey calendar. 

According to multiple reports, the International Ice Hockey Federation will hold a meeting at the beginning of next week to determine whether future events scheduled to be held in Russia should be moved to a different host country after Russia launched an unprovoked military attack against Ukraine on Wednesday. 

At the moment, two of the IIHF's major events are set to take place in Russia in 2023, with the World Junior Championship set to unfold in Novosibirsk, while Saint Petersburg will play host to the World Championship later that summer. 

"We are watching closely what’s going on in Ukraine," said IIHF president Luc Tardiff in a statement on Thursday night. 

"No comment and no decision for the moment. We will have an IIHF council meeting beginning of next week to talk about it."

Tardiff's comments came in response to questions about whether Russia will even be allowed to participate at all in international hockey events following their attack on another nation. 

As Tardiff stated, no decision has been made at this time. But, in the event that they do ban strip Russia of its hosting duties or ban the nation entirely, the IIHF would not be the first sports organization to level consequences against them in the wake of the attack. 

Earlier this morning, Formula One announced that they will not be holding the 2022 Russian Grand Prix scheduled to take place in Sochi from Sept. 23-25 after drivers stated that they would boycott the event if it were to go ahead. 

In the soccer world, it was reported this morning that UEFA has stripped Russia of its hosting duties for the upcoming Champions League Final that was originally set to take place in Saint Petersburg on May. 28, but will now be hosted in France. 

With the IIHF's meeting set to be held in a few days' time, all eyes will be on how the organization will deal with Russia's future in international hockey.