Where was this IIHF response in 2003?
There were no sanctions against USA for its invasion of Iraq, but that was then. The fact that the world governing body decisively dealt with Russia and Belarus is something to celebrate
Upon hearing the International Ice Hockey Federation’s stiff sanctions against Russia and Belarus over the invasion of Ukraine, my mind went back almost two decades to a night in Columbus. It was March 20, 2003, and the Toronto Maple Leafs had just lost 4-3 in overtime to the Columbus Blue Jackets. While having a beer with the excellent Aaron Portzline, then of the Columbus Dispatch, after the game in a local establishment, we were brought up to speed on the United States’ invasion of Iraq, how the Americans had pummelled Baghdad with bombs and that it would be a very short campaign. Shock and awe, indeed.
The only fly in the ointment was that the invasion was a sham, based on bogus intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction. It cost thousands of lives and essentially destroyed a country. And it accomplished absolutely nothing. The excuses for going to war were tissue-paper thin and anyone with any real knowledge of the situation was telling us that.
Looking back, the IIHF should have dealt with USA and its allies the way it is currently freezing out Russia. Back in 2003, there was no talk of banning the Americans from international competition. In fact they won their first World Junior Championship gold medal a little more than eight months later. The NHL did not “suspend our relationships with our business partners” in the U.S., as it has just done with Russia. NHL teams in Canada, which opposed the war and was not part of the coalition, did not refuse to take to the ice against their U.S. counterparts in NHL games.
So, yes, you could most certainly argue that a double standard has been established here. For example, the hockey federations of Poland and Great Britain joined a number of European federations in asking that Russia and Belarus have their IIHF memberships revoked. They were allies in the U.S. coalition in 2003. But we live in a far different world than the one we inhabited 19 years ago. That the IIHF, under different leadership and a little late, is realizing that it can have an impact on all of this is the main takeaway. Moving forward, any IIHF member country that goes to unprovoked war with another country, regardless of whether that country plays hockey or not, must be dealt with in the same manner.
So, for now, let us be encouraged that much of the hockey world is not staying in its lane and sticking to sports on this one. Let’s rejoice in the fact that the IIHF took an unequivocal and impactful stand against an international bully. After a special IIHF Council meeting Monday, the governing body suspended all Russian and Belarusian national teams from participation in every age category from IIHF competitions until further notice and withdrew the 2023 World Junior Championship hosting rights from Russia. The 2023 World Championship, slated for St. Petersburg, is still on the table, but the IIHF reserves the right to pull that one, too.
It’s an enormous move. It will bar the Russians and Belarusians from this year’s World Championship and prevent Russia from competing in the 2022 World Junior Championship – which will be held in August after it was postponed in late December – the Women’s World Championship and both the men’s and women’s Under-18 World Championships.
Holding world tournaments without one of the world’s Big Six hockey powers is hardly ideal, and the IIHF will have to decide in the coming months how to replace it. Finding an emergency host for the 2023 World Juniors will not be difficult. There are any number of cities in Canada that would be willing and capable to hold the event, even with only 10 months to plan it. If the IIHF does indeed see fit to move the championship to Canada, which would likely make the most logistical sense, wouldn’t it be wonderful if Hockey Canada used this opportunity to put it in one of its smaller major junior markets rather than going back to the Toronto-Montreal, Edmonton-Calgary, Vancouver and Halifax cycle? Just a thought.
This is something that needed to be done and if the IIHF was going to do it right, no half measures would have sufficed. FIFA recently changed course by suspending Russia from World Cup qualifying after getting hammered for its initial tepid response. It’s debatable whether these hockey sanctions will have any effect. But the fact that the IIHF took the step to impose them should make every hockey fan proud. Who knows? It has been well documented that Russian president Vladimir Putin and Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko love hockey and play the game, albeit while looking like the worst beer league players who ever lived. That, of course, doesn’t stop their enabling teammates and opponents from allowing them to score multiple goals in pathetic displays of sucking up.
The IIHF, under the direction of new president Luc Tardif, isn’t going to do the same. And that’s something to celebrate.