Under the CAS ruling, Russian athletes are prohibited until December 2022 from participating in the world championships and Olympic Games under the national flag and to the tune of the national anthem

The Russian national men’s ice hockey team will be playing at the 2021 Ice Hockey World Championship either under the flag of the Russian Hockey Federation (RHF) or the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), RHF Executive Director Dmitry Kurbatov said on Monday.

According to the ruling of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), Russian athletes are prohibited until December 2022 from participating in the world championships and Olympic Games under the national flag and to the tune of the national anthem.

The 2021 IIHF (the International Ice Hockey Federation) Ice Hockey Championship will be hosted by the Latvian capital of Riga between May 21 and June 6. The championship will be played at two venues in Riga.

The main venue will be the Arena Riga. It will host Group B, two quarter-final games, the semi-final round and the medal round. The second venue will be the Olympic Sports Centre, which will be converted into a 6,000-capacity ice rink and will host Group A and two quarter-final games. All 16 participating national teams will be accommodated by one hotel.

The Russian national team has been placed in Group A alongside the national teams from Sweden, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Slovakia, Denmark, Belarus and Great Britain. Group B lists the teams from Canada, Finland, the United States, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Italy and Kazakhstan.

Russia is scheduled to begin its journey at the 2021 Ice Hockey World Championship on May 21 with a match against their long-standing rivals from the Czech Republic.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland’s Lausanne upheld on December 17 WADA’s [the World Anti-Doping Agency] previous ruling on a number of sanctions against Russian sports.

According to the CAS decision as of December 17, 2020, Russian athletes were deprived of the right to participate in all world championships and Olympic and Paralympic Games under the national flag of Russia for a two-year period.

The national anthem of Russia was also ruled out to be played at international sport tournaments in the course of the next two years, including at the upcoming Olympic Games in Japan this year.

The ruling of the Swiss-based court also stripped Russia of the right to bid for the organization of all international sports tournaments for the period of two years. WADA’s sanctions will be in force until December 2022.

Looking to watch the IIHF World Championship online? In this post, we’ll explain how and where you can live stream the world’s biggest ice hockey tournament.

You can watch the IIHF World Championship in the United States on NHL Network. If you have a US cable TV subscription, you may already have access to NHL Network and be able to watch the tournament at no extra cost. However, it’s also possible to stream NHL Network cable-free via FuboTV ($59.99 USD/month plus $10.99/month for Sports Plus) and Sling TV ($30/month plus $10/month for Sports Extra).

Watching the NHL Network outside the US requires the use of a VPN. The reason for this is that all of its content is geo-blocked due to copyright and licensing. By connecting to a server in the US for a US IP address, you’ll be able to watch NHL Network online from anywhere.

The Congress of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) confirmed on Monday new dates for the 2021 World Championship in Latvia and Belarus, taking into account the ongoing global spread of the novel coronavirus, the IIHF press office said in a statement on Monday.

The tournament will start in May 2021 and will be co-hosted by Minsk and Riga under the slogan “Passion. No borders”.

The IIHF stated in April that the 2020 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship, due on May 8-24, 2020 in Zurich and Lausanne, Switzerland, was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The delegates [of the Congress] confirmed the dates of the 2021 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Minsk and Riga to 21 May to 6 June 2021,” according to the statement.

The 2021 IIHF World Championship was initially scheduled to be co-hosted by Latvia and Belarus between May 7 and 23, 2021.

 

The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) and the Slovak Ice Hockey Federation began talks on holding the world championship games, initially given to Minsk, in Bratislava, a representative of the federation, Peter Janosik, told Sputnik on Friday

The IIHF announced on Monday that Minsk would not be hosting the 2021 championship, which it was originally supposed to split with Latvia. The status of Latvia will be considered at a separate IIHF session.

According to the Slovak federation, the paperwork and budget are being discussed at the moment, but there are no definitive decisions yet.

More than 45,000 people have signed an online petition against holding the 2021 Ice Hockey World Championships in Minsk because of the ongoing violent crackdown on mass protests against elections that kept strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka in power despite opposition claims the vote was rigged.

Belarus is set to co-host the 2021 world ice hockey championships with Latvia in May and June, but Riga and many other European Union capitals have been calling for the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) to cancel Minsk’s involvement over the brutal crackdown, as well as fears that Lukashenka’s government has failed to control the coronavirus pandemic and is underreporting cases and deaths.

The petition addressed to the IIHF on the Change.org online platform was organized by a noted Belarusian female hockey player, Yulia Abasava.

“… I ask you today not to close your eyes to the fact that the tournament is being planned to be held in the country led by a bloody regime. Do not compromise the IIHF and ice hockey in general in front of the international community,” Abasava’s petition says.

According to Abasava, the issue of holding the tournament in Minsk can be discussed only after the “illegal regime” of Lukashenka is gone.

“If Lukashenka’s bloody regime remains, then many of the illegally arrested people will be convicted and sent to prisons before the tournament starts. No tournament has more importance than human lives,” Abasava wrote in the petition.

The number of signatures under the online petition abruptly rose after IIHF head Rene Fasel met with Lukashenka in the Belarusian capital on January 11 to discuss Minsk’s arrangements to host the 2021 world hockey championships.