Foreign stars in the KHL show how hockey keeps crossing borders that politics has made harder to navigate<\/p>\n
Did you know that the Irish gifted ice hockey to the world? Well, it\u2019s between ourselves and the Scots, but everywhere I went in Canada, hockey experts and fans would regale me with how Irish soldiers, serving with the British Army, kept their hurling, Ireland\u2019s ancient sport, going in the winter by converting ice-covered ponds and fields for play. Unable to use a hide bound small ball, they eventually settled on using lumps of coal that would be visible against the white playing surface. Vladislav Tretiak, the greatest goalkeeper of all time, reminded me of the Irish contribution to his beloved game every time we\u2019ve met.
\n\u201cIrish gave a lot of players to hockey,\u201d he told me in Ulyanovsk, \u201cand they\u2019re proud of their roots.\u201d
\nI would like that in giving the sport to the world, we Irish have therefore contributed to one of the most important processes in this increasingly divided world of ours \u2013 sports diplomacy. And, as always, ice hockey is leading the way.<\/p>\n
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The Summit Series
\nIn 1972, Canada and the Soviet Union played an eight-game series, which Tretiak starred in, with the Canucks winning 4-3, with\u00a0one game tied. Soviet mastery and surprising grit stood up to Canadian violence and rock \u2018em, sock \u2018em hockey. It was a watershed moment at a time when sport built a bridge, with Ottawa even establishing an International Sports Relations Desk.
\n\u201cThe Canadians were tough, my God, they were also very good players. We thought they were born in skates,\u201d Tretiak noted in an interview with Capital Sports in 2018.
\nPhil Esposito, who scored on Tretiak for the triumphant Canadians, told me in 2024 that \u201cit opened up a direct dialogue that continues to today.\u201d He added that \u201csport has a unique way of bringing people together.\u201d
\nBrendan Shanahan, born to Irish parents and who would win an Olympic Gold in 2002, as well as three Stanley Cups with Detroit Red Wings, told Capital Sports in 2019 that \u201cit [Summit Series] was a wake up call to Canada, one we listened to.\u201d Shanahan played alongside Russia\u2019s Viacheslav Fetisov for two of his Stanley Cup wins, a player who led the way for Soviet players to cross to the NHL.
\n\u201cHe was nearly forty when he was with us [at Detroit] but he was just special. And we had [Igor] Larionov, another of those early pioneers. And then the younger guys like [Vladimir] Konstantinov, Slava Kozlov, and Sergei Federov. They all grew up inspired by it [Summit Series].\u201d
\nSports diplomacy led to the influx of Russian players to the NHL and today, it\u2019s still working, but in reverse.<\/p>\n
USSR national team goalkeeper Vladislav Tretiak during the 1972 ice hockey super series between the USSR and Canada. Luzhniky Sports Palace, Moscow, September 26, 1972.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0 Sputnik\/Alexander Makarov <\/p>\n
Breaking the ice with the KHL
\nWhen I first went to top level ice hockey in Russia, in November 2007, it was the final season of the Russian Super League. I ventured out to the Sokolniki Arena in Moscow to watch Spartak, a club just back after a year out of hockey due to financial issues. It was a far cry from the NHL games I watched in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and New York. In fact, it wasn\u2019t even close to the 2nd tier American Hockey League games I attended in 1996-7 in such Canadian hotspots as\u2026St. John or Fredericton, New Brunswick. In fact, the attendance, presentation, atmosphere, and overall vibe wasn\u2019t a patch on the now-defunct Junior League Charlottetown Abbies with whom I worked.
\nIt didn\u2019t get much better once the Kontintental Hockey League (KHL) came into being in 2008. In 2011, working a CSKA Moscow game at their old home in the now demolished CSKA Ice Palace, I felt like I was in a time warp. I wandered from the \u2018press area\u2019 to find something to eat and drink, and there were a couple of tables with women behind them selling plastic cups of tea and \u2018butter brot\u2019 [a piece of bread with some form of meat on it].<\/p>\n
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\u201cOn the ice there was product, but so much around it was chaos,\u201d Julius Supler told Capital Sports in 2016. The Slovak coached CSKA from 2011-12 and had tales to tell about how the KHL was only going to succeed when all clubs had modern arenas. And boy was he right.
\nWorking the KHL beat from 2017-2022 for Capital Sports, I witnessed the birth of a product that sat comfortably between the OTT NHL and the delightful DEL [German Ice Hockey League]. The KHL has come on so much that it\u2019s not only unwanted or over the hill North Americans or Europeans coming in for a pay day, it\u2019s now an alternative, and right now that is a boon for sports diplomacy.
\nBuilding bridges
\nHudacek arrived at Sibir Novosibirsk from Sweden as a highly rated, but eccentric goalie. The Slovak performed a \u2018HudaShow\u2019 after each game, win, lose, or tie. He was pretty handy between the pipes, though. A triple Slovak champ, World Championship silver medalist, and best keeper in both Slovakia and Sweden, it was in 2018 that I first got to interview him as part of a special series of Capital Sports shows hosted at Moscow\u2019s Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center called Champ Talks.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think of politics, just people,\u201d he told the live audience during our live show, \u201chockey is more important and a connection.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mikhail Yunkov, Nikita Vyglazov, Patrick Hersle, and Julius Hudacek from Spartak HC during a Kontinental Hockey League match against Vityaz HC, Podolsk, Moscow Region, Russia, May 10, 2019.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0 Sputnik\/Vitaly Belousov <\/p>\n
He\u00a0would join us a couple more times on our radio show before leaving Spartak in 2021. He returned to the KHL in 2022-23 to play for Kazakh club Barys Astana. I asked him if he was worried about falling foul of sanctions? \u201cFor what, being a normal person and not a politician?\u201d Was his response.
\nIn 2024, when Irish-Canadian defenseman Trevor Murphy, then with Sibir Novosibirsk, was asked if he was worried about playing in Russia? He shook his head and told my colleague from Capital Sports, \u201cWhy should I be? I\u2019m playing hockey. Just playing hockey.\u201d Now with SKA St. Petersburg, Murphy has maintained that attitude as he enters his\u00a0eighth season in the league.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s important,\u201d Phil Esposito said in 2024, \u201cto not lose sight that these are humans. Nobody wants it [war], but we don\u2019t blame all for it.\u201d
\nAccording to a leading New York-based hockey player agent, no player or coach he\u2019s spoken with has thought twice about repercussions of playing in Russia. While the 2026-27 season is still young, between 48-52 North American players are currently on club rosters. In terms of coaches, Canadians Guy Boucher and Mitch Love and American Scott Gordon are all at KHL clubs Avangard Omsk, Traktor Chelyabinsk, and Shanghai Dragons respectively.\u00a0
\nThe player agent, who also represents coaches, says that there is an issue for coaches coming from North America. \u201cI\u2019ve had clients who wanted to come to Russia, but were warned by figures in Canada and the US not to. Players, they\u2019ll go, but coaches, it\u2019s a bit tougher.\u201d
\nFan Respect
\nIlya (38) is a fan of Traktor Chelyabinsk who lives in the Chelyabinsk Region town of Kasli. Hockey is what \u201chelps survive life.\u201d He works night shifts as a security guard and during his days off as a taxi driver. His vehicle has enough Traktor merchandise to let you know he\u2019s a supporter of the hockey club.
\n\u201cI was born in Chelyabinsk and it\u2019s my team. People say we don\u2019t have much to hope for [in the region], so hockey is most important thing. I go to games, every year ten, and bring my son. I don\u2019t see him most of the day as he\u2019s in school, I work, but the drives to hockey, then games, then coming home, we [bond].\u201d<\/p>\n
Players and fans of Moscow Dynamo celebrating a goal in a Kontinental Hockey League game against Minsk Dynamo, Moscow, Russia, September 24, 2026.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0 Sputnik\/Alexey Filippov <\/p>\n
I felt a tinge of sadness as he spoke, remembering my dad and I doing the same, but with our traditional sports in Ireland, and it brought home how important it is for kids and fathers to do things together. I told Ilya this and he brought up the \u201cforeigners.\u201d
\n\u201cMy father worked in a factory and he got me to hockey. Now I do the same. And my son, he\u2019s twelve, and he sees online what people think of us [Russians] and then in our jersey we see Canadians and Americans. And I tell him, see, we\u2019re not so bad, not all people hate us.\u201d<\/p>\n
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While sports fans know that players and coaches are at their clubs for money, there is also a two-way respect. This has increased in Russia as genuine talent like Canada\u2019s Nathan Legare arrived this summer to the Urals-based club. One local journalist likened the signing to \u201cFather Frost coming early.\u201d
\nSpeaking with KHL fans in Russia and Belarus, they don\u2019t see the North Americans or Europeans plying their trade in the league as outcasts, mercenaries, or anything other than regular hockey players coming to do a job. In itself, that is a major compliment.
\nWhat the future holds for \u2018foreigners\u2019
\nThe KHL media department weren\u2019t keen on speculating, though they did say that interest in the league abroad has remained stable. KHL beat reporters from Russian sports sites and newspapers have confirmed this and that contacts with colleagues in North America, especially, has not dimmed since 2022.
\nThe New York-based agent, when I asked about the coming years, was equally positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a limited number of places in the NHL and if you\u2019re an ambitious player, you won\u2019t drop down to Germany, or Sweden, or even the AHL, if you\u2019re released, you\u2019ll look at Russia and think, man, the salaries are good, the level is really high, and if I perform well enough, I can stay there and not be pumped and dumped like I would with an NHL organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is what Jordan Weal, a Canadian now with Dynamo Moscow, told us in 2022. \u201cIt\u2019s more stable, because you can develop and play in one place, not get moved around the franchise or traded in a few minutes. There are more rights for players in a [contract] sense.\u201d
\nAs vital as it is to keep the pipeline of quality foreign imports is for the future of the KHL and Russian hockey, the bigger picture is that bridges built in 1972 are being maintained. If sport diplomacy helped open opportunities for dialogue between nations at a time when nuclear Armageddon was never more than a few minutes away, then hockey can offer us a new avenue for the meeting of peoples.
\nAnd once it all works out, you can thank the Irish for giving the world a winter sport that melted the old Cold War and put the new one on ice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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