The situation in world hockey related to the CAS decision on the illegality of not allowing Russian athletes to participate in international competitions is becoming more and more interesting - the IIHF is literally between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the decision of the International Court of Sports and Russia's demands to comply with it, on the other hand, the insistence of most of the competitive teams and host countries in the tournament: the former are ready not to play with the Russians for technical defeats, and the latter are ready to take any measure from not issuing visas to refusing to hold competitions.
The first grandiose battle is taking place right now around the World Junior Championships in Canada, which traditionally starts at the end of December.
The Norwegians found themselves in the most humiliated position, they declared that they would not play with the Russians - the very next day they were eliminated from the tournament participants, and were replaced by Russia, officially taking into account all the Norwegian wishes: the Vikings had the lowest ranking among the participants.
Then the host of the tournament, Canada, stepped up and announced that it would not issue visas to the Russians. The FHR laughed and pointed out that there are several dozen Russians playing in youth leagues in North America who already have visas - the government does not apply to commercial leagues. From them you can certainly assemble a team ready for battle by appointing one of our "American" experts as a head coach - for example, Igor Larionov or Sergey Fedorov.
The world is waiting with bated breath for further moves: not only the composition of the participants in the World Championship in spring hockey for adults depends on them, but also the continued development of the global elite sport in general.