Russians Diss Canadians After Losing Gold Medal

Team Canada won their first gold medal at the IIHF World Championships since 2007.  And then the fireworks erupted.

Most of the Russian team left before, or during, the singing of O Canada.  A few notable exceptions included Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Malkin.

TASS reported that there would be a formal investigation upon the team’s return to Russia.  And that they were expecting IIHF sanctions for the poor display of sportsmanship.

Don Cherry from Hockey Night in Canada pulled no punches on CBC:

“No class, no honour, they left the national anthem,” Cherry said on his Coach’s Corner segment during the first intermission of Game 2 of the Eastern Conference final. “We were the ones that stayed there … we stood while they won, and they walked off the ice. They’ve got no class whatsoever.”

Russia Today offers a different perspective that claims it was innocent:

The minister’s words were echoed by Russian Hockey Federation president and legendary goalkeeper, Vladislav Tretyak, who stressed the country’s players have great respect for their Canadian colleagues.

“Our team congratulated the Canadians with victory and shook hands with them. There’s no conflict. Team Russia respects the Canadian team, which played well game and deservedly won,” he said.

“Usually, the competition organizers supervise such ceremonies, but this time it turned out that the gates leading to the locker rooms ware opened immediately after the match. There was some kind of confusion, an organizational blunder,” Tretyak told Tass news agency.

“There was no disrespect towards the rivals. We just looked at each other, didn’t understand what to do and went to the locker room,” Egor Yakovlev, Russia’s defender, said.

Forward Nikolay Kulemin stressed that what happened at the O2 Arena was “just a misunderstanding, nothing more.”

“The guys just didn’t know that they have to remain on the ice and wait till the end. Everybody was upset and thought that it was already over,” he said.

It’s worth noting that the Russian players had little experience of losing world championship finals before Sunday’s game. They have played for the hockey crown on five occasions since 2008 and failed to win just once.

The Moscow Times posted a satirical article describing what would happen if the roles had been reversed and Russia was snubbed.

Photo courtesy of s.yume.