Amid the somewhat murky details emerging from US President Donald Trump’s and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s call on Tuesday — the two leaders discussed a halt on attacking energy infrastructure, then Russia immediately bombed Ukraine’s energy infrastructure — one deal at least was clear: The US and Russia would resume playing ice hockey.
Although benign enough on the face of it, the idea of organized games in the US and Russia, between players of both countries, was yet another concession to Putin from Trump. Unlike the US president’s previous gifts — pre-emptively allowing Russia to keep the territory it has illegally invaded, refusing to give any security guarantees to Ukraine and strongly hinting US sanctions would soon be lifted — this was soft power, wrapped in a pair of skate laces.
Putin loves hockey. He plays it himself. (His clearly terrified opponents let him score at will.)
Photo: David Gonzales-Imagn Images / USA Today
Russia is a global powerhouse of the sport, but the best Russian players eventually leave Russia, to go play in the National Hockey League (NHL) in the US. The money is better, and the fame greater. Russian hockey has always been geopolitical. The Soviet teams of the 20th century were explicitly military proxies.
The players were soldiers in the Red Army. Their coach was a colonel. They bunked in barracks for 11 months of the year. When they began playing — and beating — North American teams for the first time, the matches were clashes of ideology. The communists, raised since kids to play together in a collective system on the ice, versus the individualist American and Canadian professionals trying to score goals on their own (and when that did not work, trying to bash the Russians in the head). In the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviet Union won five of six Olympic golds.
There were two big exceptions, both at the height of the cold war: the 1972 Summit Series, when a team of Canadian bruisers barely squeaked out a victory in eight games against the silky Red Army, and the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics when a plucky US team of minor-leaguers and misfits (of course) defeated the heavily favored Soviets for gold on home turf in what became known as the “Miracle on Ice.” In case you missed the significance, it inspired a Hollywood film starring Kurt Russell.
Photo: AP
To fully appreciate the geopolitical significance of these hockey proxies, look no further than the recent Four Nations competition, where Canada and the US worked out their animosity over Trump’s threats to make Canada the 51st state by beginning their first game with three separate fistfights in nine seconds.
Canada won the trophy and the nation practically imploded with emotion. The other two nations? Sweden and Finland. If you think Russia did not feel left out, let Putin bringing this up in the context of a summit with the US president about the biggest war in Europe since 1945 be a clue.
Just as Saudi Arabia knows the soft power of sport, getting back on their blades on the global ice rink would be a huge triumph for Putin’s Russia. Even better that it comes just as Alexander Ovechkin, the best Russian player of all time and the literal founder of a Putin fan club, is about to eclipse Wayne Gretzky’s NHL goal record — and to do so while playing for the Washington Capitals no less. (Gretzky is Canadian, so it is not an American loss — although he has recently attracted Canadian ire by having dinner at Mar-a-Lago and not wearing enough patriotic red.)
As for Trump, who appears to see Putin not as a foe but as an equal — great men leading great powers and carving up the world between them —the idea of a Four Nations competition was silly anyway.
For him, it has only ever been the Two Nations, and you can imagine him and Putin watching it together from the Kremlin press box at Moscow’s CSKA arena, not discussing Ukraine at all.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
If the Wild finally break through and win their first playoff series in a decade, Minnesota’s top line likely will be the reason. They were all over the Golden Knights through the first two games of their NHL Western Conference quarter-finals series, which was 1-1 going back to Minnesota for Game 3 today. The Wild tied the series with a 5-2 win on Tuesday. Matt Boldy had three goals and an assist in the first two games, while Kirill Kaprizov produced two goals and three assists. Joel Eriksson Ek, who centers the line, has yet to get on the scoresheet. “I think the biggest
The Minnesota Timberwolves, with so many promising performances spoiled by late mistakes fresh in their memory bank, sure timed this strong finish well. Jaden McDaniels scored a career playoff-high 30 points and spearheaded Minnesota’s stifling defense on an ailing Luka Doncic, and the Timberwolves beat the Los Angeles Lakers 116-104 to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference first-round series in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Friday night. “Jaden never looks tired. He looks like he could play 48 minutes,” said teammate Anthony Edwards, who had 29 points, eight rebounds and eight assists. Julius Randle added 22 points for the Wolves, who outscored
From a commemorative jersey to a stadium in his name, Argentine soccer organizers are planning a slew of tributes to their late “Captain” Pope Francis, eulogized as the ultimate team player. Tributes to the Argentine pontiff, a lifelong lover of the game, who died on Monday at the age of 88, have been peppered with soccer metaphors in his homeland. “Francisco. What a player,” the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) said, describing the first pope from Latin America and the southern hemisphere as a generational talent who “never hogged the ball” and who showed the world “the importance of having an Argentine captain,