The Russian Ice Hockey Federation (FHR) was ready for the National Hockey League (NHL) to withdraw from the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing. This was stated by the first vice-president of the FHR Roman Rotenberg, RIA Novosti reports.

“FHR was initially prepared for the NHL to refuse to participate in the 2022 Olympics. After the Games in South Korea for four years we worked according to the approved plan within the framework of our strategy, option B with the participation of the KHL hockey players in the Olympics was considered by us along with option A, ”Rotenberg said.

The NHL announced its refusal to participate in the Beijing Olympics. Hockey According to him, even last summer, when an agreement was reached between the IOC, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) and the NHL, Plan B was considered by the FHR as the most likely.

Rotenberg added that the FHR has created all the conditions for the national team to repeat the golden success of Pyeongchang and defend the title of Olympic champions. “Of course, it's a pity that the hockey world will not see a tournament with the participation of all the best, but this decision of the NHL does not change our main task and our strategy in any way,” Rotenberg said.

On Wednesday, the NHL officially announced that the league's players would not be competing in the Olympics. In recent weeks, due to the coronavirus, 50 regular league matches have already been postponed.

The NHL refused to participate in the second Olympics in a row. In 2018, the Olympic tournament in Pyeongchang was also held without NHL players; Russian hockey players led by Oleg Znark became the winner. The NHL paused in its championship so that players could go to the Olympics in 1998–2014.

The Olympics will be held from February 2 to February 20, 2022. In early September, it was announced that NHL hockey players would come to Beijing, but the league had the right to change its decision until January 10.

bbabo.Net