Germany hopes to host world ice hockey championship — without Russia

A government spokesman has said that, despite talks with the German Ice Hockey Federation (DEB), the International Ice Hockey Federation (DEB) and others, the impasse caused by last week's Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruling remains.

Since the October 30 decision, several leading ice hockey nations — including Finland, Sweden and Czechia — have said they would refrain from playing against Russia in any tournament in which it is allowed to take part. Several key sponsors have also threatened to pull out, should the Russians be allowed to play.

The first tournament to be affected would be the Men's World Juniors, which opens in Canada in late December, followed by the IIHF's premier event, the Men's World Ice Championship, to be hosted by Germany in May.

Stefan Kornelius, the spokesman for Germany's government, told reporters in Berlin on Friday that talks held with various stakeholders had made clear that Russia's participation would render the hosting of the championship "practically impossible — both from a sporting and an economic perspective."

Kornelius said talks would continue and the government still hoped for a diplomatic solution that would allow Germany to host the championship — as planned — in Gelsenkirchen, Mannheim and Düsseldorf in May.

"Our goal must be to hold the tournaments as scheduled," he said. "However, given the boycotts that would follow Russia's readmission, that would effectively be impossible. For this reason, we intend to explore — through dialogue — how we can still ensure the tournament takes place."

Following the CAS ruling that the IIHF must allow Russia to return to international play, DEB chairman Frank Lutz had conceded that Germany may be forced to consider withdrawing as championship host.

Asked at Friday's press conference whether Germany could issue visas to a Russian team for the tournament, a Foreign Ministry spokesman declined to answer categorically, but did indicate that this would be difficult under restrictions currently in place.

"At a time when Russia is waging a war of aggression against Ukraine, there can be no 'normalcy' — and we will certainly not pretend that there is," said spokesperson Martin Giese.

Earlier this week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney categorically ruled out Russian players taking part in the World Juniors in Alberta.

"While Russia and Belarus are supporting this illegal, unjustified war in Ukraine, as long as that's going on, there will be none of those athletes competing for their countries in Canada," he said.

"So, if you're asking specifically about the World Juniors," he said, "the Russians will not be there."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also weighed in on the issue, accusing countries opposing Russia's return to international sport of violating the rights of his country's athletes.

The IIHF Council had originally called two days of meetings, on Monday and Tuesday, to try to reach a consensus on how to respond to the CAS decision — before extending discussions for a third day, on Thursday. By Friday, its members had evidently still not reached a consensus.