The next world hockey championship ended in the Czech Republic, the winner which became the hosts of the tournament. Based on its results, the International Federation (IIHF) published an updated ranking of national teams. In it, Russia rose to second place, despite being suspended for more than two years.
The top 10 of the updated IIHF ranking among men is as follows:
The last adult hockey world championship was the third that the Russian team missed for political reasons. But how come we keep going up?
The IIHF rankings are based on the results of teams over the last five tournaments: four World Championships and one Olympics. Every year, countries receive points with a coefficient calculated depending on how long ago the championship was held. The position of Russia (as well as Belarus) in the IIHF rankings is frozen: we continue to receive our points thanks to the results shown in the last tournaments in which we took part before the suspension. Namely, three bronze medals at the World Championships and one silver medal at the 2022 Olympics. The Finns did not win awards at the world championships for the second year in a row. For this reason, they dropped and missed Russia into second place.
“How the hell is this possible?” In Finland, the results of the updated IIHF ranking were expectedly met with criticism and indignation. Major Finnish media outlets have published several reports. For example, one of the materials of the publication Ilta Sanomat received a telling headline “Is this a joke? Russia has surpassed Finland”:
“”The IIHF distributes rating points to Russia, although the Russians do not play in prestigious competitions. They remain at the top of the list Canada, but the following places make us rub our eyes,” the authors write.
Journalists from the Yle portal are also perplexed: “How the hell is this possible?”they ask in the headline of one from articles.
Not only Finnish journalists, but also officials are making claims against the IIHF. Thus, the former vice-president of the International Hockey Federation, the mayor of Tampere, Kalervo Kummola, sharply criticized the organization. For him, as, apparently, for the whole of Finland, it was a complete surprise that Russia, which was excluded from world tournaments, was ahead of Suomi.
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"This is absolutely incredible. This is shocking news for me. I don't know how it works, but it looks ridiculous. It would be better if this entire rating was closed altogether,” Ilta Sanomat quotes Kummola.
Chairman of the Finnish Hockey Federation, member of the IIHF Council Heikki Hietanen spoke much more categorically. In his opinion, the IIHF should discuss the point at which Russia continues to receive rating points, which leads, as he put it, to “curious situations.”
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"This seems a little funny. Is it right that Russia still receives the points it once earned? We are now discussing how to deal with this in the future. When we made the decision to "freeze" Russia's position in the ranking, we did not want to punish them with a demotion in this ranking or loss of points.
So far the federation has not made any changes in connection with the current situation, but we will, of course, think about this again, as well as how fair this state of affairs is for other countries. The rating system is good, if you don't pay attention to the oddities associated with Russia. There is no need to change the system itself. However, such curious situations may continue to arise. I think that at the next meetings of the IIHF we will discuss the issue of the rating points that Russia has scored,” Hietanen is quoted as saying by Yle.
The Russian national teams will miss the next season again. At the beginning of 2024, the IIHF extended the suspension of Russians from participation in international tournaments for the 2024/25 season. By May 2025, the federation promises to announce the next decision on the Russian and Belarusian issue for the 2025/26 season. Let us remind you that in February 2026 the Olympic Games will be held in Italy, in which players of the National Hockey League will take part.
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