Team Russia and Team Canada shake hands after the gold medal match at the 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships . (AFP/Getty Images)
Team Canada destroyed Team Russia 6-1 at the IIHF World Hockey Championship final in Prague on Sunday afternoon.
After the game, where the lone Russian goal was tapped in by Evgeni Malkin with 10 minutes left in the third, the Russian team was so eager to get off the ice they skipped out on the playing of the Canadian national anthem, a disrespectful breach of etiquette in the hockey community.
Here’s video of the incident
As Slava Malamud and others tweeted, a few members of the Russian team stayed on the ice, among them Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin. But it does look like Team Russia captain (and ex-NHL star) Ilya Kovalchuk waved players into the locker room.
According to Reuters, IIHF president Rene Fasel says the team will be punished for their actions.
“The IIHF has its own protocol and some sort of punishment will be handed down. When I saw what had happened, I was very upset. In the 29 world championships that I have had the honor of attending, this is the first time I have seen something like this.
What the Russian team did was completely out of order.”
As NBC Sports pointed out, the Russian team stayed on the ice for the handshake line and through the medal ceremony, but didn’t wait around for “O Canada” to start playing.
As the defending world champions, the Russians should be aware of the protocol involved in all of this and leaving the ice before the national anthem just isn’t done, no matter how embarrassing the loss.
(Thanks to Pro Hockey Talk for bringing this to our attention)
