The Russians and Americans have faced off many times.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed that his country’s National Hockey League players and Kontinental Hockey League players take on American players in both Russia and the United States in some sort of tournament. There are numerous hurdles to overcome for that to happen starting with NHL owners who probably don’t want the extra wear and tear on players and the players themselves who are under NHL contracts who randomly cannot play in international tourneys and there might be a problem with the International Ice Hockey Federation, a group that likes to be involved in international hockey decisions. NHL owners had to sign an agreement to allow the players to compete in the upcoming 2026 Milan-Cortina, Italy Winter Olympics. The NHL also stages its own tournament.
The notion of a goodwill type tournament is not new. During the height of the Cold War in the late 1950s, American President Dwight Eisenhower and the Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev attempted to find common ground between the two countries and Eisenhower did send hockey teams to the Soviet Union in 1958 and 1959. The Soviets sent a hockey team to play against a team of college and semi-pros players touring the United States in 1959. So, it is not a new idea. None of the initiatives brought down the tensions between the Soviets and the Americans. That tension continued through the 1980s when the Americans boycotted the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics because of the Christmas Eve 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Soviets returned the favor by boycotting the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. By the late 1980s, the Soviets allowed older basketball and hockey players to compete in North American sports although some Soviet players did defect to the west like Alexander Mogilny to play hockey. Sports has played a part in diplomacy.
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Dwight Eisenhower
