A2 · Elementary
9 min
sports cultureinternational relationsnational identity
Russia's Back on Ice. Officially, Anyway.
El hielo no tiene bandera, dicen
The International Ice Hockey Federation says it will handle Russian participation case by case, following a January decision that lifted the blanket ban. Fletcher and Octavio dig into what Russian hockey actually means culturally, and why a case-by-case approach might be the most honest answer anyone's given so far.
La Federación Internacional de Hockey sobre Hielo decide el caso de Rusia uno por uno, después de levantar la prohibición en enero. Fletcher y Octavio hablan del hockey ruso, la historia soviética, y qué significa el deporte para una nación en guerra.
6 essential A2-level terms from this episode, with translations and example sentences in Spanish.
| Spanish | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| deporte | sport | El hockey es un deporte muy popular en Rusia. |
| prohibición | ban | La prohibición dura dos años. |
| jugador | player | Los jugadores rusos son muy buenos. |
| depende | it depends | Depende del partido. No sé quién gana. |
| orgullo | pride | El hockey es el orgullo nacional de Rusia. |
| bandera | flag | Los jugadores llevan la bandera de su país. |
Confession: I did not grow up watching hockey.
I grew up in Texas.
The ice rink was forty minutes away and it smelled like a Zamboni ate a gym sock.
But this IIHF story about Russia caught my attention, and I think it's actually about something bigger than a sports federation decision.
Fletcher, el hockey en Rusia no es un deporte.
Fletcher, hockey in Russia isn't a sport.
Es una religión.
It's a religion.
Which is exactly the kind of sentence that makes me want to understand it better.
Walk me through this decision first, though.
What did the IIHF actually say?
La IIHF dice: Rusia puede jugar.
The IIHF says: Russia can play.
Pero decide caso por caso.
But it decides case by case.
Right.
And that "case by case" language is doing a lot of work.
It lifted the ban in January, but it hasn't actually opened the door all the way.
It's more like...
a hand on the doorknob.
Sí.
Yes.
Es una decisión política.
It's a political decision.
No es una decisión de deporte.
It's not a sports decision.
Which brings me back to your point about religion.
You cannot fully understand this decision, in either direction, without knowing what hockey means in Russia.
And most Americans, including me until fairly recently, have a huge blind spot here.
La Unión Soviética empieza a jugar hockey en los años cincuenta.
The Soviet Union starts playing hockey in the nineteen fifties.
Late starters, technically.
Canada and the US had been playing for decades.
But then something remarkable happened.
Los soviéticos aprenden rápido.
The Soviets learn fast.
En diez años, son los mejores del mundo.
In ten years, they're the best in the world.
They won the Olympic gold in Cortina in 1956, just two years after joining international competition.
I had to look that up and it still seems impossible.
Y después, dominan por muchos años.
And then they dominate for many years.
El hockey soviético es diferente.
Soviet hockey is different.
Es muy inteligente.
It's very intelligent.
The style itself became famous.
The Soviets played a passing game, almost balletic compared to the North American style, which was more physical, more direct.
Hockey people still talk about the Soviet school of play as something that changed the sport forever.
El hockey es el orgullo nacional.
Hockey is the national pride.
Los jugadores son héroes.
The players are heroes.
And then 1972 happens.
The Summit Series.
Canada versus the Soviet Union, eight games split between the two countries.
It was essentially a proxy war on ice, and for a lot of people alive at the time it felt like the actual Cold War in miniature.
Canadá gana, pero solo por un gol.
Canada wins, but only by one goal.
En el último partido.
In the last game.
En el último minuto.
In the last minute.
Paul Henderson's goal with thirty-four seconds left.
Canadians of a certain generation remember exactly where they were when that happened.
It's their moon landing, their JFK moment.
That's how loaded this sport is, and that's entirely the Soviet side of it speaking.
En España no jugamos hockey.
In Spain we don't play hockey.
Pero yo entiendo esto.
But I understand this.
El fútbol es igual para nosotros.
Football is the same for us.
That's a useful translation, actually.
Because if you want to understand what banning Russia from international hockey feels like to a Russian hockey fan, imagine banning Spain from the World Cup.
Not just the players, the whole country.
Just...
gone.
Sí.
Yes.
Es muy serio.
It's very serious.
Es la identidad del país.
It's the country's identity.
So the ban, which came after the February 2022 invasion, was significant in exactly that register.
The IIHF suspended Russia and Belarus almost immediately.
And at the time, there was a genuine debate about whether that was the right move.
Los jugadores no hacen la guerra.
The players don't make the war.
Los jugadores solo juegan.
The players only play.
That's the strongest argument for lifting the ban.
These athletes trained their whole lives, had nothing to do with the decision to invade Ukraine, and got punished anyway.
I understand that argument.
But there's a counter-argument that's also real.
El gobierno ruso usa el deporte.
The Russian government uses sport.
Es propaganda.
It's propaganda.
And not subtly.
The Kremlin has used sporting success as a national narrative tool for decades.
Going back to the Soviet era, athletic victory was proof the system worked.
That hasn't changed.
A Russian team winning at the World Championship, while the war in Ukraine continues, sends a message.
Pero los jugadores también sufren.
But the players also suffer.
Muchos jugadores rusos viven en otros países ahora.
Many Russian players live in other countries now.
This is the part people don't always know.
When the ban came in, there were Russian players all over the NHL, playing for Canadian and American and Finnish clubs.
And suddenly the question became: what are you?
Are you a Russian national, or are you a professional athlete who happens to be Russian?
Los dos.
Both.
Son los dos.
They're both.
Es muy difícil.
It's very difficult.
And that's the human reality that the "case by case" decision is actually trying to navigate.
Which players want to compete for Russia?
Which ones represent a state apparatus that's conducting a war?
It's genuinely hard to draw that line.
En el fútbol español también hay muchos jugadores de otros países.
In Spanish football there are also many players from other countries.
Juegan aquí.
They play here.
No es lo mismo que ser de aquí.
It's not the same as being from here.
The identity question runs deep in sport.
What does it mean to represent a country you might feel ambivalent about?
Or a country that's doing something you privately oppose?
I covered the 2014 World Cup briefly, and I remember Brazilian players being booed in their own stadium.
National representation is always complicated.
La bandera no es el pueblo.
The flag is not the people.
El pueblo no es el gobierno.
The people are not the government.
That's a clean way of putting it.
Though I'd say the counterargument is that the flag is always, at least in part, the government.
You can't fully detach them, especially in a context where the state is actively using sport as a propaganda vehicle.
Sí, tienes razón.
Yes, you're right.
Es un problema muy grande.
It's a very big problem.
No hay una respuesta fácil.
There isn't an easy answer.
The Ukrainian hockey federation, for what it's worth, has been vocal about this.
They've said any readmission of Russia is a betrayal of Ukrainian athletes who've been displaced by the war.
And that's not an abstract complaint.
Ukrainian hockey players have lost teammates, family members.
One player I read about was training for a tournament when his hometown was bombed.
Eso es terrible.
That's terrible.
El deporte no puede ignorar eso.
Sport cannot ignore that.
And yet, practically speaking, the IIHF is a federation that needs its biggest hockey nations to function.
Russia has historically been one of the sport's powerhouses.
Keeping them out permanently has costs.
That's the uncomfortable calculation that led to January's decision.
El dinero también importa.
Money matters too.
Siempre importa.
It always matters.
Always.
Russian hockey is big business, Russian TV rights matter, Russian corporate sponsors matter.
I'm not saying that's the only driver but let's not pretend it's not in the room.
El deporte siempre dice: 'No es política.' Pero siempre es política.
Sport always says: 'It's not politics.' But it's always politics.
I want that on a wall somewhere.
Because you're right.
The history of sport and politics is the history of pretending they're separate while they're deeply entwined.
The 1936 Olympics.
The 1980 boycott.
South Africa and cricket.
The whole edifice of 'sport is sport' collapses the moment you look at it directly.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y el hockey ruso no es solo deporte.
And Russian hockey isn't just sport.
Es la historia de un país.
It's the history of a country.
Which is why, even when the war ends, this doesn't get simple.
The cultural weight of Russian hockey doesn't go away.
The question of what it means to welcome that back into the international family, on what terms, with what acknowledgment of what happened, that's going to take years to work out.
Octavio, una cosa más.
Octavio, one more thing.
Tú dices 'caso por caso.' En español, usamos 'depende de' mucho.
You say 'case by case.' In Spanish, we use 'depende de' a lot.
Actually, hold on, you said something earlier I want to come back to.
You said 'depende' without adding anything after it.
Just 'depende.' Is that normal?
Can you leave it hanging like that?
Sí, claro.
Yes, of course.
'Depende' sola es normal.
'Depende' alone is normal.
Significa 'it depends.' Sin más.
It means 'it depends.' Nothing more.
In English we can do the same, right, "it depends" as a complete answer.
But you can also say "depende de" with something after it?
Sí.
Yes.
'Depende del jugador.' 'Depende de la situación.' 'Depende de ti.' Muy útil.
'It depends on the player.' 'It depends on the situation.' 'It depends on you.' Very useful.
So 'depende de' is the equivalent of 'it depends on.' Which means that 'case by case' in this IIHF story, the whole spirit of that phrase, translates pretty naturally into 'depende del caso.' Does that work?
Funciona perfectamente.
It works perfectly.
Oye, no está mal, Fletcher.
Hey, that's not bad, Fletcher.
Mejor que 'estoy muy embarazado.'
Better than 'I'm very pregnant.'
I walked right into that one.
Alright, 'depende.' One of those words you can drop into almost any conversation and sound like you know what you're doing.
I'll take it.
Thanks, Octavio.