2022 Olympic Preview: Team Russia

I've spent much of the past two weeks making it my mission to imagine a world in which the IIHF has granted me full autonomy over the 2022 Olympic men's hockey rosters. It's simple: They recognize my unique qualifications for this role as one of the few hockey writers underutilizing a degree in international politics, I imagine.

So far I’ve made my way through the four countries to win a medal in the last two tournaments in which NHL players were permitted to participate: Canada, the United States, Sweden, and Finland. Now it's Russia's turn. Or as the IOC would put it, a random collection of unaffiliated athletes who happen to have been born in roughly the same area, speak the same language, and have a lot of “v”s in their names. For the purposes of this article, I’m just going to call the