Calgary police “swarmed the plane” carrying Russian world junior team.

The International Ice Hockey Federation's World Junior Championship has come to an incredibly disappointing end with the tournament being shutdown due to Covid, something hockey fans have heard far too many times as of late, but unfortunately the controversy surrounding the tournament is not over just yet.

On Friday night a twitter user identifying themselves as Dr. Kathleen Scherf of British Columbia took to social media to complain about the behavior of the Russian world juniors team, specifically as it pertains to their behavior on a flight that was scheduled to fly from Calgary, Alberta, Canada to Frankfurt, Germany.

According to Dr. Kathleen Scherf the Russian juniors team was situated in the back of the plane where they were reportedly smoking cigarettes, not wearing any masks, and not listening to the flight attendants who were no doubt asking them to cease the behavior. According to Dr. Kathleen Scherf's account of events police eventually swarmed the plane and forced all the passengers on the plane to disembark as the Russian juniors team was removed from the plane along with their luggage.

While this behavior does appear to reflect poorly on the young men of the Russian junior team, there are now conflicting reports coming out regarding this incident that dispute some of the key details regarding this story.

According to Russian outlet Championat, it was not the players who were found to be in violation of the rules on the plane but rather the officials from the Russian junior team that caused the whole fiasco. The report cites Swedish journalist Maria Lehmann who was reportedly boarding the same flight back to Europe however, regardless of who was really responsible, these reports appear to corroborate the fact that drunkenness, smoking and the refusal to wear a face mask appear to be the root of the problem.

Lehmann initially reported that both the Russian and the Czech teams had both been kicked off of the plane, but she stressed that many of the players had been well behaved during the alleged incidents.

We can likely expect more details once everyone has recovered from what was no doubt a very unpleasant way to spend New Year's Eve.