Flyers goaltender receives 3 year competition ban.

This seems more than a little unfair.

On Saturday, the International Ice Hockey Federation announced that it would be handing down severe punishments to both the Russian Ice Hockey Federation and against Russian hockey club CSKA Moscow for the fiasco that prevented goaltender Ivan Fedotov from reporting to the Philadelphia Flyers after signing a contract with the team in May of 2022.

Unfortunately caught up in all of this will be Fedotov himself, who according to the IIHF's official ruling has now received a 3 year competition ban from all IIHF sanctioned events, a list that unfortunately includes the Olympic Games. Fedotov will also have to serve a 6 month suspension when he plays for any hockey club outside of the NHL that is under IIHF governance, which means that he will have to sit out for 6 months after his NHL career is over if he wishes to continue playing hockey elsewhere.

That is a rather unfortunate set of punishments for a player that, based on his decision to sign the contract in the first place, appeared more than willing to come to North America to play hockey. Instead it feels like Fedotov is being punished for being the victim of rather unfortunate circumstances that were outside of his control.

That being said the most severe of punishments were reserved for both the Russian Ice Hockey Federation and CSKA Moscow. The Russian Ice Hockey Federation has been slapped with a massive fine in the sum of 1 million Swiss Francs, where as a 2 year international transfer ban has been levied against CSKA Moscow.