More on Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s desired hockey series and why it’s upsetted the NHL

On Tuesday, there was a call that took place between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, focusing on a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine, but it was revealed that the leaders also spoke about hockey games.

According to the Kremlin’s readout of the call between Trump and Putin, the American president supported the Russian leader’s idea of organizing hockey matches in the United States and Russia between Russian and American players playing in the NHL and KHL.

The second-last line of the readout indicated that Trump is on board with the idea of having Team USA take on the Russian players in a competition.

The two agreed to discuss the matter further down the road.

On Wednesday morning, Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun added to the report saying that “whether American players would even be interested in this kind of series remains to be seen.”

“The series would be subject to approval from the NHL owners along with the NHL Players Association and representatives of the KHL.”

The NHL had issues a short statement on Tuesday:

“We have just become aware of conversations between President Trump and President Putin,” the league said in a statement. “We were not party to those discussions, and it would be inappropriate for us to comment at this time.”

On Wednesday, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman held a press conference following the GM meetings and was asked again about Trump and Putin’s desired hockey series. He admitted that the league was surprised about the call, commenting:

“I’m not going to speculate or anything else. It is what it is.”

Russia has been banned from all International Ice Hockey Federation events since the country began its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. That ban has included the IIHF world junior championship along with the world championship held in the spring. The Russians were also banned for the most recent 4-nations face-off, which featured Canada, USA, Sweden and Finland.

Trump actively supported the Americans and even called Team USA the morning of the final against Canada in Boston to wish the club good luck before Connor McDavid scored the winner in overtime for Team Canada.