Valeri Nichushkin has nearly decade old case against him dropped

The Russian Hockey Federation (RHF) announced today that the IIHF is dropping a years old doping case against Colorado Avalanche forward Valeri Nichushkin.

The RHF said "the IIHF informed Nichushkin that all charges against the player have been dropped" and that it would not attempt to suspend him. The RHF said this followed "the results of additional analyses" at a drug-testing laboratory in Switzerland.

In November 2021, RHF executive director Dmitry Kurbatov told media the case originated with a sample Nichushkin gave way back in 2013. Kurbatov said that the World Anti-Doping Agency obtained Nichushkin's sample in 2019 from the closed Moscow lab and that a banned substance was found when it was reanalyzed.