Russia's Strategic Use of Hockey for International Goodwill

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00:00but you have to wonder why are the russians doing this in that you know i mean what's what's their

00:06motive right why are the russians suddenly being so nice and letting their players go when they

00:11were so adamant about not doing it uh before i think it's because it's the one thing that

00:16putin loves uh so much is hockey and i think he's trying to use hockey as some sort of a little bit

00:22of a little bit of an entry into goodwill hey look see we're not we're not all that bad we let

00:28the kid go he's in the nhl right they're trying to get back into the international hockey community

00:34and at least play and at some point it's something that's going to have to be brought up i mean whether

00:39i you know i don't agree with a lot of things that a lot of people and countries do but

00:43are we really gonna you're gonna ban the russian hockey team forever here

00:47right i mean we just had four nations and it really wasn't a true true tournament we could

00:52pretend it was but it really wasn't you know russians are pretty good at hockey so they kind

00:57of got to be part of it but this demidoff kid you know listen man he's only he's like 19 years old

01:03so he literally is a kid still yet he's been playing against men for years right so he played

01:09in their mhl which is like their their minor league and then the khl which is the pro league

01:13the kid in the khl man he was the rookie of the uh he was the rookie of the month three times

01:18and he broke records as far as most points most goals for a player under 20 in a russian professional

01:26league the track record is there the production is there he's played against men for years as well

01:33like he really is a prodigy phenom and now the canadians get him for the stretch run here and

01:41you know you have to wonder okay this kid's a kid is he ready to go from like you know i mean it's the

01:46khl is good but