The two world leaders spoke on a phone call on Tuesday and the Kremlin has revealed that an NHL-KHL hockey match was one of the talking points.
A behind-closed-doors conversation between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday reportedly included plans to hold a series of hockey games between the US and Russia.
The phone call between the two leaders comes as Trump has cut back the support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. The two leaders spoke for around 90 minutes and the Russian government has said that Putin suggested the hockey games, an idea that Trump reportedly supports.
ESPN reports a Kremlin statement confirming that Trump and Putin discussed the prospect of “hockey matches in the USA and Russia between Russian and American players playing in the NHL and KHL”.
The prospect of a diplomatic hockey game between teams from the two nations, who are seemingly on opposing sides of the war in Ukraine, was not expected to emerge from Tuesday’s meeting. However in the current climate a mutual love of hockey is one of few areas of universal agreement between the US and Russia.
Ties between the NHL and KHL have been fairly common in the past but that all changed with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with the league swiftly suspended all dealings with the Russian league and its teams and agents. In the aftermath of the invasion Western countries sought to cut ties with Russia but Trump has taken steps to move closer to Putin’s Russia once again.
In the past there have been exhibition games between NHL and KHL teams, most notably the ‘Premier Challenge’ series in 2010. However in response to Tuesday’s news, the National Hockey League confirmed that it was aware of the proposal but it was unwilling to give any indication of interest in the idea.
“We have just become aware of the conversation between President Trump and President Putin,” reads an NHL statement. “Obviously, we were not a party to those discussions and it would be inappropriate for us to comment at this time.”
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