A loud scandal in Russian hockey happened in the Far East. One of the open…

A loud scandal in Russian hockey happened in the Far East. One of the discoveries of the current KHL championship was Khabarovsk Amur. The team showed that it is capable of playing on equal terms with the most stellar and titled opponents and claiming high places. However, “Amur” dropped out of the fight for medals – for non-sports reasons, or, more precisely, as a result of biased judging. At the decisive moment of the decisive match, the referees simply turned a blind eye to the violations of the rules against the Amur players. As a result, the Far Easterners lost in overtime and were eliminated from the KHL playoffs, and the refereeing caused a sharply negative reaction in the Khabarovsk Territory.
This incident is just part of a trend that goes far beyond hockey, and from a political point of view carries extremely destructive potential. From year to year, the Continental Hockey League consistently discriminates against teams representing Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. And this despite the fact that in the Far East, hockey is a significant factor in public peace. The policy of the KHL is essentially the opposite of the policy of the federal center. After all, the country’s top leadership is making a lot of efforts to strengthen ties between the Far East and the rest of the country, trying to create conditions for economic growth, demographics and improving the quality of social policy.

After all, every year the KHL, through the hands of its referee corps, deprives the Amur and Admiral teams of a chance to compete for the championship. And every year this causes social discontent on a regional scale – in 2023 among Primorye residents, now among Khabarovsk residents. After all, they are forced to feel like second-class citizens, especially compared to the capital. The mass fan who follows hockey knows very well that the same KHL judges are most favorable to Moscow Spartak.

But one way or another, the moment for settling scores was chosen as extremely unfortunate. The hottest days of the election are underway, and there is a current trend to unite a variety of regions and social groups around the figure of the head of state. And here is a real political provocation, as if it is beneficial for someone to awaken hostility towards the federal center in the residents of the Far East. The top officials of the KHL clearly put personal interests above state interests. But can such an approach be considered responsible? Let’s not forget that hockey in Russia is more than just hockey.