The Olympics is supposed to bring nations together in the spirit of celebrating athletic achievement. That spirit still underlies it BUT is buried deep under IOC corruption and national sports programs cheating (doping, judging scandals, etc) and bribery by countries to host obscenely expensive and socio/enviro/economically questionable extravaganzas of one-upmanship.

The Olympics are dead. Their ratings drop every occurrence. The world cups compete with them for the real fans of individual events.

Any athlete calling for a boycott of another nations athlete is just virtue signaling while ignoring the rot that has existed for decades.

That’s largely because hockey isn’t a large sport across the world. When it comes to many other sports, olympics is the highest level.

Then you'd have to block the entire Western World, and many parts of the Eastern world, too, because we've always had everyone's backing.

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‘’Kemp's attorney, Scott Boatman, said in a statement to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski on Thursday that Kemp's car was broken into and numerous items, including an iPhone were stolen. Kemp tracked his iPhone to an occupied car, and was shot at when he approached the vehicle. Kemp then returned fire in self defense, Boatman says.’’

NHL players give way more of a shit about getting their name on the Stanley Cup than winning an Olympic gold...

They didn't even put up a big fight when the NHL decided they aren't stopping the season for the Olympics anymore.

Incredible skier. What a crazy achievement. I can't imagine how much pressure fell off her shoulders today. Looking forward to following her career to 100 wins.

There are more important things in life besides sports. They'll live unlike some Ukrainians.

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Why does no one refer to him as SIR Lewis Hamilton

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Few things:

1. It is 2023. I think any “civilized” nation involved in anything that even smells like Genocide should be held accountable and yes banning from international sport may be one avenue to holding them accountable.

2. My point was more that this is a bit hypocritical of Canadians. They want Russians banned but then 15k+ fans are cheering as Russians score goals and chasing scoring titles.

3. I don’t know that barring anyone is the right move, at the same time. We have a lot of Russian players in the NHL that probably plan to never return to Russia. Banning them does seem like the wrong move and it’s a slippery slope. Again just calling out the hypocrisy here.

Most of the athletes anywhere from represent themselves. Yes, they are proud of representing their country and people but they also do for themselves.

People forget that in most of the Olympic sports the Games are an ultimate sports competition. You can hardly find a sport or a competition where Olympics aren't the most important for an athlete as such - football as a sport in whole, NBA > Olympics, and that's basically that. In every other case for an individual sport, athletes practice very hard and very intense for that once in 4 years competition and can realistically hope for no more than 2 in their lifetime. That's their dream, something they give their life for and practice very, very hard.

I can understand for this initiative to come from some politicians but from fellow athletes... that's just cruelty as such. Bad people.

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Judging by Watsons performance last year that trade might not be the greatest for the Texans lol time will tell

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When a team loses a draft pick it should go to the teams biggest rival

At this point, russians should be excluded from just about every activity outside of Russia.

Shouldn't they block Americans too, as their country is always invading another nation?

It also feels really hollow, when people act like Russia is the only country right now that is doing something atrocious.

I fail to see how banning Russian athletes from competition is going to in any way "teach Russia a lesson" - but, OK, if we're going to go that route then what about, say, China? Aren't the atrocities being carried out by that country worthy of this same kind of outcry?

I mean, let's say they're banned from competition. Are we to view this as some kind of compassionate, righteous victory for humanity, some triumph for the downtrodden... while representatives for China (to use that other, earlier example) play on?

What about that part of humanity? What of all the other downtrodden?

If we're going to apply this sort of thing to representatives for one, the same considerations should go for all others.

I'm all for calling out Russia. But, just Russia? For a global competition?

Something's missing.

Also Russians are particularly infamous for doping

Sad