For the first time since 2016, a Ukrainian hockey player played in an AHL match.

Ukrainian hockey player Artur Cholach participated in the American Hockey League (AHL) as part of the 'Henderson Silver Knights' team, which is the farm club of the 'Vegas Golden Knights'.

Cholach became the first Ukrainian player to play in the second strongest hockey league in North America since 2016. The last one before him was Ruslan Fedotenko, who played for the 'Iowa Wild'.

Throughout the history of the AHL, 30 Ukrainian hockey players have played, including Oleksiy Ponikarovskyi, Serhiy Varlamov, Dmytro Hryshch, Oleksandr Hodyniuk, and Ihor Karpenko.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is once again outraged that the Russian national team was not allowed to participate in the Hockey World Championship. The Ministry accused the International Ice Hockey Federation of politicization and discrimination but provided no evidence for its accusations.

The decision to exclude the Russian national team from the 2026 World Championship was made at the meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Ice Hockey Federation on February 4. The Russian Ice Hockey Federation has the opportunity to appeal this decision after the World Championship 2025. It is noteworthy that the decision may be reviewed if Russian aggression against Ukraine ceases. A decision regarding the participation of the Russian national team in the Olympic hockey tournament in 2026 has not yet been made.