The head of Slovak hockey, Miroslav Šatan, and the coach of the Slovakian national team, Craig Ramsay, announced the expected news at Monday’s press conference: the team for the final tournament for promotion to the 2026 Winter Olympics also includes hockey players working in the KHL.
Photo: Milan Illík
Right in the background: General Secretary of the SZĽH Miroslav Lažo, President of the SZĽH Miroslav Šatan and coach of the Slovak national hockey team Craig Ramsay.
For the Slovaks from the Russian competition, it will be the first participation since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Several questions from the journalists present were also aimed at their return to the national team.
One of them related to the moral and ethical side of the matter and read:
“Since 2019, there has been a statute of a representative, where moral and ethical values are written. Aren’t players who play in the KHL, which is a propaganda competition, violating this statute?”
The head of Slovak hockey reacted forcefully.
“That is not written anywhere in the statute. Your morality is yours, every person has a different morality. There are people living in Slovakia who vote differently.
We don’t care how they vote. We are here for everyone, whether they are more to the right or to the left, Christians or atheists. We represent the whole of Slovakia.
I will also tell you to do a little less activism and more sports journalism. Criticize sports things and do politics less. You are a sports journalist,” Šatan said to the editor of Šport.
The former national team captain also reacted sharply to another question posed by the Markíza television editor.
His question was:
“You claim that you were guided by the performance of the players when compiling the nomination and that you are an apolitical organization. If a player played for the Taliban, for example, and performed at the level of a national team, would it be okay to call him up?’
“You’re completely off the mark, that’s your opinion. Just as your editor spread misinformation, I will say outright that he lied, that I put the players in the team as a coach,” responded Šatan.
He was alluding to the status of another editor of TV Markíz, who a few days ago wrote on the social network that Satan should have interfered in the nomination for the Olympic qualification.
“The journalist can expect that the legal department will also look into it, whether there will be consequences,” threatened the first man of Slovak hockey.
“Today, some journalists are all about clicks and likes. They don’t understand what kind of work we do. If you don’t want to help us, at least don’t spoil it or lie to us.
Feel free to criticize our decisions and what we did sportingly, whether it was good or not. A young journalist wants attention and will write nonsense that is absolutely not true and he can verify it with us.
Try to think when you ask. I don’t know if this is a normal question about the Taliban,” Šatan added to the journalists.
Source: sportweb.pravda.sk
