Ivan Fedotov finished his service in CSKA – Kommersant

The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) club CSKA announced the termination of the contract with goalkeeper Ivan Fedotov. “The club thanks Ivan Fedotov and wishes him success in his future career,” the army team said in a statement. It also notes that CSKA still retains the player’s sporting rights in Russia. However, according to Sport Express, the 27-year-old goalkeeper will continue his career in the National Hockey League (NHL), where the Philadelphia Flyers own the rights to him.

Ivan Fedotov became the central character in a loud and scandalous situation in which CSKA, the KHL, the Russian Hockey Federation, the International Hockey Federation (IIHF), and the NHL were involved. In 2022, Fedotov, who played for CSKA, signed a one-year contract with Philadelphia. However, he was unable to fly to North America. In the summer of that year in St. Petersburg, he was detained by military registration and enlistment office employees, and the athlete went to serve in the army. After finishing his service, Fedotov, instead of leaving for the USA, where he was still expected, signed a contract with CSKA. This caused protests from the North American side. It turned out that Philadelphia “postponed” the contract with Fedotov to the next season, believing that the goalkeeper’s absence from the previous season was caused by force majeure. And NHL leaders even equated what happened to a complete rejection of the 2010 Memorandum of Understanding. This document, in essence, declared recognition of each other’s contracts by both the American and domestic leagues. As a result, a situation arose in which neither side could influence the opponent in any way. Even the intervention of the IIHF did not help, which refused CSKA to register a contract with the goalkeeper, and disqualified the hockey player himself for four months. At the same time, CSKA was banned from international transfers for a period of one year. But despite this, the KHL allowed Fedotov to compete in the next championship.

However, he did not spend the season very well. Just like CSKA as a whole: the army team was eliminated from the Gagarin Cup in the first round after losing to Lokomotiv, and on Wednesday they announced the dismissal of head coach Sergei Fedorov and the appointment of a new coach, Ilya Vorobyov.

Alexander Petrov