The Russian national ice hockey team. IMAGE: Alexander Demyanchuk/TASS
On May 18, the Russian national ice hockey team beat Latvia’s team (3-1) at the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship in Slovakia and entered the cup’s play-off.
On May 16, the Russians won a landslide victory beating Italy 10-0. On May 14, the Russian team scored a victory over the the Czech team (4-0).
The successes of the Russian team at the World Championship triggered a new mainstream media, which came with a fresh round of speculations in an attempt to cast shadow on the perfomance of the Russian team.
In particular, after the game with the Czech team, Czech mainstream media claimed that the Russian team drunk about 160 glasses of beer during a dinner at an Asian Iasai restaurant in Bratislava. Most of the reports were designed in a way attempting to demonstrate “non-professional” behaviour of the hockey players. The Russian side denounced these reports.
This is not the first time, when the Russian team becomes a target of media over its perfomance. During the last World Hockey Championship, mainstram media claimed that the Russian team ordered vodka and caviar for 26 million rubles (about 401,000 USD).
Both these cases are an example of common reaction of mainstream media and Western states to any successes of Russia. If it appears that there is no option to defeat it or take an advantage in some shady way, mainstream media outlets always come to blame and shame “bad Russians” for this situation.
