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Russian president Vladimir Putin has been in the news an awful lot lately. Between the Sochi Olympics and the tensions rising in Ukraine, Putin has been in the middle of a lot of things. So what does a controversial world leader with a human rights record in precipitous decline do to blow off some steam in his spare time (besides riding horses shirtless, of course)? Well, he heads out to the rink for a couple twirls with his famous hockey buds.
Putin was in Sochi earlier this weekend for hockey game as part of something called the All-Russia Festival of Night Hockey. Also playing in the game were Russian hockey legends Vyacheslav Fetisov, Pavel Bure, Valery Kamensky and Aleksey Kasatonov, just to name a few.
When on the ice, Putin looks like your run-of-the-mill beer league player, or perhaps a slightly below average one. So it may surprise you to know that he scored a couple goals in the game, including one in the first minute.
But here’s the thing about being a controversial world leader with an increasingly questionable human rights record… No one will defend you and everyone on your team will do whatever they can to get you the puck.
And how does a controversial world leader with a questionable human rights record celebrate a goal? Does he show excitement or the slight bit of enjoyment? Of course not. He celebrates with the excitement I celebrated doing my laundry in college. Kind of like it’s expected, even though it doesn’t happen very often.
Good ol’ Vlad has a pretty decent shot but he doesn’t quite get to where he’s going with much urgency. Not like he would to, say, the Ukrainian border.
As the saying goes, “Hockey is for everyone.” Even controversial world leaders with a questionable human rights record, apparently.
