MOSCOW, May 8. /TASS/. The ceremony of Russian ice hockey player Alexei Yashin’s induction into the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Hall of Fame class of 2020 will either take place during the federation’s semi-annual congress in Russia’s St. Petersburg in 2020 or at its annual congress in Minsk in 2021, IIHF President Rene Fasel told TASS.

The IIHF in early February announced its hall of fame class of 2020, featuring former captain of the Russian national team and two-time Olympic medalist and world champion Alexei Yashin. The ceremony was supposed to be held on May 24 in Zurich during the world championships, however, the tournament had to be cancelled due to the pandemic. The annual congress of the federation in 2020 will take place via a video conference.

Fasel said that the issue was discussed at the IIHF Congress. "If we can only meet next year in May in Belarus, we will do it [the ceremony] there. But then we have another one: we hope we can do it in the congress originally, maybe the congress in September but it’s not sure also," the IIHF president shared.

"It’s a little bit of headache. But for sure we will have an induction ceremony for these people 100%," he added. "We know the problem, we know the issue and we are working on that." "We should have a real ceremony, we should not do a virtual ceremony. The people deserve it. And there is no hurry to do it, so they will be inducted, it is just a question [of] when and where and how," Fazel underlined.

Apart from Yashin, the class of 2020 will include four players: Ryan Smyth (Canada), Mark Streit (Switzerland), Kimmo Timonen (Finland) and Mathias Seger (Switzerland).