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11 Apr 2016, 17:50

Russia’s eight NHL players summoned to national squad for 2016 World Championship

The players are goaltenders Sergey Bobrovsky and Semyon Varlamov; defender Alexei Emelin; forwards Nail Yakupov, Sergey Plotnikov, Sergey Kalinin, Alexander Burmistrov and Viktor Tikhonov

MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. A total of eight Russian players from the US-based National Hockey League (NHL) clubs have been summoned to the national team ahead of the 2016 IIHF World Championship, the press service of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation (RHF) reported on Monday.

The Russian ice hockey players from the overseas clubs at the issue are goaltenders Sergey Bobrovsky (Columbus Blue Jets) and Semyon Varlamov (Colorado Avalanche); defender Alexei Emelin (Montreal Canadiens); forwards Nail Yakupov (Edmonton Oilers), Sergey Plotnikov (Pittsburg Penguins), Sergey Kalinin (New Jersey Devils), Alexander Burmistrov (Winnipeg Jets) and Viktor Tikhonov (Arizona Coyotes).

The matches of the 2016 IIHF World Championship are scheduled to be held in the country’s capital of Moscow and in Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg between May 6 and 22. The games of the global ice hockey tournament will be hosted by the VTB Ice Palace in Moscow and the Yubileny Arena in St. Petersburg.

A total of 16 national teams, qualified to play in the upcoming 2016 IIHF World Championship, were divided into two groups. The 12,000-seat VTB Ice Palace in Moscow will host the matches of Group A, which comprise the teams from Russia, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Latvia, Norway, Denmark and Kazakhstan.

The 6,000-seat Yubileny Arena will see the matches of Group B teams, which are from Canada, Finland, the United States, Slovakia, Belarus, France, Germany and Hungary.

During the knock-out stage the stadiums in Moscow and St. Petersburg will each host two matches of the quarterfinals round, while both semifinals, the match for the third place and the final are scheduled to be held at the VTB Ice Palace in Moscow.

This will be the 7th IIHF World Championship held in Russia as it was hosted by Moscow five times, namely in 1957, 1973, 1979, 1986 and 2007, and once by St. Petersburg in 2000.