The CJN Daily: Prominent Canadians in Israeli hockey speak out after the IIHF abruptly banned Israel from competition

This is the most recent episode of The CJN Daily, about the recent fracas between the International Ice Hockey Federation and Israel's national teams. We thought Menschwarmers subscribers would be especially interested, so we're cross-posting it on this feed—listen and enjoy.

Last week, the International Ice Hockey Federation—the sport’s governing body—announced they were barring Israeli national teams from competing in crucial championship matches this winter. The move is seen by many as an unfair penalty against the Jewish State in the wake of the war with Hamas, in which an estimated 25,000 Palestinians have been killed, resulting from Hamas’s terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

IIHF officials insist their decision was not political, but instead made purely for security reasons: they couldn’t guarantee Israeli athletes’ safety from protestors during upcoming matches in Bulgaria, Serbia and Estonia, nor the safety of all participants and fans. Nonetheless, Israel’s hockey federation has announced a legal appeal.

In the meantime, the IIHF’s ruling has shocked the team’s fans around the world—not to mention Israel’s athletes and coaches themselves, including a handful of Canadians closely tied to Israel’s hockey program. On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, you’ll hear from two of them: Esther Silver, the Canadian-born manager of Israel’s women’s hockey team, and Eliezer Sherbatov, a veteran of the men’s team, now based in Montreal._