Dominik Hasek, a Sabres great who has advocated for the NHL to ban Russian players in response to their country’s invasion on Ukraine, apologized on Tuesday morning for participating in the pregame ceremony last week before the Sabres faced the Chicago Blackhawks at KeyBank Center.
In a series of tweets, Hasek stated that he was making his yearly vacation to Buffalo for business and charity events and had been invited to participate by “fans and the Buffalo Sabres Club.”
Hasek has spoken out extensively about how the NHL has allowed Russian players to continue to play and last summer called for the NHL to send $2 billion to $4 billion to Ukraine in compensation. He proposed to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman that the NHL should pay off the contracts the Russian players signed as a way of banning them. Otherwise, he said, the NHL is partially responsible for what’s going on in Ukraine.
