Politicians, especially those who were once good at sports, tend to get competitive when they find themselves in a game (witness Boris Johnson’s famous rugby tackle of a 10-year-old boy). So why does Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his youth a pretty successful wrestler, keep playing in exhibition ice hockey games in which he is allowed to score numerous goals, seemingly without much opposition? He scored eight, plus an assist, in the most recent one, on May 10 (some of the goals can be seen in this state TV video starting at the 1:52 mark), and that probably wasn’t even his personal best — in 2019, he scored between eight and 13 in a single game, according to different sources.
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Leonid Bershidsky: Putin takes the ice for a game that’s over
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko speak as they take part in an ice hockey match at Shayba Arena in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, on Feb. 15, 2019.
