Vladimir Putin Plays Ice Hockey With Retired NHL Pros, Scores 8, You’ll Never Believe How Embarrassingly Easy His Goals Were

When Russian president Vladimir Putin wants to play ice hockey he gets to play ice hockey. And when he wants to do that alongside a team of former NHL stars he gets to do that too. And even though it sounds utterly ridiculous, when he wants to lead his team of former professionals to victory by scoring eight goals he even gets to do that.

Sixty-two-year-old Putin played in an exhibition match on Saturday, and unsurprisingly his side ran out victorious by a score of 18-6. Eight of these goals were smashed home by Putin, while Pavel Bure and Valeri Kamensky, both of whom were former professional NHL players, provided pretty much every assist for the Russian leader to score.

Meanwhile three of the goals were slotted home by Sergey Shoygu, who, when he’s not wowing crowds with his amateur ice hockey skills, is also employed as Russia’s defense minister.

You can check out the rather embarrassing footage of a 62-year-old man pretending that he’s just as good at playing ice hockey as the ex-professionals below. It is truly cringe-worthy stuff.

As you can see from the clip, Putin was greeted with a rapturous applause by people in the stadium as he made his way out onto the ice for the contest. The contest was hosted in Sochi, the Russian city that hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics, while Russian Prime Minister Ditry Medvedev watched in the stands.

It had been orchestrated to celebrate 70 years vince Victory in World War II, while it also coincided with Russia’s national hockey team beating the U.S. by 4-0 in the semi-final of the ice hockey world championship. Russia will now play Canada in the final on Sunday.

The thing that makes Vladimir Putin’s performance on the ice even more remarkable is that the Russian president has only taken up playing ice hockey in recent years to try and help promote the sport.

However those of you who think that Vladimir Putin only excels while playing ice hockey are sorely mistaken. That’s because images of Putin fishing while topless back in 2007 have been fawned over on the internet for years, while his love of swimming, hang gliding, judo, arm wrestling, and horse back riding has been captured too.

[Image via Union Esarda]