The United States men’s hockey team beat Russia 3-2 on Saturday — aided by a disallowed goal late in the third period — and it didn’t take long for the host country to cry foul.
With 4:40 remaining in regulation, Fedor Tyutin appeared to give the Russians a 3-2 lead, but the goal was disallowed, as it was ruled by American referee Brad Meier the net was dislodged from its moorings.
The Americans would go on to win in a shootout, and after the game, Alexei Pushkov — the chairman of the foreign affairs committee of Russia’s lower house of parliament — tweeted in Russian (translated in a Washington Post article) that the fix was in.
“How can a referee from the U.S.A. judge the U.S. team?! The puck was in the goal! What an abomination! Cheating in front of the whole world!! Disgusting.
“It was not a victory by the U.S. team over Russia. It was a ‘victory’ by the judging panel of the U.S. and Sweden. Nobody saw the goal shift.”
Meanwhile, Russian president Vladimir Putin, who watched the game from a VIP box, expressed his opinion on whom he thought was the better team.
“Sports is sports,” he said after the game, according to ITAR-Tass, a Russian news agency. “We’ll see. I think our team played very well. And in my view, you can feel that they’re a class higher, just a bit above [the U.S. team].”