War has upended Russian-Nordic friendships forged on Arctic ice hockey rinks. Can they ever recover?

The Barents Hockey League, which fostered strong cross-border friendships between Norwegian, Finnish, and Russian ice hockey players in the Arctic region, has been suspended since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Teams like Finland's Tunturi-Kiekko, based in the Arctic town of Ivalo near the Finnish-Russian border, had previously enjoyed regular social and sporting contact with Russian counterparts through the league. Although the international ban on Russian teams has since been lifted, players on both sides say the warm relations built over years of Arctic competition feel like a distant memory.