Calgary Flames forward Yegor Sharangovich is many things. He’s a really good hockey player. He’s a Lego maniac. But one thing he likely won’t be, at least in 2026, is an Olympian.

On Tuesday, the International Ice Hockey Federation announced that Russia and Belarus will continue to be excluded from IIHF-sanctioned international competitions for the 2025-26 season.

In terms of the hockey calendar, that time period includes such events as the 2026 World Juniors, the 2026 World Championships… and the 2026 Olympics. The Olympics are a bit of a unique animal, in that while each event’s governing body generally runs the show – the IIHF for men’s and women’s ice hockey – the International Olympic Committee technically has the ability to overrule them and overturn bans. They generally don’t do so, though, so it seems extremely unlikely that we’ll see Russia and Belarus at the upcoming Olympics.

The men’s Olympic tournament will likely include France instead of Russia, and they’ll join Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Finland, Germany, Czechia, Denmark, USA, Slovakia and Latvia.

From a Flames perspective, the exclusion of Russia and Belarus probably means a pair of players won’t be going that otherwise would be close to locks: Sharangovich, and Wranglers blueliner Ilya Solovyov, both for Belarus. (Daniil Miromanov may have been in the mix for the Russians.) However, a quartet of current Flames seem like they have good to great chances of being on their Olympic teams: Rasmus Andersson (Sweden), Dan Vladar (Czechia), Martin Pospisil (Slovakia) and Sam Honzek (Slovakia).

The 2026 Winter Olympics take place Feb. 6-22, 2026 from Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. The men’s hockey tournament will see the return of NHL players for the first time since 2014.