Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Report: Edler to have IIHF hearing Saturday

Vancouver Canucks v Anaheim Ducks

ANAHEIM, CA - OCTOBER 1: the Vancouver Canucks the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on October 1, 2010 in Anaheim, California. Vancouver won 4-2. (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)

Stephen Dunn

Vancouver Canucks defenseman Alex Edler will have a hearing with the IIHF Disciplinary Committee in Zurich, Switzerland, on Saturday, and his fate with Team Sweden in the 2014 Olympics could be in jeopardy.

This is according to a report from Mats Wennerholm of the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

Edler will be accompanied in the hearing by his agent, Mark Stowe, and Tommy Boustedt, director of hockey development and national teams with the Swedish Ice Hockey Association.

The hearing stems from a suspension Edler received for a knee-on-knee hit Eric Staal in a game between Sweden and Canada at the 2013 World Championships this spring.

Edler was suspended two games - the remainder of the championship tournament. According to Wennerholm, the IIHF Disciplinary Committee recommended a five-game ban.

It’s possible that his suspension could then spill over into the men’s ice hockey competition at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Edler and his representatives in this case will appeal for a shorter suspension.

“I have with me video footage to show that it was not as bad as it looked. The damage to the Eric Staal was not so serious that we thought from the beginning,” Boustedt told Aftonbladet, as per Google Translate.

In an online statement released by the IIHF following the initial suspension in May, “Any additional suspension, exceeding the duration of the tournament, will be handled by the disciplinary panel to the IIHF Disciplinary Committee.”