The Russian professional ice hockey player Sergey Gusev has been banned by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) for six months for an unspecified anti-doping rule violation. In a short statement released on Wednesday, RUSADA said that the Russian Hockey Federation had decided to ban the athlete following the receipt of materials provided by RUSADA.

Gusev’s ban is backdated to 23 March 2015, the same month in which Gusev was playing for Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg in the 2014/15 Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) playoffs. The KHL is an international professional ice hockey league with clubs predominantly from Russia, but also including those from Finland, Croatia, Latvia and others.

According to the Associated Press, 40-year-old Gusev started his professional career in 1992 and played four seasons in the USA’s National Hockey League (NHL) playing for Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars between 1997 and 2001.

In November last year the Sports Integrity Initiative reported that the Belarusian ice-hockey player Mikhail Stefanovich, who plays for Belarusian ice-hockey team HK Gomel, was provisionally suspended by RUSADA after his A sample returned an adverse analytical finding. HK Gomel participate in the Belarusian Extraleague, Belarus’ top professional league. Subsequently in April, RUSADA banned Stefanovich for two years.

In 2010 the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the KHL signed a Memorandum of Understanding in which the KHL committed to developing anti-doping rules and protocols in compliance with the World Anti-Doping Code, as monitored by WADA.