rnyquist said:
a very common thing but players like Olaf Kolzig have challenged that. I think the rule is now you can play in any country you have citizenship in but once you play for a country on the world stage your stuck with them for good.
This is correct. Using Kolzig as an example, his family was in hotel management, I believe, and moved around a great deal as he was growing up. His parents were German, Kolzig himself was born in South Africa and he grew up mainly in Western Canada. He plays for Team Germany, citing his German heritage to gain German citizenship. According to international rules, you can play for a country with which you have citizenship, but once you play internationally for that team, you cannot jump ship after the fact -- although you CAN switch prior to the age of 18, oddly. After that, however, you are locked into your country for international play.
The lone exception to that rule are citizens of former Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. Players who once played for the USSR or for the CIS are able to play for such newly-independent countries as Kazakhstan, Belarus, Latvia, etc. today if they are nationals of those newly-independent states.
Separately...
As for citizenship, Canada allows dual, while the US does not. So in my own case, I emigrated from Quebec to the US. On becoming a naturalized American citizen, the ceremony requires you to renounce citizenship with other countries. Canada, however, does not recognize that and allows citizens to retain Canadian citizenship, carry a Canadian passport, etc.
However, if an American emigrated to Canada and eventually became a Canadian citizen, the US would immediately strip the individual of American citizenship and require that the individual turn in and/or destroy a US passport.
Now that has little to nothing to do with hockey; it's just a glance at the way citizenship works with the two countries.