Mac represents the Phoenix Foundation at the Jerico Games, an international goodwill sports tournament hosted by media magnate Ralph Jerico. Mac's school days friend and would be-lover Ellen Stuart, now a Jerico official, "volunteers" him as host for an amateur Russian ice-hockey champion, Nikolai Rostov, which works out well. Only then does Mac learns that Ellen is Ralph's wife and she shows him bruises, claiming to be an abused wife. The next day, Ralph is fatally shot by a man even Mac thinks on video looks exactly like himself. Nikolai goes after the impostor and sees him take off a rubber mask, but turns to Ellen, while the police arrest MacGyver, who swiftly escapes, only to find himself and Nikolai the murder targets of Ellen and her henchman, another Jerico employee.
—KGF Vissers