It’s Act II for hockey in Asia

EXPANDING GAME IN CHINA MEANS SUCCEEDING WHERE EARLIER EFFORTS IN JAPAN FAILED

The Chinese men’s hockey program has grand ambitions for the 2022 Winter Olympics but, before the hockey world gets too excited over the emergence of this new world power, let’s go back 20 years for a cautionary tale.

In the mid-1990s, Japan boasted a lot of the same conditions that are found in China. The economy was booming. Interest in hockey was growing. The 1998 Winter Olympics was set for Nagano and with money pouring into the men’s national team, those Games were seen as the springboard that would launch the game in the Asian country.

And it never happened. Why?

“Unfortunately the economic crisis (in Japan) started right after,” says IIHF president Rene Fasel. “We couldn’t get the momentum we expected. Gary (that would be NHL commissioner Bettman) mentioned that when we were talking about (the NHL’s involvement in) South Korea.” You’d expect as much. “(Japan) is no longer the power in Asia,” says Dave King, the longtime hockey man who coached the Japanese men’s team in Nagano. “Now it’s China. (The 2022 Olympics) is a new step and it’s a big one. If they want the game to grow, they have to use this opportunity.”

Except, as King will tell you, building a world-class program requires a little more than money and enthusiasm.

With the Beijing Olympics looming as a watershed moment for hockey in China, the country’s hockey stewards have begun pouring resources into the long-neglected men’s national team. Among others, the still formidable Mike Keenan has been hired to build a squad that will be competitive in Beijing and Keenan and his lieutenants have started the process of identifying potential players for 2022.

Camps were held in Toronto and Vancouver this summer for Chinese-heritage players. Those players, including Vancouver Giants prospect Tyler Ho, will be tracked over the next quadrennial with the aim of building a strong national team.

“It’s cool just thinking about being part of the Olympics and Team China and knowing how big that is,” said Ho, 16, of Burnaby, B.C. the nucleus of a decent team for the Olympics.

Then you remember China is ranked 37th in the world between Mexico and New Zealand. Then you begin to understand Keenan et al will have to be miracle workers to coax anything out of the Chinese team.

“This is a new step for China and it’s a big one,” said King, who was hired by the Japanese shortly after he was fired by the Calgary Flames in ’95 to build a team for the ’98 Games in Nagano. Like Keenan, he was granted considerable resources for his mission but he also had a couple of advantages the Chinese don’t have.

For starters, there was a strong domestic league in