Olympics not only way to grow game
In China, Bettman says NHL has made no decision on 2022,
BEIJING The Calgary Flames and Boston Bruins are now in Beijing, their second and final stop on the exhibition excursion that is the 2018 O.R.G. China Games.
Question is, will the likes of Johnny Gaudreau and David Pastrnak be back in China’s capital city in 2022 to represent their respective countries at the next instalment of the Winter Olympics?
The NHL skipped the
2018 Pyeongchang Games and commissioner Gary Bettman isn’t making any promises about a return to the five-ring circus, even though the league is keen to expand their business in this nation of 1.4 billion.
“What we’re committed to doing here in China is about growing the game, and you can have a long debate over whether or not our participation over two weeks in 2022 is going to make a difference in that regard,” Bettman said before Saturday’s exhibition between the Flames and the Bruins at Shenzhen Universiade Sports Centre.
“The fact of the matter is that going to the Olympics is terribly disruptive to our season. No other sport does it or would do it — among professional sport in North America — and the opportunities to promote the fact we’re a part of the Games are non-existent because of the way the IOC treats our participation.
“There is a long time for us to focus on that, but we have been extremely comfortable with the fact that we didn’t participate in Korea.”
After a translator relayed that response, Bettman wanted to be sure his answer wasn’t interpreted — or summed up on social media — as a “Hell no.”
“The fact is, 2022 is still a long ways off and we haven’t made any decisions,” he said. “So if it sounds like I’ve slammed the door, that wasn’t what I was intending to do. What I was intending to do is explain where we are and what the considerations are, and people have heard me do that constantly.”
For the second consecutive time, the NHL’S exhibition schedule opened in China, this time with the Bruins notching a 4-3 shootout victory over the Flames in Saturday’s matinee in Shenzhen.
The game wasn’t half-bad before an announced crowd of 10,218 fans — the seating capacity for hockey is about 14,500 — who were enjoying themselves.
They giggled as Flames mascot Harvey the Hound and his cohort from Boston — a bear (naturally) named Blades — demonstrated cross-checking and slashing and some of the other penalties during a pre-game presentation.
They cheered whenever there was a bodycheck, a scoring opportunity, a wild scramble around the crease or, occasionally, when a goalie stopped a long-range dump-in from the neutral zone.
The Flames and Bruins got a little grouchy in the third, exactly what you would expect with talented troublemakers Brad Marchand and Matthew Tkachuk on opposite sides, and the spectators didn’t mind the skirmishes after the whistles, either.
As Flames alternate captain Sean Monahan summed up: “You don’t come all this way just to play a shinny game.”
Bettman said the NHL’S initial visit to China — the Vancouver Canucks and Los Angeles Kings made history when they squared off last September in Shanghai and Beijing — was a success “by any measure” and revealed the league would like to eventually bring regular-season action to this mostly-untapped market despite the logistical challenges.
But could there possibly be a better way to sell the sport in China than offer the opportunity in 2022 to see Sidney Crosby and Connor Mcdavid working together on Canada’s power play?
With Beijing home to the KHL’S Kunlun Red Star, imagine if a sometimes-local was selected to join Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin on Russia’s roster.
Many of the NHL’S biggest stars expressed disappointment that they couldn’t participate in February in Pyeongchang — Ovechkin, now a Stanley Cup champion, initially threatened to go anyway before changing his mind — so it’s a safe bet they’ll be pushing to break for Beijing.
“All of the efforts that we’re going to put in to grow the game of hockey won’t be defined by a two-week Olympic tournament in 2022,” Bettman insisted in Shenzhen.
“If we’re going to consider going, there are a lot of things about participating in the Olympics and how we get treated that will have to be addressed.
“What’s interesting, though, is I was here 18 months ago and had a series of meetings, including with the minister of sport. In all of those meetings, when we talked about getting started, nobody asked about 2022. Everybody was more focused on our commitment to help build and develop the game.”
To that end, there’s much more to these 2018 O.R.G. China Games. The NHL enlisted plenty of expertise to lead coaching clinics in both cities, with Stanley Cup-winning forward Alex Tanguay and former Ottawa Senators bench boss Paul Maclean teaching drills and techniques.
They were joined by Dan Lacroix, most recently employed as an assistant coach for the Montreal Canadiens.
Hockey Hall-of-famer Lanny Mcdonald came along as an ambassador. At a fan-fest event at an outdoor mall, he was showing curious kids how to grip a stick for a slapshot.
According to the International Ice Hockey Federation, there are 205 indoor rinks in China, with just over 12,000 registered players.
“The most important thing we can do … is the development of grassroots programs — kids learning how to skate, learning the rules and the skills of the game,” Bettman said Saturday.
“I think it’s off to a great start. In the practice rink adjoining this building (in Shenzhen), there has been a youth hockey tournament going on for the last few days, and the number of young people and families that are knowledgeable about the game is surprising to me.
“It’s something that we have learned over the last two years, and it’s only going to increase as the number of ice surfaces that are being built increases.
“It’s really about infrastructure. It’s about clinics. It’s about building the game at the grassroots.”