NHL has some catching up to do
MONDAY MUSINGS: NBA has been sending teams to China for more than a decade
We cap off a memorable week in China with the Monday morning musings and meditations on the world of sports.
At least we think it’s Monday. Stupid international dateline.
The NHL and NHLPA maintain they’re playing the long game with the Chinese market, and the China Games were simply the first step in a long campaign.
Still, it will be interesting to see where this series goes over the next couple of years.
Bloomage International, the event’s sponsor, has a multi-year deal with the NHL and the PA and both sides have an opt-out clause after each year. If that sounds ominous, it shouldn’t, because NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said the league was encouraged by the early returns of its first foray into China, a sentiment shared by the PA.
“Sitting here, I can’t make a unilateral decision whether for sure we’ll be coming back next year or what teams will be coming back,” Daly said. “It’s something we’ll have to decide with the Players Association. But in my conversations with the PA, we’re going into this with a long-term vision.”
As for the smallish crowd of just over 10,000 which took in the game in Shanghai, Daly said: “We didn’t really know what to expect. Would we have liked more people in the building? Sure. But, stepping back and looking at the big picture, I don’t think anything we saw on Thursday night came as a huge shock to us.
“In terms of laying the groundwork and building interest, it can sometimes be a relatively slow build.”
Which makes you wonder why the NHL is just getting started now. The NBA played its first exhibition games in China in 2004 and has since sent 24 of its teams to China. Granted, the NBA had Yao Ming, who was in attendance in the Beijing hockey game on Saturday, but that doesn’t completely explain the 13-year gap.
That remains a sore point with the NHLPA.
Two years ago, the NBA signed a five-year streaming deal in China with Tencent for a reported $700 million. That’s what this market offers and the NHL is late to the party.
If you missed it, Daly offered an interesting answer when he was asked about the NHL’s involvement in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
“I think it’s early to make that call,” he answered. “Certainly, Beijing raises a lot of the same challenges as South Korea. But I also think, on the upside, in terms of the opportunities that might be available for hockey and for us, it might result in a different equation.”
Translation: After rejecting South Korea, the NHL will be in Beijing because the Olympics are king in China. To spurn the Beijing Games would be an insult to the country, specifically its government, and the NHL needs the government’s support if it wants to succeed here.
The more interesting question concerns the league’s fractured relationship with the IIHF. The international governing body has said the NHL’s participation in Beijing is contingent on its participation in the 2018 South Korea games. It’s also unlikely the IIHF will pick up travel and insurance costs for the NHL, which was a major stumbling block for PyeongChang.
That means another painful four years of bickering between Gary Bettman and Rene Fasel and the drip, drip, drip of more negotiations. You’d think the two bodies might want to get in front of this story and settle things sooner rather than later.
You just know that won’t be the case.
Daniel Sedin was asked for his thoughts on The China Games. Like his brother, he immediately singled out the challenges of trying to prepare for an NHL season on the Olympic-sized ice surfaces in Shanghai and Beijing.
“I don’t think we had any expectations when we came over,” Sedin said. “We just went with the flow and did what needed to be done. We’ll have to sit down with the PA and the NHL about what can be done better.
“There’s some schedule things we can fine-tune. But the only thing we’d want to change is the game to be played on NHL ice. The game is so different on the big ice. It’s going to be different coming back home.”
Just a personal thought. My hope is Erik Gudbranson becomes a core player for the Canucks because he’s such a likable person. The firered dragon coat he wore to the game in Shanghai was one of the highlights of the trip.
And finally, a weeklong, 10,000km road trip for two pre-season games isn’t exactly the best way to prepare for an NHL season, but any misgivings Canucks players might have had about coming to China were dispelled by their experience here.
Shanghai was the star of the show, a sprawling international city which offered centuries-old Buddhist temples and a business district that made Wall Street look like Main Street in Winnipeg.
The players were also thrilled by their trip to the Great Wall outside of Beijing and the after-party hosted by Madam Zhao Yan, the chairperson of Bloomage, at her massive compound.
The players’ experience is a major selling point in this initiative and the Canucks’ players were all impressed by what they saw of China.
“It’s been unreal,” Daniel Sedin said. “First-class all the way.”