GOALS IN SIGHT AS CHINA LACES UP ITS SKATES
Ahead of 2022 Winter Olympics, ice hockey’s profile growing along with increasing fan base
Despite the oppressive heat outside the winter sports facility, the ice rink at the Aozhong Sports Center in northeast Beijing was bustling with children hoping to learn the finer points of ice hockey during a summer camp.
If not for their parents yelling out encouragement in Chinese, the scene at the rink could just as well have been a youth ice hockey scrimmage in North America as the children’s shouts, the coaches barking out instructions in English, and the sounds of skates cutting across the frozen surface echoed throughout the vast venue.
The eight-day youth clinic was hosted by venue investor ORG Packaging and the National Hockey League’s Boston Bruins franchise to give young Chinese hockey players insights into developing skills for the most popular team sport in the Winter Olympics.
The clinic is part of a fiveyear partnership signed in 2016 between the Beijing company and the Bruins, which have won the Stanley Cup, the NHL championship, six times.
The NHL team is hoping to expand the winter sport in China from a grassroots level.
With China stepping up efforts to promote winter sports before the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, hockey’s profile is rising along with the number of new fans.
Halfway through his 75-minute training session at the Bruins’ camp, every item of Liu Yiqi’s hockey gear, including his helmet, gloves and shoulder pads, was drenched in sweat as the 10-year-old skated with the puck up and down the rink to complete various drills.
Despite the occasional bump and bruise, Liu’s expression conveyed the excitement and satisfaction he felt after being instructed by NHL trainers on the 1,800-square-meter rink.
“Sometimes I bruised my elbow or had my helmet rattled, but I am cool with it because I love playing hockey,” said the fifth-grader from Tsinghua University Primary School.
“It was totally new for me at the beginning, but I’ve become addicted after playing for almost four years. It’s helped me to become a tougher boy.”
Organized by the Beijing Hockey Association, the Beijing Interschool Hockey League concluded its sixth season last month with a record 1,500 participants from 120 primary and secondary school teams competing in 326 games over one month.
The number of participants has increased by 20 percent year-onyear and organizers expect the numbers to keep rising.
“It’s become a major event on the agenda of school sports circles in Beijing as more and more parents are embracing ice hockey, not just as an exercise but as an educational tool for all-around development,” said Liu Ge, secretary-general of the association.
According to the Chinese Ice Hockey Association, more than 12,000 amateur youth players are registered with it, up from less than 2,000 in 2015, and more than 200 ice rinks had been built nationwide by the end of last year.
The country’s commitment to drive a niche sport into the mainstream has been highlighted by President Xi Jinping’s presence at a number of events to promote ice hockey and winter sports in general.
Cheered on by 7,000 spectators, Xi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin — both avid sports fans — dropped the puck for a friendly match between the two countries’ junior teams and watched the first period of the game at the Tianjin Gymnasium on June 8 during Putin’s state visit to China.
Inspired by Xi, China is rolling out a national campaign to involve 300 million people in winter sports activities by 2022 through promotions at both elite and grassroots levels.
Ice hockey, the highest-profile team sport at the Winter Olympics, is at the core of the program to engage new fans on a mass scale even though it is still just a niche sport in China, said Ni Huizhong, director of the National Winter Sports Administrative Center in Beijing.
Huge potential
China’s aim to popularize ice hockey using Olympic exposure received a major boost in May after the International Ice Hockey Federation voted to allow the host squads to enter the 2022 Winter Olympics automatically.
This means China will not have to go through the challenging qualification process to send its worldranked No 18 women’s and No 37 men’s national squads to the Olympic tournaments in 2022.
Traditionally, teams from host countries have to finish in the top eight in the IIHF World Championships’ top division the year before the Olympics are held to secure places at the Games.
China’s commitment to develop the sport in the buildup to the 2022 Games and beyond was crucial to winning approval for direct entry from the world governing body, said Thomas Wu, an IIHF vice-president.
“The IIHF’s goal is to promote the sport globally and China has huge potential in the game,” he said.“We will enjoy seeing the Chinese teams at the 2022 tournament, but we also have to make sure the world-class quality of the Olympic competition won’t be compromised, which is always the priority.”
Urged by President Xi to not just host the 2022 Games successfully but to excel, the winter sports center has set goals for its women’s team to win a medal and for the men’s squad to perform well in front of home crowds.
This is definitely a historic moment for Chinese hockey ... But it doesn’t mean we can slow down right now. We have to work harder to make every second count in the next four years to prepare for good results at home.” Yu Baiwei, captain of the national women’s team who also represented China at the team’s last Olympic appearance in 2010 in Vancouver
Challenges ahead
However, this appears to be a tough task given the huge gap between China and the world’s leading countries in the sport.
China’s men’s team has never competed at the Olympics or at any top-level international tournaments.
The women’s squad finished fourth when women’s ice hockey made its Olympic debut in Nagano, Japan, in 1998 followed by two more Olympic appearances in 2002 and 2010 before slumping in recent years due to a shrinking talent pool.
Yu Baiwei, captain of the national women’s team, said the challenge now faced has brought motivation.
“This is definitely a historic moment for Chinese hockey,” said the 30-year-old veteran, who represented China at the team’s most recent Olympic appearance in 2010 in Vancouver.
“But it doesn’t mean we can slow down right now. We have to work harder to make every second count in the next four years to prepare for good results at home.”
With a short history in developing winter sports, the lack of facilities, training expertise and a sound domestic competition system in China, as well as the expensive nature of the sport, are among issues hampering its rise.
Sport for the rich
Wei Ziyao, a member of Beijing’s under-15 boys’ team, has been playing ice hockey since he was 4, but it was only last year after he was selected to join Beijing’s municipal sports system that he was entitled to government subsidies to cover his costs.
Wei’s mother, surnamed Tian, said, “It’s fair to say that every coin we earned has been spent on his training.”
Even with more rinks being built, ice hockey remains relatively expensive in Beijing. A 90-minute session at a commercial rink costs about 300 yuan ($44), with extra coaching fees and a full outfit for a junior player costing at least 20,000 yuan.
Junior players train at least three times a week and have to upgrade their equipment every two years as they grow, said Liu from the Beijing Hockey Association.
To support her son’s hockey dream, Tian said the family spends at least 200,000 yuan every year, including training, travel and accommodation, for competitive trips.
“It’s just an average figure and the spending will dramatically increase once he needs further development toward making it a profession,” said Tian, who quit her job to become her son’s driver and practice partner.
Most of her peers have done the same to become full-time hockey moms, the 45-year-old said.
“You really have to prepare yourself to sacrifice your career, but seeing them grow and learn the virtues of teamwork and dedication through exercise is pretty rewarding.”
To make ice sports accessible on campus, Beijing’s education authority has been working since late 2016 with several companies to introduce artificial ice surfaces to pilot schools in the city’s Haidian and Chaoyang districts. Artificial rinks can be assembled, dismantled and transported like mobile basketball courts, but with much lower operating costs.
Overseas moves
Despite hot participation at junior level, the lack of a domestic competition system to channel primary school tournaments toward collegiate and then professional leagues is taking its toll on enthusiasm.
Some talented children supported by wealthy families, such as China’s first NHL draftee Song Andong, have to move overseas to strong hockey-playing countries such as the US and Canada to study and train in an overseas school system from the secondary education stage.
Song, a Beijing native who moved to Canada when he was 10 for hockey training, was picked by the New York Islanders in June 2015 to become the first Chinese drafted in the NHL.
The 21-year-old now studies at Cornell University while developing his game in the university’s National Collegiate Athletic Association Division One program.
“The school system in North America made me the player I am today,” said Song, who is expected to lead China’s men’s team at the 2022 Winter Olympics. “A similar ladder system involving kids from primary schools to colleges and then the pro leagues should be established back in China as soon as possible.”
As the first step to building the highly anticipated system, the Chinese Ice Hockey Association plans to launch an eight-team professional league at the end of this year, said its chairman, Cao Weidong.
The new league will be based on players now registered with six provincial teams competing at the annual national championship and will be open to foreign players. Each club will have a limit on the number of foreign players it can field.
“It’s urgent that our top players compete on a regular basis representing club teams rather than just gathering once a year at the championship tournament,” Cao said.
Lacking a domestic league, China has a men’s team, Kunlun Red Star, from Shanghai, which competes in the professional Kontinental Hockey League in Russia, plus two entries in the second-tier Russian league and a junior squad in the Russian development league.
In the women’s game, Kunlun Red Star and Wanke Ryes from Shenzhen joined the Canadian Women’s Hockey League last year, with Red Star finishing in second place in April in its debut season.
The Chinese Ice Hockey Association is also working with the Federation of University Sports of China, the sports affiliate of the Ministry of Education, to prepare for setting up China’s collegiate ice hockey leagues once the adult professional league runs smoothly.
“Eventually, our goal is to put a system in place that will make a player’s development path seamless as long as he or she is dedicated to becoming a pro,” Cao said.