Hockey’s second chance to tap into Asian market
Sport’s popularity didn’t explode in Japan after 1998 Olympics, but is China different?
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 world power, let’s go back 20 years for a cautionary tale.
In the mid-1990s, Japan boasted a lot of the same conditions now found in China. The economy was booming. Interest in hockey was growing. The 1998 Olympics were set for Nagano and, with money pouring into the national team, those Games were seen as the springboard that would launch the game there. 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 (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 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, the country’s hockey stewards have begun pouring resources into the long-neglected men’s national team. Mike Keenan has been hired to build a squad the country hopes will be competitive in Beijing.
Keenan and his lieutenants have started 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.
“It’s cool just thinking about being part of the Olympics and Team China and knowing how big that is,” said Ho, a 16-year-old from Burnaby, B.C.
Keenan also coaches Kunlun Red Star, the Beijing-based entry in the KHL that boasts former NHLers Wojtek Wolski, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Andrei Kostitsyn, Kyle Chipchura and Vancouver’s Gilbert Brule, plus players like Zach Yuen, a 24-year-old Vancouverite and former Jets draft choice, and 19-year-old Rudi Ying, the first Chinese national to play in the KHL.
Throw in Islanders draft pick Andong “Misha” Song, the first Chinese national to be selected in the NHL draft, and goalie Zehao Sun, the national team goalie working out with the Vancouver Canucks during their swing through China, and there would seem to be the nucleus of a decent team. Then you remember China is ranked 37th in the world between Mexico and New Zealand. Then you begin to understand Keenan and his staff will have to be miracle workers to make this Chinese team competitive.
“This is a new step for China and it’s a big one,” King said.
And the man knows of what he speaks.
King was hired 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 advantages the Chinese don’t.
There was a strong domestic league in Japan that dated back to the mid-1960s. King enlisted Japanese-Canadians like former WHLers Ryan Fujita, Steve Tsujiura and Matt Kabayama; and Ryan Kuwabara, Montreal’s second-round pick in 1990.
And it still wasn’t nearly enough to make the Japanese team competitive.
“The Japanese were terrific at tactics and the team game, but the biggest obstacle was their hockey culture,” King said. “The first time I watched a Japanese practice, they were doing line rushes and the same guy was shooting. I asked why and they told me, ‘He’s the oldest player.’”
As host, Japan was granted a place in the qualifying round in a pool with Belarus, Germany and France where, predictably, they finished last. But, in their placement game, the Japanese scored a 4-3 shootout win over Austria, a win King remembers as vividly as any in his career.
“They just exploded off the bench (after the game-winning goal),” King said. “Winning that game was like a gold medal. I know it’s an overused expression but I can honestly say we had nothing left in the tank.”
Sadly, that game would also serve as a high-water mark for Japanese hockey. Six years after Nagano, the country’s domestic league folded. The Asian Hockey League, which still has four Japanese teams, rose in its place. The Japanese men’s team is ranked 23rd in the world, one spot ahead of Britain.
The game has survived in Japan, but it never fulfilled the promise of Nagano. Will China be any different? Check back after 2022 when the glow of the Olympics has dimmed and the Chinese program will have to get by on its own merits.
There are a number of reasons to believe the Chinese program can be a success. But they believed the same thing in Japan 20 years ago.