Winter sports revival ongoing in Hulunbuir
Located in the northeast of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Hulunbuir has a long tradition of winter sports dating back to the 1970s, especially in speed skating and ice hockey. Unfortunately, the region has dropped its support of its local teams and sports in the region have suffered a major decline for more than a decade.
Lu Peiyu is one of those athletes who has seen the best and worst of ice hockey in the area. The 59-year-old physical-education teacher began playing ice hockey in primary school and encouraged talented children to play for the provincial team in the 1980s.
Every winter, he and his friends gather from different parts of Hulunbuir to play. They form four teams at each gathering and normally attract about 40 players.
China used to have two ice hockey leagues, and there were more than 20 professional teams in the second-tier league at its peak. Now that the sport has been discarded from the State-supported system, it has experienced a drastic decline in popularity and almost all those playing in Hulunbuir now are 40 years of age or older.
“Ice hockey has been neglected in Inner Mongolia for almost 20 years. There still isn’t a team or league in the autonomous region, so we just play together as a hobby,” Lu said after a game in Zalantun, a division of Hulunbuir prefecture.
However, he is glad to see the government again paying attention to the sport in recent times.
“The government has begun to support ice hockey again and there are kids starting to play now. Actually, Inner Mongolia has the best conditions to develop winter sports,” Lu said. “I have played ice hockey all my life and I am very excited to see the sport coming back.”
The shortage of indoor stadiums is the biggest obstacle to the region’s development of winter sports.
Yang Xiaodong, president of the Zalantun Winter Sports Association, said the city does not lack passion for sports, but desperately needs a stadium to use in summer when there is no ice.
The association, founded in 2008, now has more than 30 hockey players and nearly 80 speed skaters on its books.
“We grow up in an extremely cold area and these sports give us lots of happiness,” said the 53-year-old. “But the biggest obstacle to popularizing sports is the lack of an indoor stadium