Chinese hockey?

Rigafan

Registered User
Jul 28, 2016
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How much of China *is* actually suitable for Hockey? (cue the jokes about having teams in Florida and Arizona)

I feel like the Chinese market has so much untapped potential with that billion population that it has. If they were to take a liking, the sport could spread rapidly.
Well it is already popular in the NE Heilongjiang region espeically in Harbin city. Obviously that doesn't sound as attract as Beijing or Shanghai and most people won't ever know of Harbin... so the big leagues ignore it.

But if they can get it to take off in Beijing then im sure the rest of the country would follow
 
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Albatros

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Aug 19, 2017
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Most Chinese couldn't care less what the trends in Beijing are, for overall growth some sort of international success will be necessary. Either that or the status symbol angle (expensive to play = good).
 

The Winter Soldier

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Apr 4, 2011
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I am a believer that if China ever wanted to become good at hockey, invest money into their hockey program. They could be a country to watch as a rising power. Hockey is a global game, and China being vast in land space and population could one day be a power. Not right now, but perhaps in the future.
 

alko

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Oct 20, 2004
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I am a believer that if China ever wanted to become good at hockey, invest money into their hockey program. They could be a country to watch as a rising power. Hockey is a global game, and China being vast in land space and population could one day be a power. Not right now, but perhaps in the future.

Yeah. 1,5 billions people is a bi number. I think, that in 20 years, they will be in WCH Top level.
 

vorky

@vorkywh24
Jan 23, 2010
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Chinese NTU20 made it to the IIHF U20 Worlds Division II Group B. Their roster was based on players from the MHL.
 

Urbanskog

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Feb 8, 2014
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Yeah. 1,5 billions people is a bi number. I think, that in 20 years, they will be in WCH Top level.
"20 years"? Within five years is very possible, provided that they find a decent goalie. I am certain that they will be promoted to IB this year.
 

HungryFrank

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Jun 20, 2015
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What does chinese league look like? How come there is no data about their league or what their players do when they don't play for Kunlun (at least on eliteprospects)?
 

laxplayer

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Oct 19, 2003
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Late to the thread, but we had a 2007 birth year team that went and played in the CCM Beijing international youth tournament over the summer a few years ago. Very cool experience (that I never want to do again!) The field of 16 teams in our division included 4 teams from China. 2 of those teams (Fire Dragon from Beijing, and Tiger from Shanghai iirc) were extremely good teams (skating, passing, forecheck system, cycling, team d, etc). and placed 1st and 2nd in the tournament, while a Taipei team placed 3rd (and we placed 4th, hurray!).

The wealthy Chinese in large metropolitan cities can afford to have their child play hockey, and can afford to purchase good equipment. Few others can. But the ones that do choose hockey, they have their kids practicing 5 days a week with their club team in addition to private lessons for skating/shooting/etc, nearly every day as well. The facilities we saw in Beijing were good to impressive, especially with regards to their olympic training facility.

From conversations we had with locals and with some of the Chinese nationals on our own team, the Chinese govt is really ramping up winter sports funding/facilities for 2022, and that includes hockey. Their coaches are mostly chinese nationals that have lived/trained in Canada.

All that said, it would not surprise me to start to see chinese nationals playing in the NHL in 10 years. Especially if the KHL gains a larger footprint in the country.
 

Vandalay Industries

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Feb 13, 2008
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"20 years"? Within five years is very possible, provided that they find a decent goalie. I am certain that they will be promoted to IB this year.

This is simply ignorant. It takes a whole lot more time to develop players than just five years. They need to have a whole bunch of good coaches stepping in at the youngest level and up before they can start producing enough players to have a whole team at senior level.

The whole system has to build from the bottom up before you can start feeding players to a national team.
 

Urbanskog

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Feb 8, 2014
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This is simply ignorant. It takes a whole lot more time to develop players than just five years. They need to have a whole bunch of good coaches stepping in at the youngest level and up before they can start producing enough players to have a whole team at senior level.

The whole system has to build from the bottom up before you can start feeding players to a national team.
It doesn't sound like you are familiar with the program at all. It's not about developing homegrown talent, it's about naturalizing foreigners which is what they have been doing. Brandon Yip, Brayden Jaw, Zach Yuen, Mikaël Tam, Cory Kane, Luke Lockhart, Greg Squires, Chris Seto, Derek Dun, Jordan Liem and Sam Hu are all eligible to represent China in this year's World Championship and I can assure you they are going to be used.
 

mattihp

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Aug 2, 2004
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It doesn't sound like you are familiar with the program at all. It's not about developing homegrown talent, it's about naturalizing foreigners which is what they have been doing. Brandon Yip, Brayden Jaw, Zach Yuen, Mikaël Tam, Cory Kane, Luke Lockhart, Greg Squires, Chris Seto, Derek Dun, Jordan Liem and Sam Hu are all eligible to represent China in this year's World Championship and I can assure you they are going to be used.
That would be interesting. Looking at the names of the chinese teams before it seems to only be han chinese names.
 

Vandalay Industries

Registered User
Feb 13, 2008
622
157
It doesn't sound like you are familiar with the program at all. It's not about developing homegrown talent, it's about naturalizing foreigners which is what they have been doing. Brandon Yip, Brayden Jaw, Zach Yuen, Mikaël Tam, Cory Kane, Luke Lockhart, Greg Squires, Chris Seto, Derek Dun, Jordan Liem and Sam Hu are all eligible to represent China in this year's World Championship and I can assure you they are going to be used.


That's just great, except these players are pretty ordinary. This team wont be better than the team South Korea managed to put together for a short stint and a last place finish in the Olympics and the World Championship. Only a few of them can compete with the teams that they need to beat to be a factor in the World Championship.

It might be a quick fix to get to D1A in a couple of years, but if China wants to be an impact nation they need to be able to grow the talent themselves in order to have enough players. And that will take a lot of years. The other recipe is like peing in the pants. It will get warm for a short while untill it just smells and gets cold again.
 

Urbanskog

Platinum Member
Feb 8, 2014
3,551
765
Helsinki
That's just great, except these players are pretty ordinary. This team wont be better than the team South Korea managed to put together for a short stint and a last place finish in the Olympics and the World Championship. Only a few of them can compete with the teams that they need to beat to be a factor in the World Championship.

It might be a quick fix to get to D1A in a couple of years, but if China wants to be an impact nation they need to be able to grow the talent themselves in order to have enough players. And that will take a lot of years. The other recipe is like peing in the pants. It will get warm for a short while untill it just smells and gets cold again.
No one is saying that they would be a factor in the elite division but reaching that level within five years is not a far-fetched dream.
 
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slozo

Registered User
Aug 28, 2011
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Newmarket, ON
Late to the thread, but we had a 2007 birth year team that went and played in the CCM Beijing international youth tournament over the summer a few years ago. Very cool experience (that I never want to do again!) The field of 16 teams in our division included 4 teams from China. 2 of those teams (Fire Dragon from Beijing, and Tiger from Shanghai iirc) were extremely good teams (skating, passing, forecheck system, cycling, team d, etc). and placed 1st and 2nd in the tournament, while a Taipei team placed 3rd (and we placed 4th, hurray!).

The wealthy Chinese in large metropolitan cities can afford to have their child play hockey, and can afford to purchase good equipment. Few others can. But the ones that do choose hockey, they have their kids practicing 5 days a week with their club team in addition to private lessons for skating/shooting/etc, nearly every day as well. The facilities we saw in Beijing were good to impressive, especially with regards to their olympic training facility.

From conversations we had with locals and with some of the Chinese nationals on our own team, the Chinese govt is really ramping up winter sports funding/facilities for 2022, and that includes hockey. Their coaches are mostly chinese nationals that have lived/trained in Canada.

All that said, it would not surprise me to start to see chinese nationals playing in the NHL in 10 years. Especially if the KHL gains a larger footprint in the country.

You never mentioned - what level of hockey do you play? A? AA? AAA?

My son (2010) had his own experience playing a mixed bag of Chinese kids, touring through Canada and Europe to play hockey against random teams. A few were at house league level (older kids, 2007 to 2009),many were at a Select or A level (2009s and 10s) and there were a few kids of lower AA quality (2012 to 2010s). I helped put together a team for them to play against, trying to make it even and fair (but I also wanted to make sure we won, lol). 2-2 going into the 3rd, and Canada came out with a 5-2 victory, team comprised of a similar mixed bag, mostly 2011s and 10s.

My wife, who is Chinese, was our unofficial translator for us, and she said that it was all rich families who had their kids in "elite" hockey programs. Most were very good skaters who had been taken from a skating program and offered a more vigorous, boisterous sport. They trained from 2 to 5 days a week, depending on the season....a similar range to our better players. Supposedly they had Russian coaches/trainers in China. Oh, and they were from Beijing (although the hockey hotspot for China is Harbin, which is in a region with a similar climate to Sudbury.

So the funny part was, our Canadian team was almost entirely Chinese Canadians, or mixed like my boy. It was a lot of fun,

Of course, we only really had 2 AA level players (and I forgot, we gave them a good AA player, a Chinese Canadian kid) and we still won. But, it was a glimpse into the future for sure...supposedly, because a lot of Chinese Canadian kids have really gotten into hockey here, many Chinese there have noticed and it's given them the idea of hockey in China.

They'll be competitive internationally some day, for sure. It's the Canadian connections plus money. A lot of money. And, the strong gov't sponsorship of sport.
 

LickTheEnvelope

Time to Retool... again...
Dec 16, 2008
37,985
5,349
Vancouver
How much of China *is* actually suitable for Hockey? (cue the jokes about having teams in Florida and Arizona)

I feel like the Chinese market has so much untapped potential with that billion population that it has. If they were to take a liking, the sport could spread rapidly.

Lots of China is suitable for hockey. Problem there is that it's not a sports cultural at all.

People in here are talking about Asian Canadians or Asian players generally... which clearly will continually increase just by sheer numbers.

But in China you have a few coastal cities that would be big and then the hinterlands which have huge populations of poor and no cultural of sports or sports heros.
 

bobby183

Registered User
Sep 10, 2016
43
36
Vancouver and Tokyo
My kid 2008 born entered the U10 division at Beijing CCM Int'l Invitational tournament last summer.
We put together a team from Greater Vancouver area players to enter it, 6 plays for Flight 1 (AAA) atom teams in PCAHA, 6 plays for Flight 2 (AA) and 1 from house.
We played 7 games and lost twice both times to Tiger International team, close games by 1 goal (round robin and semi) a club team based in Beijing coached by a Russian and got a bronze.

I would say that the winning team Tiger International 2008 team is equivalent to a mid to low level AAA atom teams in Canada. Our Flight 1 atom A1 team which my kid plays for right now in regular season will beat them without much trouble.

Anyways, my point here is that the Chinese teams in Under 10 and below age groups are already developing descent players...their top teams close to the high level in the traditional hockey nations.
Give them about 10 to 15 years and I feel that the Chinese may have the men's team making the Olympics qualification.

You never mentioned - what level of hockey do you play? A? AA? AAA?

My son (2010) had his own experience playing a mixed bag of Chinese kids, touring through Canada and Europe to play hockey against random teams. A few were at house league level (older kids, 2007 to 2009),many were at a Select or A level (2009s and 10s) and there were a few kids of lower AA quality (2012 to 2010s). I helped put together a team for them to play against, trying to make it even and fair (but I also wanted to make sure we won, lol). 2-2 going into the 3rd, and Canada came out with a 5-2 victory, team comprised of a similar mixed bag, mostly 2011s and 10s.

My wife, who is Chinese, was our unofficial translator for us, and she said that it was all rich families who had their kids in "elite" hockey programs. Most were very good skaters who had been taken from a skating program and offered a more vigorous, boisterous sport. They trained from 2 to 5 days a week, depending on the season....a similar range to our better players. Supposedly they had Russian coaches/trainers in China. Oh, and they were from Beijing (although the hockey hotspot for China is Harbin, which is in a region with a similar climate to Sudbury.

So the funny part was, our Canadian team was almost entirely Chinese Canadians, or mixed like my boy. It was a lot of fun,

Of course, we only really had 2 AA level players (and I forgot, we gave them a good AA player, a Chinese Canadian kid) and we still won. But, it was a glimpse into the future for sure...supposedly, because a lot of Chinese Canadian kids have really gotten into hockey here, many Chinese there have noticed and it's given them the idea of hockey in China.

They'll be competitive internationally some day, for sure. It's the Canadian connections plus money. A lot of money. And, the strong gov't sponsorship of sport.
 

slozo

Registered User
Aug 28, 2011
3,533
730
Newmarket, ON
My kid 2008 born entered the U10 division at Beijing CCM Int'l Invitational tournament last summer.
We put together a team from Greater Vancouver area players to enter it, 6 plays for Flight 1 (AAA) atom teams in PCAHA, 6 plays for Flight 2 (AA) and 1 from house.
We played 7 games and lost twice both times to Tiger International team, close games by 1 goal (round robin and semi) a club team based in Beijing coached by a Russian and got a bronze.

I would say that the winning team Tiger International 2008 team is equivalent to a mid to low level AAA atom teams in Canada. Our Flight 1 atom A1 team which my kid plays for right now in regular season will beat them without much trouble.

Anyways, my point here is that the Chinese teams in Under 10 and below age groups are already developing descent players...their top teams close to the high level in the traditional hockey nations.
Give them about 10 to 15 years and I feel that the Chinese may have the men's team making the Olympics qualification.

Interesting!
So yeah, your kid's a couple years older than mine, and they already have very competitive teams at that level. Not elite level, but they sound good- and who knows what the future holds for those kids.

Definitely confirms what I've heard around the rink. Thanks for the report, and good luck to your son on his hockey journey!
 

CanadienShark

Registered User
Dec 18, 2012
37,362
10,616
Well it is already popular in the NE Heilongjiang region espeically in Harbin city. Obviously that doesn't sound as attract as Beijing or Shanghai and most people won't ever know of Harbin... so the big leagues ignore it.

But if they can get it to take off in Beijing then im sure the rest of the country would follow
I wonder if that has anything to do with the significant Russian influence in Harbin. I won't pretend to know much, but that was one of the cities I wanted to live in, when I was considering China, partly due to the mix of Chinese and Russian cultures.
 

sexydonut

Registered User
May 12, 2009
950
490
Apart from Russian architecture (which is beautiful btw), there isn't much Russian influence in Harbin.

It'd be akin to going to Qingdao and expecting Germany or going to Guangzhou and expecting the UK. There are lingering traces of quasi-colonization, but that is about it.

Still difficult to imagine hockey taking off in China. It isn't a traditional sport, its startup costs are high, and it's difficult to rationalize some of the superfluous violence to new fans.

It's akin to showing Australian rules football or cricket to a Canadian audience. Unless one becomes immersed in the culture, the sport won't inspire any sort of passion.
 

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