International hockey officials are hoping to avoid a humiliation on the ice when the Chinese men’s national team debuts at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
They begged the NHL to send players to the Games in China, but now they are worried that the home team might not even be able to score a goal.
The host nation automatically qualifies for every sport at the Olympics, but the Chinese men’s lineup — with a handful of naturalized Americans and Canadians — would face off against virtual NHL all-star teams from Canada and the US in the first round.
Photo: AP
The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) fears historic blowouts could hurt Olympic hockey’s image, especially after persuading the NHL to take a two-week break to allow the world’s top players to compete.
To figure out how it might all go down, the IIHF is holding an unusual test next week in Moscow, where players on the Chinese team would play against Russian professionals and attempt to be competitive.
It is not clear what might happen if the team plays as poorly as they have in recent games, which raised fears that they might not score even once on home ice in front of their own fans.
Ice hockey is not popular in China, with no professional or significant amateur league. After China won the right to host the Games, an academy was set up to nurture young talent, and Chinese officials went around the world looking for players with Chinese ancestry — or who were willing to naturalize there — who could join the team.
China’s men’s team is ranked 32nd in the world, and it is in a group with the US and Canada, two of the medal favorites among the 12 teams going to the Winter Games in February. It has struggled against other competition.
That is why IIHF president Luc Tardif scheduled the games in Moscow, where the Beijing-based Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) team Kunlun Red Star — which has been used as something of a proxy for the Chinese national team to gain experience in a professional league — would play against Russian opponents.
IIHF and Chinese hockey officials would be watching closely, and hoping the team is not on its way to being embarrassed against NHL competition.
“The team we will have in front of us, in two games, we will just to see the score and the way the game was playing, we will quickly know if they’ve got the level or not,” Tardif said in a recent interview. “It will be not only the score, but the way the game was played.”
It is unclear who would grade the test or how.
The IIHF said last week it would not remove China from the tournament — it does not have the unilateral authority to do that — and it would be up to the Chinese government to pull the plug.
That would be a humiliating step: A host country’s team has never been withdrawn from the modern-day Olympics for solely performance-related reasons, according to Olympic historian Bill Mallon.
There is good reason it is even being contemplated: Kunlun has lost 20 of its 26 KHL games this season and been outscored 96-57 in the process. Kunlun has played in the mostly Russian league since 2016.
Tardif said there are no such concerns about China’s women’s team, which is ranked 20th and in an Olympic group with less daunting competition.
The disappointing performance by the Chinese men’s team so far is not for lack of effort. The Chinese Ice Hockey Association failed in its attempt to develop a homegrown roster, so the team’s top players are North American — some with family ties to the country and others who have been naturalized after joining Kunlun and earning international approval to play for China.
Leading scorers Spencer Foo and Brandon Yip, and top defenseman Ryan Sproul are Canadian, while starting goaltender Jeremy Smith is American, although there is still some uncertainty about who would go to Beijing. The IIHF would not confirm which players on Kunlun’s roster were eligible.
Stocking Olympic rosters with international players is not uncommon, certainly not since the host country started receiving an automatic berth in the hockey tournament in 2006. Italy that year had nine Canadians and two Americans, and South Korea in 2018 had six Canadians and one American. Neither team won a game.
Yip, by far the most accomplished player for China with 174 games of NHL experience, hopes playing together for several years and employing a tight defensive scheme can help his team hang with Canada, the US and Germany in a difficult Olympic group.
“Obviously when you look at our teams on paper, it’s a big discrepancy,” said Yip, a 36-year-old from British Columbia who has played for Kunlun since 2017. “We obviously know what we’re up against. They’re the best players in the world, so we’ve got a big task in front of us.”
Li Longmou, a longtime Chinese broadcaster who is vice president of communications for Kunlun, said the US and Canada would shut out China, maybe 8-0 or 10-0, adding that the focus is on the third game against Germany.
Asked what would be considered success, Li said: “Score one goal and better performance. Not a disaster.”
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