Chinese hockey?
 

Call me crazy but in 20 years' time I think we could see the first Chinese-trained player being drafted in the NHL. Maybe I'm too optimistic, but how would you see the future of Chinese hockey?

You mean Chinese-born and trained in China? Probably no chance. But Zack Yuen was just drafted by Winnipeg and Brandon Yip plays for the Avalanche, both of Hong Kong descent. For Chinese-Canadians, the future looks much brighter.

IIRC at the last olys canada-norway (8-0 win by Canada) was shown on national television and got ~20 million viewers (not that that is much in China).

Surely the 2010 Olympic gold medal game had more than 20 million viewers in China alone... then again I know of no way to substantiate that claim.

China is a Division II country in the men's senior IIHF rankings. IIRC Chinese hockey is mostly a two-city affair: Qiqihar and Harbin. Maybe the Chinese hockey federation wanted to expand their activities beyond Heilongjiang (Mandchuria) but lack of funding halted any effort.

chinese mens hockey is a low level div 2 team. Their hockey program has really seemed to take a hit the past few years and I dont see how its going to get much better.. teams like Iceland arent even having much trouble beating them.. I doubt we EVER see a player 100% born/trained who represented the Chinese National team to ever play in the NHL.

I mean we dont even see many italian born or trained or Polish born and trained and those are legitimate ice hockey programs..I know there have been a few but its once in a blue moon we see one..

To give you some idea how far they've fallen: in 1981 they beat Denmark 5-1, Great Britain 12-2, France 10-3. The next year they beat Norway 4-2, tied Switzerland & beat the Netherlands 8-3 (one year after they were in the A pool). In the past couple of years, however, they've lost to the likes of Iceland, New Zealand & Estonia (15-0 & 16-3!)

http://www.nationalteamsoficehockey....me_Results.pdf

China never was much better than a borderline-division-I country.

Back in 1981 France and Denmark were division-II countries.

Yea I agree with AIREAYE.

CBC will pumping out quality hockey players soon enough. I am excited to see Zach in a Jets uniform. He is a rugged D-man...:handclap:

wasnt ziggy palffy chinese?

Theres this small rink in a mall here in Guangzhou that I skated at a few days ago for kicks.... they sell retail RBK 4K (non-Pump Fitlite and newer generation with Pump) and X:15 skates.... THERE'S HOPE

Chinese Canadians yes. I'm surprised there aren't many Chinese Canadians in the NHL, Chinese is the 3rd most spoken language in Canada after English and French. Canada in many ways is a Chinese country, much like the US is a Black country.

A real Chinese from China? Probably never. Hockey has zero presence in Asia, I mean zero.

We've got Yuen, Yip and that's pretty much about it.

Don't get me wrong, there are a good number of Chinese-Canadians (and Chinese-Americans, not to mention the people of Chinese descent in European countries where the NHL scout for players) that have some talent. Perhaps a 1994 or later kid could, one day, follow in Yuen's footsteps.

That's a pretty ignorant comment, have you ever been up north? Try to find some Chinese presence there...

How the eff is US a 'Black' country? Is 'Black' a nationality? Seriously man.... -facepalm- :shakehead

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.... China

There is some ice hockey rinks indeed. But that's it.

That is China.

:shakehead
Don't be so sensitive.

This sounds a bit wierd, but there's a correlation between the national focus, and the NHL.

China puts little to no emphasis on the Winter Games, comparatively to the summer games

Look at South Korea with an emphasis on speed skating, and figure skating.

I don't know much about their national hockey program, but they've had a couple of notable NHLers in Jim Paek and Richard Park. Not to mention quite a few that made it into juniors and minor leagues.

I lived up in Shenyang for 3 years + and there was some good fun hockey being played but there really aren't many Chinese actually playing. We might see that change as Chinese have recently started expanding into team sports as you can notice they have started producing higher quality Basketball and football players. Also as there becomes more of a middle class in China with more disposable income you might see more kids enrolling in organized hockey. It might even become a sport of status because unlike football and basketball the cost of hockey is WAY higher.

I found while i was there that Chinese are really good at individual sports but lack the ability to work with others in a team setting. I believe this has been a byproduct of the one child policy where many of the youth have little emperor syndrome. This makes it difficult for them to become role players on a team if they are not the best then why bother.

On a side note i went to the Womens World Championships in Harbin in 2008 we had an absolute blast. The Canadian contingent was about 250-300 strong while we found 2 americans in the crowd during the finals.

I was living in Jinan for the last year, very little of the public even knows what hockey is, let alone ever seen/played it. There was one rink, I went there and talked with the founder, who was from my hometown of Harbin and used to be part of the national team years ago. I played a little shinny with him and he was a good skater but his hockey skills (puckhandling, stickhandling, overall sense) was quite poor.

I'm originally from Harbin and my cousin is part of the current national team and always asks my family to ship over some skates to China for him to use since their products are generally crap, and the good ones are waaay too expensive for the locals.

both of those players learned hockey in canada or the US

He's Slovakian

This.

But you can bet that if the Chinese government wanted to develop hockey, they WILL, as the original poster suggested, in 20 years have a player be drafted by the NHL.

Many of their top national athletes have pretty much been bred since birth and spend most of their lives being groomed and developed to excel in that sport.

And another thing is that as the country becomes richer, many more families are now able to afford hockey gear for their kids. Wouldn't surprise me to see more kids in China starting to play hockey over the next few years.

The Gold Medal final started at about 4 or 5 in the morning. Aside from myself, and a few Canadian and American Co-workers who made an all-nighter/breakfast bash I know of no one who watched the game.

This.

3 years in Harbin living next to the winter sports complex area, and with a wife who is from Qiqihar whose parents apartment backs onto the speed skating oval and rink. I can tell you that there is some awareness and a few players. Get much farther than 6 blocks from either of these places and there is a good chance of people giving you a "Hockey? Shenme yisi?" (what's hockey?)

I was the guy running around with the flag and breaking all my pots and pans. Who were you? Do I know you? And while there weren't as many Canadians, there were definitely a few more than 2 Americans.

Anyways, I don't see hockey ever getting big enough here to produce NHL players to be honest. Lack of interest. Lack of money (yes, there is a growing middle class but we are still talking about people making RMB not dollars - 1 dollar = 6.5rmb or so. After buying a stick and gloves on a middle-classish Chinese salary I will tell you that there is no way I could put a kid through hockey with all equipment, icetime, and travel costs)

Soccer and basketball are the two sports they will soon enough take-over in my mind.

Can be played almost anywhere at very low cost + massive, competitive population = uh oh for everyone else

As to why I mentioned a 20-year timeframe, it is because it took a couple of countries this long to develop their hockey programs from where China is now to their first NHL player.

@Furious Gump : haha that sounds absolutely amazing, would LOVE to hear your experiences.

Not sure about China but in Hong Kong and Singapore, hitting (or at least hitting hard) is considered roughing so a future in the NHL is rather dark...