We are talking not only about figure skating and short track - disciplines in which Chinese athletes traditionally show good results, but also about sports that are less common in China, such as hockey.
According to the strategy developed by the State General Administration of Physical Education and Sports of the People's Republic of China, the main idea of holding the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing in 2022 is to promote winter sports that were previously unpopular among more than 300 million Chinese citizens. The task of spreading disciplines such as alpine skiing, bobsledding and ski jumping will largely be fulfilled by the Olympic city of Zhangjiakou, located 200 km from the capital, it is already ready to host snow tracks. But with team sports, especially hockey, the situation is much more complicated.
12 hockey teams will take part in the 2022 Olympics (8 of which will take places in the IIHF ranking), as well as the winners of three qualifying groups and the host country, that is, China. The title of "capital" of the Winter Olympic Games implies the mandatory participation in the tournament of the Chinese ice hockey team, which currently occupies only 38th place in the IIHF global rankings. The indicator is by no means high, therefore, in order to increase the competitiveness of the hockey team by 2022, the Chinese authorities have taken seriously the creation of a strong team.
Today, it is too early for Chinese hockey players to brag about their success in international competitions. In the Asian Hockey League, there is the only team from China - China Dragon, which has collected all the anti-records in the AIHL. The team was formed in 2007, the Chinese Ice Hockey Association brought together the "best of the best" from the two strongest teams: "Khosa" (Harbin) and "Changchun Fuao" (Qiqihar). As a result of negotiations between the Chinese Hockey Association and the San Jose Sharks (teams from the NHL), it was decided to strengthen the Chinese national team with five players and three coaches from the NHL, the team was named China Sharks. However, all efforts went to waste: despite the fact that the team has somewhat raised its level, by the difference of goals scored / conceded, it remained at the bottom of the standings, overtaking only the Japanese club Nikko Icebags. In 2009, the China Sharks lost financial support from the West, and the team was renamed China Dragon. Last season, the Chinese club managed to win only 7 wins in 48 matches.
An important step in the development of national hockey was the entry of the Chinese club into the Continental Hockey League (KHL)
An important step in the development of national hockey was the entry of the Chinese club into the Continental Hockey League (KHL). The decision to create a Chinese team in one of the strongest hockey leagues was discussed at the level of top officials, and in October last year, a KHL working group on the “hockey” cities of the Celestial Empire visited. During the visit, the Russian delegation visited Shanghai, Harbin and Beijing, where they got acquainted with the local hockey infrastructure and visited youth competitions. The purpose of the visit was to assess the future prospects for cooperation between the League and Chinese clubs. A little later, it became known that the President of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation Vladislav Tretiak, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Continental Hockey League Gennady Timchenko and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Chinese Hockey Club Krasnaya Zvezda-Kunlun Yang Yun signed a protocol on China's performances in the KHL. According to the document, in order to participate in a series of games for the next KHL season, the Krasnaya Zvezda-Kunlun club must provide financial guarantees for the minimum amount of funding until the end of April 2016, as well as fulfill all conditions for participation in the League, comply with the rules and regulations stipulated by the KHL Regulations . There is no doubt about the financial guarantees of the Chinese club - the taxation system in China is quite loyal to sports, which is well evidenced by the activity of Chinese football clubs that spent more than 203 million euros in the winter transfer window and overtook the most prestigious English Premier League in this indicator. Thus, according to forecasts, the expected budget of the "Red Star-Kunlun" will be comparable to the budgets of the richest teams in the KHL, such as SKA, Ak Bars and CSKA Moscow. The Chinese club will be based in Beijing, and the home arena will be the Mastercard Center sports complex, built for the 2008 Summer Olympics and designed for 18,000 fans.
Chinese fans hope that the new Chinese club in the KHL will be able to assemble a good team. Chairman of the Board of Directors of the KHL Gennady Timchenko said that the newcomer to the KHL - the Beijing "Red Star-Kunlun" - will be given special conditions for the recruitment of hockey players. And, first of all, we will talk about athletes from North America and, possibly, players from Russia. However, hockey fans believe that the Chinese club will choose the North American vector of development, the reason for this is the offer of a working contract to Canadian hockey coach Mike Keenan, who has won many trophies in his career, including the Stanley Cup and the Gagarin Cup. If the Chinese club manages to put such an experienced coach at the helm, it will significantly increase the chances of the club performing at the highest level. However, according to the regulations, in addition to foreign stars, athletes with Chinese passports must also play in the club.
Against the backdrop of a low level of play in regional hockey clubs, the problem of finding professionals is quite acute. But it is also resolvable. Every year in China there is a growing interest in getting education abroad, many young junior hockey players go to study in Canada and the USA, and after graduation they stay to play in local clubs. As an example, 19-year-old Andong Song, who moved from China to Canada at the age of 10, played for local clubs for a long time, and was later noticed by the New York Islanders hockey club. To date, Song is considered the first ethnic Chinese in the NHL. It is possible that the "Red Star-Kunlun" will be able to return young players or naturalize players with Chinese roots.
Interesting: By the way, the prices for classes and equipment in China do not differ much from Russian ones: the average price of a uniform is about $ 65, the price of one lesson in a section is $ 30, in Russia the cost of equipment is slightly lower - around $ 55, but classes cost more expensive - 30-35 dollars
The entry of Chinese clubs into the KHL is beneficial both to the League itself and to China. The performance of the national team in the KHL contributes to the popularity of hockey in the country, and will also help in creating a competitive national team that can adequately perform at the home Olympics. In turn, the KHL will get a huge market. By the way, interest in hockey in China has been constantly growing in recent years, which is proved by the TV rating data during the hockey final at the Olympic Games in Sochi: more than 120 million Chinese watched the Canada-Sweden match, while at home they were sick of Canada only 15 million viewers. It is difficult to imagine how many viewers will cling to the screens if, sooner or later, the Chinese team gets into the final.
Equally interesting will be the matches with the participation of the Chinese team in the KHL. So, about 800 thousand Chinese people watch the NHL games, and this is despite the morning broadcast. It is worth noting that the NHL has been trying to "strengthen" in China for a long time - in addition to creating sports schools and camps, NHL clubs organize tourist trips to matches in the United States. In addition, several clubs are planning to send their players to participate in the local league. Perhaps such competition will benefit the KHL. The Youth Hockey Development Program can also contribute to this. The Ministry of Sports of China and Russia, the FHR and the KHL are in constant dialogue. It is planned to create a youth team, which may play in the MHL (Youth Hockey League). And in the “youth team” preference will be given to local players rather than legionnaires.
As for junior hockey in China itself, only three teams played at the country's championship among juniors U18 in 2014-2015: Harbin, Qiqihar and Beijing. The northern teams (Harbin and Qiqihar) are significantly inferior in technique to the young Beijing hockey players. One of the key advantages of the Beijing team is the participation of 9 young hockey players who have been trained in the USA and Canada, where beginners are intensively trained. Even if we compare the number of matches played per year, then “over the hill” young people participate in more than 100 official matches, and the guys from Chinese clubs cannot earn such a practice even in 5 years. An interesting fact is that in the capital, children start playing hockey at the age of 4-5, and children from the northern regions of China enroll in the hockey section at the age of 7-8, although it is believed that children from the northern provinces are stronger and taller. As for the number of competitions at the city level, Beijing is also in the lead here. So, about 730 matches are held in the capital during the annual city junior training camp, in which 1745 young athletes take part.
Perhaps the more active development of hockey in Beijing is influenced not only by the image of the "Olympic capital", but also by other factors. Firstly, the abundance of sports infrastructure, in the near future, specifically for the promotion of hockey and figure skating in Beijing, it is planned to build 16 ice arenas and about 50 outdoor rinks, and in total there are 64 outdoor and 48 indoor rinks in China. For comparison: in Russia at the beginning of 2016, there were 2,553 open and 450 indoor ice rinks. Secondly, the capital is leading in terms of the number of the middle class, and these are people who can afford to buy expensive hockey equipment for their children and pay for classes.
Today the Youth Hockey League has 708 players. Of course, the numbers are not so impressive, but everyone knows what Chinese athletes are capable of, especially with the support of the country's top leader: Chinese President Xi Jinping recently admitted that ice hockey is his favorite winter sport.
- The China Ice Hockey Championship is the main ice hockey league in China. The league was founded in 1953. Only amateur clubs participate in the championship. The only professional Chinese team, the Chinese Dragons, participates in the Asian Hockey League.
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"SE" analyzes how soon the Russian league, which consists of six foreign clubs, will be replenished with a team from China
IIHF NOT AGAINST
As soon as the IOC named Beijing the capital of the 2022 Winter Olympics on July 31, all eyes immediately turned to hockey, which remains the undisputed king of the Games. After all, the format of the men's hockey tournament will not change compared to Pyeongchang 2018, and among the 12 participants there will still be the eight best teams in the IIHF rating, the winners of three qualifying groups and the host country. That is China.
The head of the National Olympic Committee of the People's Republic of China, Liu Peng, commenting on the results of the elections, said that in an effort to develop hockey, they will rely on Russian standards. And the president of the KHL, Dmitry Chernyshenko, has already voiced the idea of including a club from China in the league. He is echoed by the head of the IIHF Rene Fasel, who believes that the Chinese should start playing in the KHL from the 2016/17 season. It is no coincidence that one of the possible venues for the 2016 All-Star Game is called Shanghai.
The desire of the KHL to enter the Chinese market is understandable. It is vast and almost undeveloped. There is an opportunity to bend it for yourself, having received serious preferences in terms of brand promotion, advertising and marketing activities. In return, of course, development assistance will be provided. Similar goals are pursued by the IIHF, which benefits from collaboration with the accommodating Continental League and friendship with it against the NHL, which does not put the International Ice Hockey Federation in a penny.
NHL LONG FIGHTS FOR CHINA
I must say that the National Hockey League in China has been represented for a long time. Program Project Hope The Islanders, co-owned by Chinese-born billionaire Charles Wong (his real Chinese name is Wang Jialian), are working c 2006. In June, the Islanders made a knight's move, choosing the first ever Chinese in the NHL Entry Draft. Sun Andun, who has lived in the United States since the age of 10, instantly became widely popular in his homeland, and a segment of the ceremony with his choice was shown on CCTV live.
Recently, Toronto, whose matches are most often shown on China Central Television, has stepped up in the same direction. Maple Leaves even began to place advertisements on the boards for a new market - in Chinese. And they sent an initiative group overseas to develop a strategy for promoting the Maple Leaves brand.
We note in particular that CCTV shows live NHL matches. In the regular season, there were 87 of those, and the Stanley Cup final was broadcast in full, and its audience ranged from 800,000 to a million viewers - twice as many as in the regular season. The share, of course, is negligible, based on a population of 1.4 billion inhabitants. But given that the games started at 9 am Beijing time, the figure is starting to look very decent. The average audience of the Gagarin Cup finals in Russia - a hockey country - is only 2.5 times larger. And not in the morning, but in prime time.
The time of the show will become more convenient - the Chinese will certainly equalize the percentages not only with Russia, but also with America. And there is a deep sense to move in this direction. You should not think that the Chinese millions of TV viewers are useless, because their purchasing power is extremely low. This is just a persistent myth. In 2014, the average salary in China was $713. It is clear that this is a very conditional criterion, and the calculation method raises questions: nevertheless, you know that the country is full of unrecorded peasants who drag out a miserable existence. But the median salary in cities where more than half of the republic's population lives is almost the same - $683. Whereas in Russia there are only about 400.
That is, the Chinese market is very promising, and this is well understood in the NHL. As the legendary Phil Esposito recently told in an interview with SE, the league is ready to start working hard on him. Well, the fact that hockey in China is still in its infancy is a fixable matter. The lack of serious interest in hockey does not prevent the 4-millionth Croatia from being represented on the KHL map.
NORTH AMERICANS WILL PLAY
You can form a new team according to the principle of the same “Medvescak”, who in his debut season reached the playoffs without any problems and generally gave a light to many rivals with a North American squad. Subsequently, however, disassembled by competitors due to very modest funding, but this is unlikely to threaten the hypothetical Chinese club.
There is something to attract foreigners: firstly, there is still money in the KHL, and secondly, in the same Shanghai, life is in some ways even more comfortable than in Zagreb. There is nothing to be done about flights, but the Admiral somehow lives, despite the fact that it takes about the same time to fly from Vladivostok to Moscow as from the Yangtze River Delta. Will not, of course, be peculiar Dom Sportova a special atmosphere, but this can be acquired, and there is an arena, albeit not very suitable for hockey. For 8 thousand spectators. And there will be more - and many more.
The authorities have announced the goal of having a viable hockey team for the 2022 Olympics. For this purpose, in the next five years, it is planned to build about 500 indoor ice rinks, more than now in Russia (419). In Harbin, a kind of Chinese hockey Mecca, where hockey players 7-8 years ago received around $100 a month, huddled in something like a barracks with bunk beds, everything has changed dramatically. And at the sports university of this city this year there was the first graduation of two hockey faculties (coaching and management), opened in 2011 with the participation of the IIHF.
ALMOST NO CONS
In five years, the number of hockey players in China has grown from 200 to 2000. In Slovenia, which participated in the Olympics in Sochi and regularly appears in the elite division of the world championships, with seven rinks throughout the country, it is half as much. The level has also grown: five years ago, according to the coach of Dynamo Minsk Andrey Kovalev, who worked there for some time, the Chinese team would have been an outsider in the MHL. Now things are a little better, work is in full swing. And having such huge resources, desire and huge plans, catching up and overtaking the same Slovenia is quite a feasible task, and with its implementation and regular participation in the world championships, popularity will come.
Not so long ago, Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China, admitted that hockey is his favorite winter sport. Vladimir Putin also plays it. Why not additional ground for a strategic alliance? To organize a KHL club in China, and on the conditions declared by the league, will not cost anything. And the dividends can be huge. And a serious team with decent funding, and an immense market in which they will let you work without interference, and the opportunity to bring to mind the idea of Vyacheslav Fetisov about the Pacific division of the KHL as an independent combat unit. The only downside is the logistics. There are many more pluses.