On February 10, 2022, the Chinese men's ice hockey team will face the United States team at the Winter Olympics on its home soil. This is the first time in the history of Chinese ice hockey that a men's team has appeared on the world's top stage. As hosts, they were given the opportunity to compete against hockey giants, a daunting and exciting challenge.
The Chinese men's ice skater, currently ranked 32nd in the world, was in the same group as Spain, Serbia and Iceland in the ice hockey qualification tournament of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, and finally finished at the bottom of the ranking. But in Beijing, they have to be in the same group as the United States, Canada and Germany, and in the world of hockey, these are three teams that everyone fears.
Head coach Saneta said: "Debuting at the Beijing Winter Olympics is the lifelong dream of Chinese athletes. The team stressed to all the athletes that we were not going to perform, but that we had to earn the respect of the hockey world. The whole team is trying to prepare for the battle, whether it is technical or tactical or physical, we have to come up with the best state. ”
On Thursday, Beijing time, the Chinese Olympic Committee released a list of 25 people from the host men's ice hockey for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
/Kunlun Hongxing Dragon Team/
In order to meet the challenges of the Winter Olympics, in 2016, Kunlun Hongxing completed the formation and participated in the KHL Mainland Ice Hockey League, and China hopes to put players in high-level competitions to exercise. The club completed the construction of a three-tiered echelon, opening up the path from the Russian Youth League to the Champions League to the top league.
Kunlun Hongxing selected and recruited players from the North American system, and at the same time hoped to quickly cultivate local players. This "China Dragon" is a national development program that includes the entire squad of the men's and women's national teams. The players of a national team are all from the same club, which is very rare in the Winter Olympics.
Fast forward to the 1960s, when the Canadian Olympic Committee had the ingenuity to send a club to the Winter Olympics, the Kichina-Waterloo Dutchmans, to take on the task. Unlike Canada, China also wants to extend the sport of ice hockey to a wider area beyond Heilongjiang Province. In just a few years of practice, Kunlun Hongxing has set up venues in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, allowing big stars from top Russian clubs to appear on China's ice.
The COVID-19 pandemic has interrupted plans to nurture hockey audiences. From the spring of 2020, Kunlun Hongxing can only compete in Russia. To make matters worse, in the 2020-21 season, some national training team players could only stay in the domestic closed training, international competitions were forced to be stopped, and the team lost the opportunity to communicate with the world. Although facing setbacks, Kunlun Hongxing's dream of the Winter Olympics was finally continued.
/Olympic Experience/
The head coach of the Winter Olympic ice hockey team is Ivano Saneta, 61, with both Italian and Canadian citizenship and a rich hockey resume. He played with the Italian national team at the 1992 Winter Olympics, coached in leagues in Switzerland, Russia and the Czech Republic, and served as general manager of the Italian national team.
The team's assistant coach, Russian Kovalev, appeared with Saneta at the 1992 Winter Olympics, where he helped the CIS team win an exciting gold medal in Albertville. Clayton-Beddos, the manager of the Italian national team at the 2019 World Championships, is also on the coaching staff.
If the Chinese team wants to achieve good results, the goalkeeper position is crucial. Smith looks set to be the starter. The 32-year-old has made 10 appearances in the NHL league but has spent most of his career in the North American minor leagues. In 2019, he seized the opportunity to join Kunlun Hongxing and became an indispensable figure in the team.
The substitute goalkeeper will be 21-year-old young player Oban Wynn, who made his debut in the top flight with Kunlun Hongxing this season. Another goalkeeper is Han Pengfei, the 30-year-old, who has made multiple appearances in World Championship Division Two Group A, and is the only person in the team's goalkeeper position with international competition experience.
On the defensive line, Yuan Junjie is an idol player in China. Born into a Chinese family in Vancouver, Kunlun Hongxing joined the team just after its inception. In his first season, Yuan Junjie became the first Chinese player in KHL history to score a goal and the first Chinese player to score a goal. The 28-year-old, who once played for Toronto Maris, ended up in the squad despite injuries.
He has a role to play on both the offensive and defensive ends. The other two defenders are Liu Jie and Zheng Enlai, the latter of whom was a member of the Canadian Youth League's Medicine Hat team. This season, these two have made great progress with Kunlun Hongxing. Like all the returned Chinese players in the team, the dream of participating in the Winter Olympics and the dignity of chinese identity are the driving force for them to fight hard.
Whether it is the national team or the club team, the three Chinese locally trained defenders point to the future of Chinese ice hockey after the Winter Olympics. Yan Ruinan, 21, is the youngest, but he has the most experience in 29 KHL appearances this season. Chen Zimeng and Zhang Pengfei have made a total of 11 league appearances.
/Captain China/
The leader of the team's front line is captain Ye Jinguang. He holds multiple offensive records for Kunlun Hongxing, scoring 59 goals, 54 assists and 112 points in 206 KHL games. The player, who was born in Vancouver, Canada, joined the team in his homeland and became the promotion ambassador of Chinese ice hockey.
After winning the NCAA championship with Boston University, Ye jinguang played for the NHL's Avalanche and Marauders, and then helped Mannheim win the German league. After joining Kunlun Hongxing, he became the "Captain of China". Whether on and off the field, his leadership role is irreplaceable.
Luo Jia is the only player in the team who has played more than Ye Jinguang in total. The center, known for his hard work, has steadily improved his abilities over the past five seasons. Jian'an is the third most appearance of Kunlun Hongxing, bringing a lot of experience to the team. Verrick followed the team for three seasons and continued to contribute. The combination of the Fook brothers has excellent scoring ability in the KHL arena. Wang Taylor is highly skilled and has the talent to break through the defensive line.
Among China's locally trained strikers, the 23-year-old Ying Rudi opened his goal account in 2019, becoming the first Beijing-born player to score in the mainland's ice hockey league. Last month, in a match against the Nur-Sultan Snow Leopards, Yingrudi completed a dragon's goal. If he can repeat such a good play in Beijing, a legend will be born at the Winter Olympics.
Zhang Zesen, 25, and Yan Juncheng, 21, are also important players in this season's KHL arena and the future of the national team and club. Also on the roster are 21-year-old Guo Ning, Zhong Wei from the University of Arizona, and Xiang Xudong, the only player on the team to have played in the 2018 Winter Olympics ice hockey qualifiers.