Ice hockey is one of the earliest and most popular sports at the Winter Olympics. When it comes to the fate of Beijing and ice hockey, it is far deeper than imagined. As early as the 1950s, Beijingers already had a soft spot for ice hockey. The success of Beijing's bid for the Winter Olympics also has a credit to the Beijing ice hockey boys. Beijing ice hockey, which has a strong mass base, and the Beijing model of ice for all, have made great contributions to the realization of the dream of "driving 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports".
The hockey boys were honored as ambassadors for the Winter Olympics
After entering the 21st century, the popularity of ice hockey among Beijing youth has soared, and the performance of sports has increased rapidly. According to incomplete statistics, between 2007 and 2012, Beijing club teams won a total of 9 championships in different age groups in international, continental and national competitions. By 2014, there were nearly 100 amateur youth ice hockey teams in Beijing, and about 1,500 youth ice hockey players were registered with the Beijing Ice Hockey Association, of which 82% were children aged 4 to 11. In Beijing, as many as a few thousand people are engaged in amateur ice hockey training. Of all winter sports, ice hockey alone has such a large mass base.
What is even more proud is that in June 2015, 18-year-old Beijing boy Song Andong was selected by the New York Islanders at the NHL (North American Hockey Professional League) draft, the world's highest level of hockey league, becoming the first Chinese player in the league's nearly 100-year history. After the successful draft, Song Andong was invited by the Beijing Winter Olympic Bidding Committee to go to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as the image ambassador of the Winter Olympics, and witnessed the historical moment when Beijing won the right to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Ice hockey is the "ace sport" with the most visits and the highest ratings at the Winter Olympics, but before that, China did not have a star figure. The emergence of Song Andong has given Chinese ice hockey its own "business card".
On March 7, 1981, the World Ice Hockey (Group C) Championship opened in Beijing, and the Chinese team won the victory, winning 5-1 against the Danish team. The picture shows the Chinese team attacking. Photo by Wang Zhenmin
"Two cents to the White Rock Bridge to see the ice hockey!"
Located in North China, Beijing is surrounded by water systems, severe cold in winter, and the "northern scenery" frozen on natural rivers and lakes can be seen everywhere. Because of this unique advantage, skating has become a hobby of many Beijingers in winter, and highly skilled people will also play ice hockey on the ice. However, in Beijing before the founding of New China, people played ice hockey in the strict sense can only be regarded as a small game of self-amusement, and the venue, utensils, and playing style are not very formal.
In Beijing in the 1950s and 1960s, ice hockey was in full swing. Tsinghua Affiliated Primary School, No. 25 Middle School, Tsinghua University, Peking University and many other schools have their own ice hockey teams, and most of the ice rinks also have special ice rinks, such as the Shichahai People's Ice Rink, which is the largest and best equipped in North China, there are two ice rinks.
Even the temple fairs that Beijingers love to visit are indispensable to ice hockey games to help. In the Spring Festival of 1963, there were 10,000 people visiting the temple fairs in Shichahai and Beihai Stadiums, most of whom were ice sports enthusiasts. At the temple fair, the most people watched the ice hockey game, and the people who watched the game were very excited, busy cheering and cheering, full of joy.
In the 1980s, the Beijing Capital Gymnasium hosted the World Hockey Group C Championships. Beijing was the second city in Asia to host the World Ice Hockey Championship at that time, and that international event attracted up to 300,000 spectators to help, and the popularity was no less than the home game of the Guoan Football Team and the Shougang Basketball Team, which made Beijing and even the whole country boil.
In March 1981, many Beijing citizens greeted each other with greetings that were like this: "Do you want to go?" Two cents to see ice hockey at White Rock Bridge! "At that time, in the Capital Gymnasium, as long as there was a game of the Chinese team, the field was full. Tickets for ice hockey matches are hard to come by, and many Beijing ice hockey fans have to work hard to buy a ticket.
When the Chinese team defeated the North Korean team 10:2 in the last game, it finally finished second with a record of 7 wins, 6 wins and 1 loss, and was promoted to the world B group, stepping into the top 16 of the world hockey. At this time, the first body staged the most moving scene in 10 days: countless candies were thrown from the stands to the ice, rewarding the team, but the team members threw the candies back to all corners of the stands to share the joy of victory with the ice fans. "The roof of the head was almost overturned by the sound." Yao Naifeng, a member of the Chinese men's ice hockey team at the time and former head coach of Chinese women's ice hockey, said.
On the eve of the Spring Festival in 1955, the capital held an ice sports conference, and the Tianjin Ice Hockey Team and the Beijing Municipal Ice Hockey Team were carrying out friendly matches. Photo by Feng Wengang
The general secretary "bumped shoulders" to greet the ice hockey baby
The success of Beijing's bid for the Winter Olympics has led to the development of ice and snow sports. On February 24, 2017, General Secretary Xi Jinping watched the ice hockey team exhibition match of Zhongguancun No. 2 Primary School and No. 20 Affiliated Experimental School in Wukesong Gymnasium. The general secretary took the hand of a Xiaoice team member, leaned down, and interacted with him in a greeting style unique to ice hockey players. He smiled and said that the boy was going to grow up a little bigger.
The general secretary also told the youngsters about his childhood skating. He said that at that time, he could only slide on the ice of Shichahai in winter. If you can buy a pair of 50 yuan skates, it is a luxury. His younger brother likes to play ice hockey, so he wants to buy knife shoes, and he likes skating, he wants to buy speed skates, but the family can only buy a pair of skates, and the general secretary gave the "indicator" of buying skates to his brother. The general secretary earnestly urged the children to cherish the current conditions, enhance their physique through participation in sports, exercise and cultivate a strong character.
In Beijing, the city of the Two Olympics, there are more and more schools and students participating in ice hockey, and there are more than 1,000 youth ice hockey matches every year, and the scale of events is also expanding. The Beijing Inter-School Ice Hockey League for Primary and Secondary School Students, which began in May 2017, attracted 95 schools and 1,500 young players, doubling in size compared with the previous edition. The Municipal Youth Ice Hockey Club League, which began in October of the same year, has developed into the largest and longest youth ice hockey event in Asia, with teams and the number of participants more than 40 times that of the first edition. At this time, Beijing already has 216 men's ice hockey teams aged 6 to 16, double that of 2016, and the number of registered youth hockey players in the city is more than 3,500, 59.2 times that of 10 years ago.
In the men's ice hockey game of the 10th Winter Games in 2003, a player who was eager to attack the goal rushed into the opponent's goal due to his strength and fierceness, causing a laugh from the audience. Photo by Lu Jian
The "Beijing model" has driven all people to ice
"Accident!" In December 2020, a "miscellaneous army" that had not undergone perennial training and was temporarily formed by different "sects" actually won the championship of the ice hockey adult group with two veteran teams, the Keqiqihar team and the Harbin team. Which "ice and snow force" is this, so powerful? The answer is: Beijing.
In the late winter of 2012, children practiced their basic hockey skills on the newly opened North Sea Park open-air ice rink. Photo by Sun Jianbao, reporter of the Winter Olympics
This starts from the unique talent training model of Beijing ice hockey. Different from the traditional professional athlete training system, diversification has always been a unique talent training model of Beijing ice hockey. Taking the Beijing Sports Vocational College team that won the championship as an example, there are professional athletes of the Beijing team who "go out" to receive high-level training in North America and participate in high-intensity local events; there are "returnees" who have studied overseas for many years and have become professional leagues, playing against fierce opponents in the arena around the world and honing their skills; and ordinary middle school students in Beijing, using the Municipal Youth Club League and the Municipal Primary and Secondary School Students Inter-school League as a platform to make progress through actual combat. Everyone continued to improve in their respective arenas, and finally converged into an unstoppable "Beijing force". This is the "Beijing model" of ice hockey.
The "Beijing model" brings about the prosperity of winter sports for all people, and helps the dream of "driving 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports" come true.
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Client The Winter Olympics | Reporter Huang Yuying
Edited by Kang Dian
Process Editor Wu Yue