When the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics are underway. Teenagers are the future of ice and snow sports, and in this storm, they are in the spotlight.
Riding on the east wind of the Winter Olympics, in recent years, Shanghai has provided a fertile ground for young people to dream of ice and snow by introducing ice and snow sports into campuses, guiding social forces to build venues, and government support for the introduction of high-end events. Especially in the context of superimposed "double subtraction", more and more people realize that the role of sports in children's growth is irreplaceable.
In the gymnasium ice rink, children practice skating.
What special changes has the increasingly hot ice and snow games brought to young people? Children currently participating in ice and snow sports, how many future ascension paths are there? How to improve the existing sports talent cultivation model in China?
"Hockey fosters a sense of teamwork, while figure skating shapes the body and improves children's understanding of the arts." Recently, Zhang Xiaozhe, head of the marketing department of Feiyang Ice Sports Center, introduced to the surging news (www.thepaper.cn) that ice and snow sports can improve physical fitness, and "children who come to participate in training rarely have colds."
However, in China, the academic pressure of adolescents is relatively heavy, and most children need to consider taking care of their studies when they reach secondary school. In this model, ice and snow sports are also facing the pressure of a cliff-like decline in the number of young people participating in school, which has also led to the dilemma of lack of professional team talents.
Taking ice hockey as an example, coach Zhang Yiming believes that if Chinese ice hockey wants to promote popularity and enhance strength, it is necessary to open up the channel of ascension. She suggested that two systems should be stepped up nationwide: one is to incorporate ice hockey into the promotion system and build a Chinese college ice hockey league; the other is to establish a professional league, so that children who want to play ice hockey start from the youth league at the age of sixteen or seventeen and eventually become professional players.
In the popularization of the campus, it cultivates interest, physique and will
In September 2020, in accordance with the requirements of high school sports specialization, Shanghai Jiading No. 1 Middle School opened an ice hockey class. The school will be next to the playground of a field of about 200 square meters, into a simulated ice hockey rink. Senior 1 and sophomores can enroll for free. The sleek and well-equipped hockey players add a colourful vibrancy to the campus.
Every Wednesday from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 a.m., it is the ice hockey class time for some students in the second year of high school. For a year and a half, student Luo Shaoyuan has not interrupted the practice of ice hockey class. He told the surging news that the number of ice hockey classes is very sought-after, about 20 or 30 people in each class have signed up, and after the selection of interests and basic degrees, more than a dozen students have stayed to become regular students. At present, there are more than 80 students in the school, and two ice hockey classes are held twice a week, each class is about 2 hours.
Before the class, students will wear professional knee pads and training uniforms, and external coaches will check one by one, and then help sharpen the ice knife to improve safety. All the equipment in the class is actually the same as in regular ice hockey games. Luo Shaoyuan introduced that usually the class will first carry out the practice of passing, carrying the ball, shooting, and then take turns to practice attack and defense, and finally there will be a confrontation game.
"The club is a long stick, it is very tiring to swing left and right, plus the simulated ice rink is easy to slip, not as good as real ice." For Luo Shaoyuan, who has zero foundation, ice hockey training is a bit difficult, but he enjoys it, "the class is very happy, and the teacher is also very interesting."
More importantly, ice hockey not only exercises students' physical fitness, but also cultivates students' teamwork spirit. While learning ice hockey techniques, Luo Shaoyuan also learned the power of teamwork in sports cooperation. "When fighting, if you cooperate well, you can win the opponent who has strong single skills but will not cooperate."
Today, at least 130 schools in Shanghai have introduced ice and snow sports such as curling, skiing, and skating into primary and secondary school classrooms. For the strong demand for campus sports, the attempt at ice and snow sports needs more use of off-campus venues.
The hiss of the ice knife rubbing against the ice, the cry of your chasing me... Pudong New Area Shangnan Wucun Primary School and Qingliu Middle School moved two physical education classes per week to the ice surface of the Flying Ice Sports Center in the Sanlin Sports Center. Students wear helmets, step on ice knives and engage in short-track speed skating lessons.
In 2015, with the support of the Pudong New Area Education Bureau, Yang Yang, China's first Winter Olympic champion and venue founder, took the lead in launching the "Ice Sports into School" project at the Feiyang Ice Sports Center. At present, the center has cooperated with nearly 20 kindergartens, primary and secondary schools to provide popular courses in ice hockey, short track speed skating and figure skating.
Recently, Zhang Xiaozhe, head of the marketing department of the mainland's first market-oriented ice rink, said in an interview with the surging news that more than 20 professional coaches of the center are retired athletes of the national team. Among them, since the opening of the ice course in 2015, at least more than 1,200 students have mastered short-track speed skating skills, and outstanding individual athletes have gradually "emerged".
Especially under the "double reduction" policy, more and more parents have also seen the role of sports on the healthy growth of children's physical and mental health.
"First, ice and snow sports can improve physical fitness, and children who come to participate in training rarely catch colds." Zhang Xiaozhe said, "Second, ice hockey cultivates a sense of teamwork, while figure skating can shape the body and improve children's understanding of art." In addition, many participants also said that ice and snow sports are conducive to cultivating children's patience, perseverance and courage to fight, and teamwork can also make children more willing to communicate and express and broaden their horizons.
Zhang Yiming, who has been playing ice hockey in sports schools since childhood, is working as a part-time coach at a market-oriented skating rink in Shanghai. "I belong to the category of retiring from the middle and choosing to go to school, and now my main business is an ordinary office worker." She said that practicing skating makes people look tall and temperamental, and the ice hockey project is very good at exercising people's physical fitness and cardiopulmonary function, which is helpful for the training of children's limbs, brains and cerebellums.
Many parents will worry that their children are prone to collision injuries and joint colds in ice and snow sports, Zhang Xiaozhe explained, "In fact, there will be special precautions before training, such as protective equipment and warm-up exercises, and targeted physical recovery after the game." Zhang Yiming said that as long as the protective gear protection is done, the joints are basically not too much of a problem. Even if it is a more confrontational ice hockey sport, it is only in extreme cases that it can be injured if it encounters strong impacts or overtraining.
Youth participation in leapfrog growth, the country is still an "aristocratic movement"
Since 2015, with the implementation of the strategy of "Expanding the West and Expanding the East of the North Ice South Exhibition" and the successful promotion of Beijing's Bid for the Olympic Games, the charm of ice and snow projects has "gone out of the circle" and has gradually become popular among the youth groups in Shanghai.
With the joint help of government investment and social forces, the territory of Shanghai's ice and snow venues has been expanding. At present, Shanghai has a total of 13 ice rinks, 34 indoor ski resorts, 3 curling venues, 8 curling tracks, and various ice and snow sports venues are distributed in 13 districts and 4 colleges and universities; the city has carried out 7 ice and snow sports projects such as short track speed skating, figure skating, ice hockey, speed skating, curling, snowmobiling, and skiing. Public data show that under the influence of the epidemic in 2020, 2 million people in Shanghai have participated in ice and snow sports, compared with about 700,000 in 2017. According to the Shanghai Sports Bureau, as of 2021, Shanghai has held more than 5,000 youth ice and snow events, with a total of 1.2 million people participating.
"After the preparations for the Winter Olympics began, the number of young people participating in ice and snow sports has grown rapidly, especially in the past two years." Zhang Xiaozhe said, "On the one hand, it is because of the strong support of the government in publicizing and introducing events under the heat of the Winter Olympics; on the other hand, it can also be seen that this generation of post-80s and post-90s parents is more open in concept and willing to accept new things."
However, in addition to the poor entrance to school, the high cost also blocks many children from the door of ice and snow sports.
Compared with other common sports such as basketball and swimming, snow sports are quite expensive in terms of economic expenses. Zhang Xiaozhe introduced the cost of ice sports, on the one hand, from the use of a standard commercial ice rink of 1800 square meters to make ice and maintain the cost is not low, plus the cost of ice hockey coach hiring is also relatively high, on the other hand, from the expenditure of equipment, children grow fast, about once a year to replace.
Taking youth ice hockey training as an example, equipment fees, training fees plus a certain number of games cost at least 150,000 yuan a year. Among them, the most basic equipment includes ice hockey shoes, ice hockey knives, protective gear, ice hockey clubs, etc., which require at least 5,000 yuan at a time. Although the price of ice hockey shoes on the market ranges from 300 yuan to 3000 yuan, the price of skates that children change a year is also about 3000 yuan.
In addition to hardware, Zhang Yiming's ice hockey course at the ice rink is divided into big classes and personal lessons. She said that the personal training class is formulated by the coach according to the different situations of the child, usually the one-on-one cost of the entry level is about 300 yuan; the large class is about 10 people group training and competition, each session costs 200 yuan. As a requirement for international standards, coaches will require both courses to be reported, and the holidays usually arrange 3 private lessons a week, and the big classes should also ensure that the child comes at least once, and on weekdays, due to academic pressure, it will be reduced to at least 1 personal lesson or 1 big class per week.
"The basic family income that comes to our classes is relatively high, most of them belong to the middle class, and most of their children attend international schools." Zhang Yiming said, "Domestic ice hockey is still an aristocratic sport at present. "But in her observation, due to climatic factors and the overall basic atmosphere of ice and snow sports, in Beijing, the fee for each ice and snow course will generally be about 50 yuan to 100 yuan lower than in Shanghai." If more and more people learn from the Shanghai Ice and Snow Project, and the coach schedule is full, it may be possible to control the cost of each personal training class below 150 yuan, which can further attract more students. ”
To get out of the limitations of the system, it is still necessary to expand careers and further education paths
The cooperation of the school and the support of market-oriented venues have injected new impetus into the cultivation of sports talents. At the same time, the Shanghai Municipal Sports Bureau further promotes the cultivation of ice and snow sports reserve talents in the form of government guidance, association management and social participation.
Shanghai's development of a unique talent training model for winter sports has been tested in the arena of the 2016 All-Winter Games. Taking the curling project as an example, the combination of sports and education is adopted, and the school students participate in the competition; the figure skating, ice hockey and short track speed skating teams are formed in the form of bidding and bidding, with the help of social forces - the "Shanghai model" that has stepped out of the limitations of the system has attracted much attention.
Under the guidance of the Shanghai Municipal Sports Bureau, the Shanghai Curling Association established the Shanghai Curling Youth Team. At the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, two curling referees from Shanghai, Wang Jue and Li Lingshu, were responsible for the refereeing and deputy timekeeper. Shao Guomin, vice president of the Shanghai Ice and Snow Sports Association, said that as of 2021, there will be more than 800 registered ice hockey players and more than 200 figure skaters.
In addition to emerging in international competitions, Shanghai's well-formed club league mechanism is also one of the important ways to promote youth ice hockey. In the 2018-2019 season, there are four age groups of U7, U8, U10 and U12, and 54 teams compete in 384 matches.
Zhang Yiming said that the shift from the traditional format to the club format is the key to promoting the sport of ice hockey in Shanghai, which is helpful for the popularity of the young ice hockey players and their future career development. "Only in this way can ice and snow sports improve their visibility and interaction and become a national sport." In addition, she also suggested that Shanghai further increase the number of professional ice rinks and further promote the public's awareness of ice hockey.
Zhang Yiming, who began teaching children to play ice hockey in 2008, also pointed out that in China, the academic pressure of teenagers is heavy, and many ice hockey players who play high school have to consider taking care of their studies. At present, there is no relevant policy in domestic public schools to use ice and snow competition awards as a boost for further education, in this mode, ice and snow sports are also facing the pressure of a cliff-like decline in the number of young people participating in school, which has also led to the dilemma of lack of professional team talents.
China Education News once reported that for Wu Benqin, the party secretary of Qingliu Middle School, a regret from four years ago has always been stuck in his heart. In 2018, two students from the school were selected for the National Winter Olympics Short Track Speed Skating Reserve Team training, and finally one was shortlisted. However, the student who was shortlisted later also regrettably failed, but it was difficult to enter an ordinary high school due to the academic and psychological blows of the preparation for the fall.
Wu Benqin sighed, "These children have worked tirelessly in their profession, won honors for the school, the whole district, and Shanghai Municipality, and should have become role models, but such an ending is regrettable, and it also makes many students and parents who intend to aspire to the development of professional direction hesitate." ”
The same goes for ice hockey. "Generally children start playing hockey from the age of five or six, they can participate in the game around the age of ten, and the good seedlings will also be selected for the city team and the provincial team, if they are good enough, they may participate in the national championship in their teens, and some schools will also take the initiative to contact." Zhang Yiming said, "At this stage, shanghai's young players play very well before the age of 13 or 14, but they will break the file after junior high school, and there are fewer in high school." Children who practice ice hockey from an early age want to continue to take the path of professional ice hockey career, most of them will go to high school in overseas countries such as North America and participate in youth leagues, because there are more ways to play ice hockey abroad, while those who stay in domestic universities will mostly interrupt training and give up ice hockey because of academic pressure. ”
Zhang Yiming believes that if China's ice hockey wants to promote popularity and enhance strength, it is necessary to open up the channel of ascension. She suggested that two systems should be stepped up nationwide: one is to incorporate ice hockey into the promotion system and build a Chinese college ice hockey league; the other is to establish a professional league, so that children who want to play ice hockey start from the youth league at the age of sixteen or seventeen and eventually become professional players.
Indeed, compared to China, high-level athletes from European and American countries often come from the school system. In foreign countries, students who stand out in ice and snow sports have the opportunity to apply for the "Ivy League" elite schools and play professional leagues to become stars.
Therefore, compared with the institutional training in the north, many parents in Shanghai hope to bring more choices to their children's future education path through ice and snow sports.
In the summer of 2016, Zheng Zhilei, an 18-year-old Shanghai boy who studied at the School of Foreign Chinese affiliated with Shanghai Overseas Chinese University in Hongkou District, was admitted to the "Ivy League" university of Pennsylvania social systems engineering, in addition to excellent academic performance (SAT2330 points), the "8 years of ice hockey experience" on the resume table obviously played a "niche specialty".
Among the parents Zhang Yiming met, most of them sent their children to training for two reasons, one was to strengthen their bodies and shape their personality; the other was to take offers from famous schools for the entrance examination. Zhang Xiaozhe also said that most of the children who come to the ice rink to train are from international schools.
Zhang Yiming has seen many examples of applying for admission to domestic and foreign universities by playing ice hockey. She introduced that some domestic colleges and universities such as Beijing Sport University, Changchun Normal University, and Shanghai University of Sport will clearly inform the recruitment of ice hockey students when enrolling students, and then comprehensively evaluate students in combination with the level of cultural classes. For future study abroad, ice hockey is also an important project to improve the resume in the application, especially in North American countries, there are more schools that favor students with ice hockey experience.
Zhang Hong, a member of the International Olympic Committee, also pointed out that "the degree of integration of domestic education and sports is not enough, if every 985 and 211 school can have sports special enrollment, then it will give parents and students more choices, and professional sports talents can also have more reserves." "In the face of the dilemma of talent transfer, in recent years, the enrollment policies of colleges and universities have gradually made a positive response.
At present, a total of 275 institutions of higher learning in the country are qualified to recruit high-level sports teams. In addition to the enrollment of competitive talents, in recent years, many colleges and universities have opened ice and snow sports related majors. Beijing Sport University established the School of Ice and Snow Sports on April 15, 2016, to cultivate talents together with Harbin Institute of Physical Education. Since 2017, the Capital Institute of Physical Education has added new ice and snow sports directions under the six major majors of physical education, leisure sports, social sports guidance and management, sports economics and management, sports rehabilitation and journalism, focusing on cultivating ice and snow professionals.
Nowadays, Domestic Changchun Normal University, Zhangjiakou College, Beijing Sport University, Shanghai University of Sport, Shenyang Normal University, Shenyang University of Physical Education, Jilin University of Physical Education, Capital University of Physical Education, Harbin Institute of Physical Education and other universities have also begun to recruit students with ice hockey skills. This also provides more options for young people who love ice and snow sports to further their education.