Kings Article: Kings of China?

[Sheng Peng]

The numbers behind China's hockey boom and why the Kings—and NHL—should care

Click to read more...

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Great thoughts!

Just an interesting angle--just like the east coast teams attract europeans for being closer to home as well as climate, do you think the west coast teams would attract asian countries for similar reasons? I mean, we do see a little bit of that in baseball, too...totally spitballing.

 

[ADifferentTim]

Support this; even when the NBA had a boom there, it netted them Yao Ming. The fact Los Angeles is the single-largest non-traditional NHL market and the USA's 2nd-largest city are two huge boons to cash in on.

 

[Ron*]

Thanks for this article...my fianceé, who lived all her life in China up until about 7 years ago, doesn't believe my claims that hockey is growing fast in China.

Hopefully, after reading this, she will get it. Stubborn *****.

 

[Zero Pucks Given]

Sweet!

Now to deviate a little bit...
Assuming that China does in fact become a hockey powerhouse in the future, I wonder what Asian country would step up to challenge it.

 

[ADifferentTim]

Sweet!

Now to deviate a little bit...
Assuming that China does in fact become a hockey powerhouse in the future, I wonder what Asian country would step up to challenge it.

Korea or Japan, objectively speaking.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Not Asia of course but I'd wonder if Australia would also start pushing. Would be nice to have countries on that side of the Pacific challenging each other to get better and better at hockey.

Hey, it's a start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Walker#International_play

 

[Sheng Peng]

Just an interesting angle--just like the east coast teams attract europeans for being closer to home as well as climate, do you think the west coast teams would attract asian countries for similar reasons? I mean, we do see a little bit of that in baseball, too...totally spitballing.

Ultimately, Asian fans will follow their guys (i.e. Chinese will follow Andong Song and Islanders closely if he makes it with them) or a transcendent star (i.e. Michael Jordan).

The advantage for West Coast teams, like you mentioned, is that Asian athletes often want to play in West Coast cities. The fans will follow from there. But I think Asian athletes are usually happy to go to any city that has a lot of their people.

Now to deviate a little bit...
Assuming that China does in fact become a hockey powerhouse in the future, I wonder what Asian country would step up to challenge it.

Russia haha?

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

You guys are getting some major shares for that writeup, congrats Sheng!

Really interesting angle and I hope the Kings buy in not just for the international outreach but for local growth of the game amongst asian communities already in the greater LA area. There were actually quite a few very good players I went head-to-head with growing up and I think it's not too long before a California-born but international-family kid makes it.

 

[Ron*]

We should push the Kings and the NHL on this.

I'm amazed the NHL does not have a working plan for China at this point in time. It's an untapped gold mine.

 

[Herby]

Would have been better to do this a couple of years ago when their economy was booming.

Hopefully the NHL would try and actually grow the game there, rather than just use the market as a cash grab like the NBA did.