Phanuthier,
Shanghai, Thailand, those places are in very warm climates, especially Thailand, (jungles, extreame humidity) Hockey has enough trouble making in roads in places like Florida, what makes you think hockey would become popular in those sorts of area's, without first becoming popular in Northern Asia?
Cities in China such as Qiqihar, Harbin, Beijing, are Northern cities, and have growing hockey scenes according to the information I've read. Aparantly in Qiqihar for example, hockey is the #1 sport and provides a large number of the players for their World Championship team. If you factor in China's booming economy, growing middle class, the room for growth in the game of hockey in that area is astonishing. The billionaire owner of the NY Islanders even pondered "perhaps its time time start building some ice rinks in China". As for Nagano and Japan, it would be difficult to know if it is having any affect at this point, as it has only been 8 years since then, and any effects in terms of prospects and interest that the Olympic Hockey's showing could have generated, might not be felt for afew more years yet. The problem is though, that simply the NHL and IIHF arn't doing enough outside of competitions such as the World Championships (Men's, Juniors, etc), World Cups, and Olympics to grow the game of hockey. With the next Olympics most likely being awarded to South Korea (they narrowly lost to Vancouver), the NHL has a further oppurtunity in Asia, but this team they have to make more of an effort at the grass roots.
They have to go down to the grass roots more aggressively than they are at this point, build some arena's in countries where public/private funding normally wouldn't exist, work with equipment makers to bring the cost of equipment down so the game can be more accessible to a wider range of the population, (
cost of equipment isn't only a problem in poorer countries, it's a problem IN Canada) send retired coaches and players over to help train the teams of developing hockey nations (
see team Isreal, which has improved dramatically with a retired NHL coaches help), make coaching/instructional videos in as many languages as possible and sell them at fair prices and large quantities to national hockey federations to distribute at a local level on their own. The Olympics is part of bringing the game, played at it's very highest level, to area's where they normally would not have a chance to see it. But they are only one step, and not the final solution for growing the game. Does it help? perhaps, but without more investment in grassroots the effects will probably only continue to be minimum.
So... what? What's this big thing that's happening in the future? Are we gonna reap the benefits in 2050?
Exactly, this isn't as much about the here and now, its about securing the future of the game, and making sure if the NHL tries to continue expansion, that they have a talent pool large enough that the one ice talent level can continue to grow, instead of becoming increasingly diluted by more teams and more competition from Russia for players.
