And still most of the recruited players have ties to China. Jake Chelios and Ryan Sproul are exceptions.
Team China 2022
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And still most of the recruited players have ties to China. Jake Chelios and Ryan Sproul are exceptions.
Of course China has more potential. Hockey is not novel in Norway, it's just undesired, even in their small population. These small countries like Norway will send like a couple dozen fans to annual international tournaments. If a small percentage of Chinese people from a small city decide to get into hockey by buying NHL TV packages or IIHF World Championship tickets then it's already worth it.
Storhamar attracts more fans playing the Norwegian league in a town of 30K than Kunlun playing the second best hockey league in the world in a city of 30M.
Why does that matter? They're not fans of team Norway, they're fans of Storhamar.
I don't think there's a country where the winter games are more popular than in Norway.
Exactly. Norway has already capped out its popularity of winter sports. And as I mentioned before, hockey is not up there even in Norway, and Norway is a small country.
In contrast, you have an untapped market of sports fans. One great way to tap into that market would be to spit in their face by disallowing them a team in the multi-billion dollar event they're paying for, that will come across well.
I don't know what your personal vendetta is against China. Seriously. Half the people here are at least reasonably saying "well they have to all at least get citizenship, and that could be complicated" or "eligibility rules shouldn't be relaxed because of fairness" while you're just here ranting "Kunlun will be dead next year!" "Hockey never in China!" Like what is your personal impetus, I don't get it.
You've already ridiculously pre-judged that coming out of the Olympics hockey will have gained no new Chinese fans, because, "it's China!" Or something like that. There's no new market to be gained in Norway. There's no reason that Norway should be in the Olympics economically. Furthermore, there's not even a reason they should be in the Olympics hockey wise. What did they win? They just lost to Denmark in the OGQ. They don't actually deserve to be in the Olympics. If China was not going to have a slot, there should have been 4 qualifiers for 4 spots. But instead there were qualifiers for 3, and Norway lost as did Belarus and France.
So other than the fact that you clearly have it out for China as a country, what is an actually good reason that Norway should be in the Olympics?
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What makes you think that Norwegian hockey couldn't grow further?
In contrast, you have an untapped market of sports fans. One great way to tap into that market would be to spit in their face by disallowing them a team in the multi-billion dollar event they're paying for, that will come across well.
As if there would be great interest in whether the hockey team plays or not. The only remotely relevant angle would be a minor loss of prestige for not having an entry in every competition unlike some other recent hosts. But that's their problem, they had years to set up a legitimate hockey program and they didn't even try.
When they received the Olympics they promised to establish a hockey league in China, that never happened. What they did instead was recruit a team of foreigners to play in Russia, only for the purpose of becoming the Olympic team for one tournament. It's a proposition that has nothing to offer to the game of hockey and quite frankly makes mockery of it.
Norway, unlike China, has actually made sustainable investment in hockey. Economically and otherwise. Do you seriously think that the Chinese state media is going to give exposure to a sport that they didn't even care to invest in? Show the population how their team of foreign recruits is getting torn apart by the Americans? Not going to happen.
All teams should be serious entrants and generally the best teams should be given a spot. If the 12th team is Norway then it may be them. If it's another team I don't mind. Main thing it's a serious hockey program and not merely a face-saving exercise.
It's a tiny country which has, for various reasons, has gone to 3 Olympics in a row and yet in that time the sport continues to decline in the country. It's not going to grow further as a result of this Olympics.
Loss of prestige? I think the word you're looking for there is just straight up disrespect. Because they're paying for the same thing that every other nation paid for when they hosted it, some extravagant hockey tournament, but unlike other nations will not be participating in it. Maybe this will achieve your goal of never growing hockey in China, who knows. Perhaps this is what you wanted, but fundamentally speaking, it will be taken very poorly in China if they pay for something are excluded from it last minute.
Frankly, who cares?? First of all that's a miss-telling of history which is only reflected by your asinine comments about Kunlun dissolving after the Olympics. The KHL had pervading interests in breaking into China (I guess we'll never know why of course because "population doesn't equal potential"), and had been trying to recruit in fact more KHL teams. The resulting Kunlun being one of the heaviest sponsored KHL clubs by corporate sponsors, including Russian companies. So the KHL would want to break into China whether there were any Olympics or not, for reasons that I guess will mystify you forever. How that is a mockery of anything is unclear.
Secondly, again China is paying for the Olympics. If they were to say tomorrow that there would be no Olympic hockey, there would be no Olympic hockey. Because there sure as hell isn't anyone else who will pay for it. So how they want to go about putting together their team, how they think a team of Chinucks will be received in China and so forth, completely up to them. If they hadn't even gone the Chinuck route, and instead completely naturalized a team of KHL foreigners with no heritage, that is their business. Your country, if I correctly recall your country, has never once paid for an Olympics. Which is not necessarily the wrong choice. It's well publicized how financially ruinous hosting an Olympics can be, how little economic gain can be actually derived from it, and this 2022 Bid in particular was a bid that almost no one else was willing to take. So criticizing other countries for not spending enough for the Olympics, when they're already taking the hit your country was unwilling to take, seems a bit rich.
You're guessing. You don't know. You've probably never watched CCTV before. Nor have you likely spoken with actual chinese people on their opinions of the topic. And you kinda just assume this narrow minded approach. China as a rule of thumb sucks at a lot of popular sports, a lot of sports that are the most popular in China. Of course every country is going to broadcast the sports that they are good at more, but CCTV doesn't actually censure their programming to make it look like China is good at every sport. And it's not as though losing in hockey will be some national embarrassment. Chinese people are reasonable. They know they're bad at hockey, just like they know they're bad at soccer and basketball, two sports that they've tried desperately to be good at. There's no national pride that is going to be hurt if they do poorly. And if they were to do well, perhaps even stealing some points in some games, then all the better. The only offensive thing would be if they were, at the last minute, denied a spot in the event they paid for because some bureaucrats somewhere were really opinionated on what being Chinese constitutes. Or worse, thought that they hadn't spent enough money on this event.
The KRS team would be a serious entrant. Not significantly dissimilar in seriousness competitively to Norway. If you're issue is that "they're not really chinese", that's for them to decide.
Your sticking point seems to be this notion that they "promised" to do XYZ to create hockey programmes in the country and didn't. Well, they promised to pay billions of dollars that no other country wanted to pay to host this little party, and did. So let's start there.
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There are a lot of Norwegians that like the winter games, like ice hockey, and would be interested in watching the Norwegian team play. It's the 11th ranked hockey team in the world. It's not a global game, but there are only a handful of countries that are above Norway's level.
It's up to the Chinese to grow hockey in their own country. They themselves chose to not to do that against their own promises, there's nothing disrespectful about drawing conclusions.
Kunlun's importance to Chinese-Russian relations is not significant enough to keep the team afloat long term. Of course the Russians would like to have a soft power tool in Beijing, but that attempt failed already. I don't think the dividends can be such that they justify paying tens of millions of dollars annually for a product that interests virtually no one.
Even China's leverage is not enough to cancel individual Olympic events at will. Their only exit is postponing or canceling the games altogether using the pandemic as an excuse much like Japan did. But hockey is nowhere near that important. Whether China has a team or not the tournament will otherwise be the same.
Anything even remotely politically inconvenient is censored with heavy hand. At the Tokyo Olympics the Tencent broadcast even managed to cut out China's own Olympic team at the opening ceremony as they were too eager to censor Taiwan. But hockey doesn't even need to be censored, no one wants to watch it anyway so it can just be buried without an issue.
Very serious. Within the eligibility rules sure, that's McDavid and Draisaitl going against Paris O'Brien then.
That's solely their own problem, they don't have to host again if they don't want to.
You shifted the goalposts. The argument was that there's no room to grow, nothing you wrote addressed that.
Or not if they choose not. It's their tournament, they can do what they want with it.
Lol wtf, "Chinese-Russian relations...soft power tool". No. What about just, there's a big market which the KHL would like to tap. No need for hysterics about sino-russo relations.
You keep missing the point, like with the shifting goalposts earlier. China won't cancel the games. But China owns the games. Whatever they decide to do with the games, in any sport and in any capacity, no one can contest, particularly not at this late hour. This includes cancelling the games if they wanted to. You have no say in the matter.
Wtf does this have to do with political inconvenience? What do you seriously think is the political angle of a hockey team? They'll play some games, the recordings will probably be broadcasted at early hours, and that will be that. Again you have such a dogmatic view of the chinese, as though losing some hockey games is politically anything.
The worst players on norway's team are just as embarrassing. I mean, do you even know who Norway's 3rd string goaltender is, without looking it up?
Well in fact they are hosting and they've paid all the costs to host. Now they should reap the rewards. Whether or not you think that it's "fair" or it's "embarrassing" or it's a "mockery" when they do reap the rewards, not relevant.
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Of course Norwegian hockey has room to grow. Junior programs looking for fresh talent, professional league looking for more fans. The national team to establish itself in the top 10. For us the next Zuccarello.
If they choose to not to have a serious hockey program there is no reason for other countries to compete against them. Certainly not at the highest level. Out of all possibilities not having a program but trying to compete regardless is the most absurd.
The KHL is not making any money. Losing money has to be justified somehow. The Olympics were a justification, after the Olympics that justification is gone.
China does not own the games. They have weight in the IOC but so do others.
The Americans humiliating the Chinese is seen as politically inconvenient. These Olympics are built to be a festival of nationalist pride. If the best you may get, optimistically, is a recording at early hours then what great benefit to hockey do you expect that to bring?
Their goalies are SHL professionals, also otherwise they've stayed at the highest level of the World Championships since 2006 for a reason. Four years ago in Korea they made the quarterfinals. Sufficient for the 12th team.
I don't care whether they get to reap rewards or not, it has no relevance to hockey. They should have invested in their hockey program if they wanted to be relevant.
But it hasn't gone that way and in fact it's gone the opposite way for 3 straight Olympic cycles now and this "next Zuccarello" doesn't exist. That fact that anything could potentially happen isn't evidence that it will, certainly not as a result of Olympic participation, or else no one has more potential than China.
They have a serious hockey program. Their team as constructed is significantly better than both the Korean team in 2018 and the Italian team in 2006. The only "concern" is officious people's opinions on whether they are adequately "chinese" or not.
Many if not most of the biggest companies in the world are in the red every year and don't expect to get back to black soon. Market control is what matters, this is pretty obvious to most people.
A lot of parties are in every dialogue. The guy who foots the bill has the biggest say.
Again you infantilize the Chinese so much it's absurd. The US pretty regularly humiliates China in other sports that get broadcasted. Chinese people actually don't place or even remotely relate their national identity with the results of some hockey games.
The benefit is that more people are watching CCTV at 3 than are watching all the broadcasts in Norway at primetime.
KRS' two goalies are KHL professionals. And Norway's third string goalie is a Norwegian league player. Four years ago there were no NHL players. In Sochi, they finished last with the worst goal differential in the tournament. And believe it or not, that team was better than the team 4 years ago which is likely better than the team now. Hence why in 2014 they were automatically qualified on rank, in 2018 they qualified through the tournament, and in 2022 they failed to qualify at all.
They did invest a significant amount, these Chinucks certainly did not come for free. And they are relevant by merely being the hosts. In a matter where, hockey's relevance is that it is the Olympics, not vise versa.
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vorky
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ozo
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Brace yourselves! Vorky is in the mood to make the argument that "KHL actually makes money, and it is only 100% of teams in the league that lose money''. 
Anyway, kabidjan18, I'm ok with you playing devil's advocate, but do you honestly think that OG's will bring long lasting and quantifiable benefit to the Chinese hockey? In my opinion they will back to scratch as soon as imports start retiring one by one as in South Korea's case.
Anyway, kabidjan18, I'm ok with you playing devil's advocate, but do you honestly think that OG's will bring long lasting and quantifiable benefit to the Chinese hockey? In my opinion they will back to scratch as soon as imports start retiring one by one as in South Korea's case.
Idlerlee
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Being Norwegian I can actually answer this:
Norwegian sport interest derives in great part from success. 25 years ago, a 10,000m ice skating world cup race held 1 million people in front of the TV. 10 years ago the mens' handball team barely drew a crowd, in 2017 1.6 million people watched the live broadcast on TV. 1.6 million is nearly 30% of the country sitting down to watch a sport, Handball at that.
Hockey was significantly bigger in Norway 20-30 years ago, but is seeing a increase in spectators again. The big problem with Norway and Hockey is the severe lack of ice hockey rinks to help recruitment. The Norwegian state just don't build rinks that's only for skating, every structure is multi purpose. There are only less than 50 icehalls in Norway, compared to nearly 400 in Sweden and 12,500 in Canada.
With that in mind, that Norway has even beaten Canada in a hockey match is excessively ridiculous.
There is no cap on winter sports in term of numbers, when something is successful, people make time. Curling became a big thing for a long time, most winter games draw a enormous crowd, and in the eventuality of Norway suddenly finding success the spectator numbers would go up overnight tenfold.
But, there is a limit on the current potential that is down to infrastructure and not the willingness of the Norwegian people to watch the sport. It just needs to be captivating enough.
Just a small addendum: They're in the red by design, not ability. Some companies are of course in the red because of true struggles, but for many companies its a matter of deep investment into new profitable ventures that require a colossal amount of capital before it can become profitable, especially for companies doing new tech research
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Norway has had seven NHL players in the 2000s, also in the future there will be one every few years. In the AHL there's Mathias Emilio Pettersen who might very well be next. Or Ole Julian Bjørgvik Holm in the OHL, both have NHL contracts already. Emil Martinsen Lilleberg was drafted this summer. And of course the national team is a big part of Norwegian hockey, the one thing that unites and motivates everyone from players to casual fans.
The potential of a country without a serious hockey program on the other hand is 0. Zero. Hosting the Olympics in Beijing wasn't enough for China to establish a program. That being the case there's nothing that could realistically be.
Recruiting a team of foreigners for one tournament only is not a serious program. It's a sticker that you glue over the fact that you don't play hockey and don't intend to play hockey in the future either.
Controlling a market that doesn't exist isn't worth tens of millions a year to anyone.
Infantilize? The media in China does not work the way it does in Europe or North America where commercial interest is enough to get anything broadcasted. CCTV is a part of the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party and operates as such.
Neither is eligible to play for China according to IIHF regulations.
That's not the type of "investment" that benefits hockey in any meaningful way.
Any place can have a very temporary spike in interest due to some unforeseen success. All the more for bigger countries. Does the ice skating world cup still draw 1m people? A temporary spike in viewership is nice but it's less useful if it doesn't actually increase the size of the sport's fanbase long-term.
Even granting that any place can have a spike in spectators, Norway has had many chances to have that spike in spectators. If that spike were to come why did it not come 10+ years ago when Norway was good at hockey. Why didn't it come when Norway beat Sweden in 2011? You tell me about ice skating and handball, why aren't you telling the story of how hockey viewership spiked 10 years ago? It didn't spike then and now the unforeseen success is even less likely because the team is just not as good as it was 10 years ago.
And you're right. I also did notice when I was doing some google searches that Norway has very few ice rinks. And you don't sound optimistic that more would be built. So what if I told you that China has 537 ice rinks. That the infrastructure is there to have a bigger playerbase. Would that change anything in your view?
I appreciate your optimism making guarantees about players you probably haven't seen...whose actual NHL prospects you're completely unaware of.
Again, we've been speaking from the outset of potential in many facets. Not just whatever you may define as a "program." I guarantee you Garry Bettman, NHL owners, KHL owners, aren't interested in the potential of chinese hockey players, but rather a chinese hockey following.
That's your opinion. Everyone has one.
That's for them to decide. Because they're not short sighted like you. They understand that if a tiny fraction of chinese people watch hockey, and enjoy hockey, that will be a tremendous market. And this isn't measured by Kunlun Red Star's performance. Because the KHL's competition isn't China, the KHL's competition is the NHL. The KHL wants to be in China because they want any new chinese hockey fans to buy subscriptions to watch SKA St. Petersburg, or CSKA, rather than the New York Rangers, or the Pittsburgh Penguins. Not merely the Kunlun Red Stars. Watching the chinese team play against these teams and compete with them is a gateway to following the KHL, rather than the NHL.
I have more things and more personal things to gripe with the CCP than you do. But not having professionals in media and entertainment isn't one of them. You're joking if you think that they won't broadcast some programs just because China will lose. Your entire attitude this whole conversation has been nothing but condescension towards China and Chinese people. I must repeat again. No, Chinese people do not feel like the country is humiliated because they lose a sporting match.
IIHF regulations include exceptional clauses and case by case review. They will do what they need to do.
This depends entirely on what you think benefits hockey. If "benefitting hockey" to you is creating new NHL players then maybe not. If "benefitting hockey" is simply increasing the exposure of the sport, that's a different debate.
I don't see why Norway should suddenly cease producing NHL talent when they have been doing it steadily for years already. It's an established hockey country.
The NHL has been involved in China for years already and has achieved nothing. The Sharks even tried establishing a Kunlun-like team in China, it lasted for two years.
I don't see any point of connection to reality in this. There's absolutely no market and will never be any market for paid KHL streams in China. Being far-sighted does not equal being delusional.
Chinese people don't even want to watch hockey, there's nothing condescending in pointing out that fact. The party-state has absolutely no interest in rubbing it in their face when China is getting humiliated by some of its biggest adversaries. Coverage will be minimized and no one will care.
Sucking at hockey is not an exceptional situation. Or perhaps we should also introduce Team India, there are certainly many hockey players of Indian ancestry in Canada and it's a country with a huge population of "potential hockey fans."
Team India it is.
You don't see because you don't follow mid-major hockey or have any legitimate interest in the topic. You just dislike China. You're not speaking out of having watched these players and developed preferences, or watched the scene and developed opinions. You're just guessing because you want to make some point about China.
The Sharks backed some team in the Asia hockey league back then. That is entirely different from the Sharks trying to establish a separate Chinese NHL team. And the NHL has and continues to and will continue to throw money into what you think is the sinkhole that is China. Why, I suppose, will forever remain a total mystery. It's impossible that they see something that you don't.
No market? If you're argument is that there's not a single person in China who watches the KHL, you're the delusional person. What do you even think Chinese hockey fans who attended KRS games back when they were in China were just completely indifferent to watching any games online? Like, this whole time you're talking about things you don't know about, and making these broad assertions that you have no proof of. And the idea that there will just be no chinese people who would watch hockey and think "wow that's pretty interesting." We need your omniscience for other things in this world if you are in fact knowing these things and not merely asserting them.
Even if Chinese people "don't even watch hockey", more chinese people will watch hockey than in other nations. "No one caring" will probably still be more people caring than most other "hockey nations."
It's their discretion. Eligibility as a concept is completely constructed anyways so why does it matter to you where someone draws their imaginary lines. They will draw their imaginary lines however they see best fit to get the result they want.
Let me put it this way. We talk about China here as one country. China is a global superpower. The Chinese GDP (depending on who is recording this) has either passed or is set to pass this year the GDP of the entire EU. So when you so confidently state that no one should be interested in breaking into the Chinese market. Try to conceptualize, if even for just a moment, someone being so ignorant as to say that a large multinational corporation shouldn't even try to establish a European market for its product because no one is already interested in the product they don't or barely know about. Only China is bigger, economically, and has more people, who each have different ranges of tastes and interests.
People, be it the NHL or the IOC or the IIHF or the KHL or the many many multinational corporations who have entered China, bend over backwards for China, for better or worse, and throw endless sums of money into that sinkhole for a reason. It's not a country like Norway or Denmark or Croatia. It's a region of the world, and it's one of the most important regions of the world.
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China and Norway both played in WC Division 1 in 2005. Where was India or is now? Ridiculous to compare China to India.
What does China have to do with Norwegian NHL prospects? I just told you three players that already have NHL contracts or were drafted this year. Who will ultimately make the league we will see, but that Norway is continuously producing talent is an undeniable fact. I'm sure you would prefer to discuss players that do not have NHL contracts so that you could deny their talent, but with a contract already in their pocket that's hard to do.
A Chinese NHL team there will never be.
All 2500 of them, many expats. Paid KHL streams aren't really a thing even in Russia, thinking that they're about to catch on in China is not connected to reality in any way.
How many people in China watched hockey at the previous Olympics?
Certain eligibility requirements are clearly defined in the rules. Not following the rules would create precedent very harmful to the integrity of the sport.
So is India. And they're already pretty good at (field) hockey, so surely making them an Olympic team in ice hockey shares a common destiny with China. Up and coming we also have future hockey hotbeds like Nigeria and Indonesia.
If someone wants to put their money into ice hockey in China that's fine by me. But it must have results before China can become a top-level hockey country.
Yes they did, Norway won 25:1. Props for scoring a goal I guess.
Yes exactly, Norway promoted and what is their level today? Worse than last time they played on the same level with China and outscored them. Their league hasn't developed at all. They only benefit from Swedish (junior) leagues and don't seem to have any kind of strategy to make their own league better. So what's the point wanting Norway to play in Olympics 2022? It's not 2005 anymore.
Eh? Norwegian hockey has professionalized a great deal in the last 20 years. In 2005 there was no Norwegian club that could rival Liiga teams in popularity, nowadays there are two. Storhamar made the CHL playoffs from a tough group a few years ago, eliminating Swedish and Czech teams.
Only benefit from Swedish junior leagues? We can look at their recent NHL draft picks:
Emil Martinsen Lilleberg played in Norway with Sarpsborg until 20 years old.
Ole Julian Bjørgvik Holm played in Norway with Manglerud until 16 and then went to North America.
Mathias Emilio Pettersen played in Norway with Lørenskog until 14 and then went to North America.
Kristian Røykås Marthinsen played in Norway with Lørenskog until 16 and then went to Sweden.
One out of four played some junior hockey in Sweden, and only in the final few years. All had a significant part of their junior path in Norway, the most recent in its entirety. To say that they only benefit from Swedish junior leagues is absolutely incorrect.
