Team China 2022
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Mhm. 30 Russians in the Canadian major leagues alone.
vorky
@vorkywh24
- Jan 23, 2010
- 11,606
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It is apple and oranges. The reasons behind moving abroad with Russians & less-developed hockey countries like Norway or Slovakia or Denmark etc are totally different. For obvious reasons Norwegian development model (system) is not good enough to regularly produce world-class players while Russian is.
Yet even Kucherov in the end had to go to the QMJHL to become a world-class player.
ozo
Registered User
- Feb 24, 2010
- 4,521
- 570
Don't tell anyone about Rudolfs Balcers moving to Norway on his way to NHL, or God forbid, what Auston Matthews career path was.
Well if we place the bar that low then Cliff Pu, Ethan Werek and Josh Nicholls all signed NHL contracts so I suppose it was an "undeniable fact" that they were talent.
Fundamentally, I've said at no point that I didn't want to eagerly discuss those two because I know more about them, or at least MEP, than you do. I've been watching him for a lot longer because we've played against him on multiple occasions. And I don't generally have any disrespect against them but they are what they are. They're late round draft picks (5th and 6th round) who were signed proxy deals for minor league clubs. No different than Maxim Sushko. Players based in European men's leagues tend to sign contracts later because they don't plan to report to the AHL clubs. Players like these two, based in NA, are more likely to sign deals to fill out minor league rosters. This is not new information. Could they become more than that? Maybe, you can look up the odds for late round NHL players making the league yourself.
But in the past 10 years, only 2 Norwegian players have played in the NHL. Mats Zuccarello, who is now 34, and for a brief time as a goon Andreas Martinsen. Currently, and for the past 3 seasons inclusive, only Zuccarello. And now, allegedly, they have two late-round prospects who you think have a good shot of making the league. Ok. This is your bar for "continuously producing talent?" Because the facts much more suggest that they had a one hit wonder than that they're consistently producing talent.
No sports league has ever, to my knowledge, managed a trans-oceanic team. China will not but obviously Norway all the less likely.
Please actually insert evidence. They are offering and have been offering for over a decade these products like streaming and 24 hr KHL coverage and of course you're here just assuming that no one is buying them.
And do you actually have demographic information about Kunlun viewers or is that something you conjured as well? And there are many ways to spend money on a team or league, or even to passively support one. You may have the personal belief that they and many others are wasting their money but that is their decision to make at the end of the day and they will have all the information that you don't right now.
Less than will watch it at theirs.
Again. The rules are a construct entirely. If the IIHF breaks them "oh no, who cares?" It's not at all clear what it would do for the integrity of the sport. Of all the different sports, the IIHF's rules for eligibility are by far the strictest. It's not like all those other sports lack integrity. But even if you thought it did, it does not matter. Rules are a useful fiction. They're a construct, someone wrote them up, and someone can change them if they have the power to.
No they are not. What is with your ignorance haha. India's GDP is something like 17% of China's. India's GDP is not larger, or at least significantly, than France or Germany. It's hard to believe that you live in such a Euro bubble that you'd try to equate the size of the Chinese and Indian economies...
What are Italy and Korea were top level hockey countries when they played in the Olympics? Being a top level hockey country and playing in the Olympics you're hosting have nothing in common.
A Bundy
Registered User
- Mar 3, 2021
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They don't all move, just some of them. For the lack of international tourneys below A pool level lately, scouts doesn't seem to follow Norwegians playing in the Norwegian league that closely. Emil Lilleberg is illstrative in that respect, playing in the Norwegian league but got drafted as an overager in the 4th round after signing with an SHL team and playing in the WC. Players like Eskild Bakke Olsen and Sander Engebråten would probably get a better look if they played in Sweden U20 or Allsvenskan than in Norway, but who knows.
Canadian talents.
So what? Already getting drafted is a recognition of talent and successful junior development. Whether they ultimately make a career in the NHL or in Europe doesn't change that.
Usually there have been two Norwegians in the NHL, not only recently. Before Zuccarello and Martinsen there were Tollefsen and Thoresen. Before them Myrvold and Knutsen. I don't see a reason for pessimism.
In Norway there's a domestic hockey league.
You can look at KHL's broadcasting revenue that includes the in-house service, Kunlun is dead last with 37.000 USD. Not enough to finance the team even for a single day. And that number includes their share of other TV deals as well, not only streams. The small-market team Jokerit is by far the most successful, bringing in sixteen times (16x) more money.
KHL clubs share record $7million revenue
When 60 games of the second best hockey league in the world make you 37.000 dollars you don't really need demographic information.
You can agree or disagree with the rules, but they must be the same to everyone. That includes China.
I'm not a fan of how Korea handled their Olympic project, but at least they tried investing in their domestic hockey. Anyang Halla took over the Asia League which had been previously dominated by Japanese teams and they had a mostly locally trained roster doing so. Likewise Italy had and has some good hockey programs like HC Bozen, their commitment to hockey is not limited to a singular tournament.
Even Yugoslavia had a hockey league and actually performed honorably.
That's what immigration lawyers are working on right now.
It's weird how this tangent has not only stayed alive but there's a separate debate going on about it that doesn't matter. Because as I have stated multiple times but was dropped or addressed elsewhere, no one in the hockey world cares if China produces NHL players. I would continue to debate the assertions made but at this point they're so far from being relevant to the actual topic at hand, Chinese participation in the Olympics, that they'd only distract from the topic.
This could not matter less to anyone who will be making the decisions.
The reason I asked for demographic information was because you were making baseless assertions like the claim that these viewers are expats.
Let's go back to what the actual argument was. The actual argument is that there is no possible market for hockey in China. For my side this is a two step argument. Proof of concept - there are people who consume hockey right now, that Chines people are capable of being interested in hockey. Room to grow - there are more people who could consume hockey later. The argument was never that Kunlun is drawing big money right now, hence the earlier statements about companies running in the red to secure future control of the market, but that there is a market that the KHL is competing for, and the IIHF and NHL also have interest in. So for my proof of concept, I don't have to prove X amount of chinese people buy Y streams, I have to prove that Chinese people are capable of being interested in hockey. And that is obviously proven, even if only 37,000 dollars worth at this stage. And then the second step is that there's a big economy and a big market to expand into.
It's not even a slightly new phenomena that many corporations, not just hockey-related ones like the KHL, NHL, IIHF, sink tremendous funds to try to break into China even when their sales are poor, and their marketing efforts land them in the red in regional sales. Maybe it is that all these executives are stupid and you're the only enlightened person. Or maybe it's because, as has been mentioned, China has a massive market the size of or larger than all of the EU, and even establishing a corner in that market would be wildly lucrative.
Again, no they don't. Where do you get this idea? Rules are different for different people all the time. Rules are constructed. They're a fiction. You can draw them wherever you want.
I understand that you care or at least pretend to care about the fact that China, in your opinion, isn't investing long-term in the sport. But for the purposes of this Olympic tournament, it does not matter even slightly. Chinese participation was never actually contingent on any promises of developing the sport in the region. China's team is as good as if not better than many teams of prior host countries.
Let it be abundantly clear. If China does not host a team at the Olympics, it could be for multiple legitimate reasons as I mentioned above that others have been discussing. For example, I have friends who are chinese immigration lawyers. I asked them to speculate on whether or not these players could get citizenship. They gave me very equivocal answers. My understanding of Chinese Immigration law as well (despite not being Chinese nor an immigration lawyer, so not to be taken seriously) is that it could be difficult. There are also rumors of bureaucratic infighting between the Chinese hockey administration and the KRS administration that, if left unresolved, could force the situation to go unresolved. Finally, all these parties are under the auspices of the general Chinese government and the CCP, which is enacting a zero-tolerance policy towards COVID. My Chinese friends and acquaintances never fail to tell me stories of entire cities and provinces being shut down due to some low number of COVID cases. It is not at all impossible that the CCP places some limiting instruction on the Olympics or even cancels it altogether, and there are some geopolitical conflicts brewing with topics like the tennis player case that may make this even more likely.
So China may have a team at the Winter Olympics, and they may not. Whatever the outcome, it's not going to be because of the so-called broken promises that you purport to care about.
China does not get any credit for developing players that grew up in Canada and joined Kunlun in their 20s, regardless of whether they will eventually be made eligible to play for China or not.
China does not produce players even for its own needs. There is no hockey league in China.
It's your task to prove that any significant number of Chinese followers even exists. As I said, Kunlun's broadcasting revenue including both television deals and streams is only 37.000 dollars a year. That being the case there can not be any significant number of Chinese fans using such services.
As you pointed out they show it on CCTV and five years into their existence in the second best hockey league in the world that generates 600 dollars per game. There's no proof of concept in it, rather it's a complete joke.
China has a massive population. That does not make it a massive hockey market any more than other populous countries such as India.
The IIHF has a rule book where eligibility requirements are described with some precision as I'm sure you're aware. You can debate about the interpretation of minor details, but not about the existence of specific rules as such.
That's a political matter decided by the Ministry of Public Security. Ultimately it's a question of whether the higher echelons of the party-state want to have a hockey team full of foreigners performing badly at the Olympics or rather create a convenient way to get rid of it.
Not only that, but until now individual programs like the KRS have had a degree of autonomy, they knew what the expectations are and had to find their own ways to meet them. The closer the Olympics get the more everything becomes micromanaged by higher levels, however. For hockey this can very well mean being thrown out of the window if it is determined that it can not meet expectations.
I care about hockey, not about what the Chinese Communist Party determines to be the best for itself. The IIHF still has to decide what it cares more about.
China gets credit for the players that will play on their Olympic team because those players are the players that will be on the ice. No one cares about your personal "credit" system.
Again, this is irrelevant to every single entity making the decision.
As I said before, it is absolutely not, because the reason that there is this disconnect between how people are spending money in China and your personal beliefs, which are grossly incorrect, is that there is a large market to tap into. Not that there is already a large existing consumer base. You can cover your ears and eyes and pretend that companies aren't trying to break into China and running deep red to do so but that does nothing but persuade yourself.
When did I say they show KRS on CCTV? I've never said that, I don't know that. Furthermore, the proof of concept is proof that chinese people can be hockey fans, not that there is already a large hockey base. Again, you have all these companies, hockey related and otherwise, dumping money into China. Why? Because, I doubt you believe this, but Chinese people are people just like any other people, with enough promotion and advertising they will buy anything if it is high quality and pertaining to the general human interest.
No. China has a large economy. And that makes it a large market to fight in or fight over for companies in every industry, entertainment/hockey included. They don't have people. They have people with purchasing power.
They also have a process where you can apply for exceptional grants of eligibility. And whether or not you personally think that they should qualify as exceptional matters to no one. They can grant whatever they want to whomever they want.
LMAO. Sorry I just had a good laugh. Yes the "higher echelons of the party-state" are deeply interested in the national hockey team.
The highest this will go is the National Immigration Administration within the MPS. No higher echelon MPS officials will be involved I'm afraid.
And you probably think they're being micromanaged by the high echelon MPS officials haha. They really have nothing better to do than follow the day to day of the local hockey team.
The IIHF cares about hockey. Which is why they're working with China and giving them every chance to sort out the internal inter-departmental bureaucracy issues.
That's a semantic difference at most and highly unnecessary. The players who will play will play.
That's not the logic that I'm using. And straw-man is an actual logical fallacy, not whatever you're trying to make up. But regardless. The vast majority of markets, basically all non-essential goods, don't exist organically. Saying "there can't be many chinese consumers of hockey because there aren't right now", let's just say that there's a reason no one in the IIHF, the NHL, KHL are taking that seriously.
First of all, no. It's fairly simple to prove that Chinese people can be interested in hockey, or any product. This is supported by both the general human interest and then confirmed by real world sales and fans.
You think 5 years is long? You think 5 years proves something? Particularly for a seasonal product. It takes a long time to market a product anywhere, particularly in a country as large as China. Other companies have toiled in China without profit for much much longer. You think you can rent out an arena once and suddenly all of China now knows about your product? Buy a few billboards and reach a billion people? The people who make these decisions are not as short sighted as you are.
Words like these show that you have a dogmatist view of China. Which is I guess not surprising given when you come from, you're raised with these beliefs and fed them so how should you ever know better? You've been fed a storyline your whole life so this is obviously what you'll believe.
Or maybe you're joking or trolling? If so I can't tell through the text, leave something like /s. But maybe you're just joking but other euros in here totally think you're serious.
I've watched Team China lose many times and sometimes even embarrassingly on CCTV and otherwise. No heads rolled as a result of those events. China has a grand narrative. But that grand narrative is not "good at sport." No one cares, even slightly. China's narrative is that they are an economic powerhouse, which is why some numbers are arguably inflated, or that their government is the most efficient form of government (like the German narrative), which is why COVID numbers in my opinion are suppressed, or that China is a burgeoning regional powerhouse. Even the Olympics are not meant to show that China is dominant at sport, but that China is so prosperous economically that they can sponsor such lavish events. The actual outcome of the sporting element is irrelevant. No one cares. It's a game.
In fact. Maybe it's East-German projection that's going on here.
Maybe that's it.
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Yugoslavia was more or less solely composed of Slovenians their entire hockey existence. They might not be a big hockey country but calling Slovenia a non-hockey country is kinda farfetched.
Basketball became big in China because it was introduced very early, and when the People's Republic was founded it became a natural tool of exchange with the countries that recognized the new government such as the Soviet Union. After the Sino-Soviet split the same happened with the Americans. It's not like the NBA decided that China has a huge market and made it a basketball one. They went there with Nixon and found an already existing basketball culture, the NBA eventually became popular in China because they already had love for basketball.
Already the Soviets also tried playing hockey with the Chinese, but that never caught on other than to a very limited extent in Heilongjiang. The same has happened to every other attempt since then. For supply there also has to be demand.
As you well know it's not the first attempt, every other ended the same way. But if you have someone willing to spend tens of millions of dollars with no return for longer than half decade then by all means, I don't mind.
China is a totalitarian dictatorship and operates like one, I don't know what there is to dispute in that fact.
In Tokyo even foreign athletes received barrages of death threats and cyberbullying when they dared to succeed against Chinese competitors. For Chinese athletes that dared to lose the treatment was even worse. How sensitive China is about their home games we saw in Beijing in 2008 when already at the opening ceremony they uncompromisingly eliminated any possibility of China appearing imperfect. A performance of minority dancers could go wrong? Replace them with Han Chinese wearing minority clothes. A child singer has a great voice but is not exceptionally pretty? Make her sing behind closed doors and find a child model pretend being the singer. That's the kind of behavior we can expect in 2022 as well.
Did I ever mention the NBA? It's not as though the NBA is the one other multinational corporation that has tried to break into China.
Talking about the Soviet Era is ridiculous. China was an exceptionally poor country back then and had no market for any non-necessary commodities. The reason why people are trying to break into China now and not 40 years ago is because the citizens of the country actually have money to spend, and money to spend on non-necessary items and activities. This should be very obvious.
Totalitarian country != Government gives a shit about sporting results. Not every totalitarian country is East Germany. China, unlike East Germany, is actually successful enough at economic enterprise to not care about sporting results. Only poor countries with no other legs to stand on care so much. China's propaganda has actually been bragging about recent failures in sports, and has for a while, because it's a "sign that economic prospects are improving" that people aren't going into sports. That's all nonsense, the state run sports system is inherently broken. But China doesn't hang its reputation on sports. That's an absurd conclusion.
Lol are you kidding me? Are you actually kidding me? In the UK after the recent Euros, the black players got death threats for missing penalties. Canadian juniors have gotten death threats for losing world juniors. What the hell is that a sign of other than that some people are like you and take sport way too seriously? Happens in every single country. Same shit happens in Sweden, Germany, every other country. And you're going to use that to prove that the chinese government gives a damn? Are you going to also argue that
Ok...trying to throw a lavish ceremony != caring about sporting results. Trying to portray China as a rich and prosperous and beautiful nation != caring about hockey. This is pretty basic. Throwing a lavish party to send a message that China is "rich" != caring about sports.
The NBA became popular in the 1980s when the economy was much weaker than it is now. The demand was there and that was enough. Without demand it doesn't matter how much the economy grows, 0+0 is still 0. That's where hockey's at.
That was not my conclusion. What I said is that the Chinese organizers are not willing to promote their own humiliation by the Americans and there are two ways to prevent that. Either cut the hockey team altogether or deny the games any exposure.
Racism is not acceptable anywhere in the world. Not in China, not in the UK. The difference is that in China the government tolerates or even endorses it, in most other countries such as those that you mentioned there are strict actions against it.
Celebrating economic wealth is one aspect of Chinese nationalism I agree, but it is by no means the only one. The athlete farms that largely produce China's Olympic medalists do not exist in order to promote the image of China as a wealthy country, but as a powerful victor. That will continue to be a prominent aspect in Beijing.
No. It's exactly as you said, there was some prior pervading interest. But China was not a serious market for basketball at the time and didn't become one until the past 20 years.
Meanwhile, thousands and thousands of other companies are breaking into China in the past 20 years because demand is malleable and people know that. It's common sense, except to some people like you. You keep talking about basketball. Why? You've made a whole irrelevant tangent out of it. It's not just basketball, it's thousands of companies that have tried to break into China with thousands of products and services that the Chinese people did not know they needed or wanted and try to drum up some interest for it. But maybe you know better. Since if there isn't interest immediately in a product that hasn't been widely advertised then it must be that there's no market there. Haha.
Again what is it with this humiliation talk. You lose a game in a sport that doesn't matter. That's not humiliating. I've watched China losing many times in actually humiliating fashion in sports they cared about. Hockey may receive less coverage than other sports in general but that's not because some official is sitting there thinking "this is a humiliation to our great nation."
Pray do tell. What actually do the governments in those countries do against it? Do they prosecute the perpetrators? Or do they just disagree with it? In China there are actually slander and hate speech laws that can lead to litigation against online trolls, and because it's a police state the government has an easier time accessing the posters of the content. In the west there may be sanctions by employers or community but it rarely leads to actual litigation because we have free speech. And in all this, you basically just assume the CCP's position. Again what it comes down to is, you're trying to take the actions of a few lunatics who exist everywhere and extrapolate them to a bunch of other parties. It's a terrible argument.
It's a national system that is a relic of the communist/socialist philosophy of the government. The "promote the image of a powerful victor" talk is just bull that you read somewhere in a western commentary on the chinese system. Would they be happy to win? Sure. They'd be ecstatic if China won. But no one's job depends on that in the MPS haha. That's a laughable joke. Even in sports which China cares about, the worst possible outcome is that some coach or sport specific director will lose their job, which is the same as in the west.
lawrence
Registered User
- May 19, 2012
- 16,705
- 7,625
basketball is a lot more affordable to play and a lot easier to play since you just need a gym floor, balls and baskets. Can't even compare the 2 really. I even have a half basketball court myself.
it's actually not tolerated Nor it it endorsed. I"m not sure where you got this idea from, and you need to stop promoting this if you are not sure. Just recently the United States, had a Chinese student got killed. few days ago 4 asian students got beat up all in the United States. My home town of Vancouver BC has the most reported asian hate crime reported in North America.
Hate crime reports in US surge to the highest level in 12 years, FBI says - CNN
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
Actually hosting the winter games is far more important than worrying about their hockey team getting beaten. I'm not sure why you and others on this topic are making such a big deal out of it. They already know, they are not a winter contender. Canada knows they are not a strong summer team yet Vancouver is considering hosting the Summer olympics. The pride of hosting it. Personally if you ask me, Beijing is probably the best place on the planet to host an international event as big as the olympics. if you want to call me a wumao or anything go ahead, It's just based on my own opinion.
well... of course it's a big deal. When we hosted the Winter Olympics it was a huge deal. Pressure was on Stephen Harper and it was a chance for us to showcase (at that point) the beautiful city we have to the world and why Vancouver is one of the best cities on the planet (Of course it does not even sniff Beijing today, Beijing is far more advanced now than Vancouver).
Like in 2010, China is going to showcase to the world, what their society really is like, what their people are really like. For them its worth getting humiliated hockey if they can host the winter games.
It was the kind of gradual development that has never occurred in hockey. Kunlun is in worse shape today than they were when they started in 2016, just like the China Sharks only went downhill becoming the worst-performing team in the world. In neither case there were economic constrains, just complete lack of interest.
Multiple people were arrested and sentenced for racist incidents related to the European soccer championship final. Some did jail time.
Man who livestreamed himself racially abusing players after Euro 2020 jailed
Disrupting social harmony is punishable in China only to the extent it goes against the interests of the party-state. Also when you are the actual victim as we have seen in the recent sexual harassment cases. If you want to spew out hate against vulnerable groups like black people in your soccer example you are free to do so.
On the contrary. If we look at the Ministry of Public Security in particular, naturalization is something almost completely unheard of in China. According to the most recent census in 2010 there were 1.448 naturalized persons in all of China. Barely a thousand in a country of more than a billion. That's on par with Kunlun's attendances. So when you are now an official having to take responsibility for granting these foreigners citizenship, your job is very much on the line should something go wrong with them. No one wants to be the fall guy.
Give up the NBA example. Seriously. Give it up. It's not relevant. It's never been relevant. There are thousands of western companies doing business in China. I thought of giving a few examples, but I know that you'll inevitably get stuck on the examples because that's how your mind works. And you'll miss the bigger picture. Since the Chinese economic explosion, thousands of companies have tried to push into China with thousands of products. This "gradual development" that you keep harping on in the NBA never happened in any of them. Because the NBA isn't the business plan that they're following. Because there are literally thousands of other companies that they can look to which have done or tried to do business in China, for good and bad examples.
There isn't demand. Then companies do advertising. And then maybe over time there is demand. That is the blueprint. It's simple. Companies all over the world are following it. It's really not complicated. The NBA has nothing to do with it.
Sure, and were the aforementioned hateful commenters livestreaming themselves? It's apples and oranges. At best you establish that both countries prosecute hate speech. And in fact in the US it's less common than in all the countries because we have the strongest free speech rights. Either way you haven't offered an iota of proof for the acceptance of these behaviors.
And you're free to do so everywhere else and everywhere in between. In every country across the world people are making threats to other people or saying dumb stuff online everywhere. What does that have to do with government endorsing this speech. There are some rumors here and there in different countries about removing the wall of anonymity or doing some other actions that could punish online speech but to this point the only action that is ever taken is the removal of such comments. Overall your argument that the chinese government is fueling individual citizens to personally attack athletes from other countries, you need to provide proof for such a claim.
Again. What is this nonsense with "the fall guy." "Should something go wrong with them." That's such silly child's talk. Nothing will go wrong with them. They're not criminals. They're not even asylees. They're professionals who may or may not be naturalized for a taks. Naturalization is rare, that is true, it is reserved usually for significant accomplishments and exceptional persons or sports. But there's no "things going wrong." Unlike what you think, losing a hockey game is not something going wrong. What a joke.
The NBA example shows the KHL as well as rest of hockey why it will never make it in China. Because the demand has to exist first and the supply can follow only after. Trying to push supply without any demand is not going to magically produce success.
Kunlun was promoted hard initially, it did nothing to prevent them from going only downhill. There's not going to be an attempt with better resources than what they had. Likewise if the Chinese were going to establish an ice hockey league it would have been before these Olympics, and it didn't happen.
The government is tolerating such hate speech against athletes while dissidents are shut down immediately. Discussing tennis was quickly blocked altogether after the now-prominent sexual assault accusations were made. Even related emoji are often removed from use. It's actually a very interesting first-hand experience, trying to write something that only disappears when you press send.
It's enough for the Olympic team to become an embarrassment. And that's not only dictated by domestic narratives, but also by foreign coverage. 'A hockey fiasco' or 'A massacre on ice' are not the type of headlines these games are meant to produce around the world. The athletes can return to Canada and stay there for the rest of their lives if they so wish, but officials deemed responsible for the failure will take the fall. Of course it's not inevitable that things go wrong, but as anyone saw with Wuhan, officials at all levels tend to prefer to be safe than sorry when it comes to covering their own asses.
