Canada ends China’s hockey run at Beijing Olympics. Bring on the quarterfinals

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This article was published 15/02/2022 (1351 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BEIJING And so ends the modest Chinese hockey dream of these Beijing Olympics, at least for now. It ended with a 7-2 loss to Canada which will look good in the distant future, once Chinese government history books make sure we forget what happened here. China’s hockey team was a last-place KHL squad full of Canucks and Yanks and local players who didn’t play here. It did its best.

And really, it could have been much worse. In this Olympic quarterfinal qualification game, China actually looked like the better team for long stretches of the first 15 minutes or so: They got a breakaway, a penalty shot, a few two-on-ones and more. It was only 2-1 for Canada after two power-play goals, but China lost its starting goalie to injury and kept taking penalties and, in the end, Canada scored five with the man advantage, one even strength and one on a penalty shot.

A lot of that was a Chinese team that couldn’t always keep up or didn’t know where to be, and that in turn may mean Canada might not get away with this kind of thing against Sweden’s version of a mongrel team in a quarterfinal Wednesday. Sweden got a bye to the quarters.

“Our goaltender made some big saves there in the first to to keep it the tight game, I guess, at the beginning till we were able to get the lead,” said Canada coach Claude Julien. “You have to remember, they’d played us once. They were able to free scout, they’re able to maybe see a few things that they could take advantage, of which they did in the first period.

“At the same time, the Chinese team analytically was one of the best teams in this tournament off the rush … and if you’re not backchecking well and all that stuff, they make you pay for it.”

It may not be a good sign when you have to wrestle with a 2 1/2-line, last-place team that’s stuffed at the Trans-Siberian end of the KHL but played in Moscow this season, and which has nine KHL wins in 48 games this season. This wasn’t the Kunlun Red Star of Mike Keenan (hired in 2017, fired in 2017), that’s for sure.

Mostly, it was a reminder about some of the wasted potential of this tournament, though what potential there is may still be overstated.

China is a country that invests in sports that can bring them Olympic medals. Trampoline, for example, was added to the 2000 Games, and Beijing got the Games a year later. So China built three national training centres, hired some of the best foreign coaches, diverted gymnasts into the trampoline stream and, over six Olympics, has won a combined four gold medals, four silver and six bronze. At these Olympics, everyone has been trumpeting the future of Chinese winter sport.

Hockey seems unlikely to be high on the program, and this tournament seems unlikely to help much. The pandemic-small crowd of fans cheered the goals by players with Chinese names, but hockey as hot commodity seems very far away. Maybe had Canada airlifted a roster where Sidney Crosby was the No. 2 centre, playing the Americans and Russians and Swedes and Finns, it would have pushed hockey in China.

But then, Canada also might have beaten the Chinese team by 40 goals. So, mixed blessing.

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“This is the very beginning in China,” said China forward Spencer Foo of Edmonton, who as Fu Jiang is Kunlun’s leading scorer this season, and who like every Chinese player had Warrior written on his gloves. “With that being said, China grows quickly in everything they do. They’re already building. There’s rinks going up, tons of them every year. There’s thousands of rinks now in China, and a lot of kids that hopefully are going to pick up a hockey stick pretty soon here.”

We’ll see: when you have a billion people, some must be able to backcheck. China’s backup goaltender, Coquitlam B.C.’s Paris O’Brien, known as Ouban Yongli, said that they get to keep one of the jerseys, and the other ones will go to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

“We’re part of history, right?” said O’Brien. “I mean, we’ll be back stronger next time. Obviously we’re working towards hopefully Milano (2026) over the next Winter Olympics, that’s what we’re aiming for. And we’ll come back stronger.”

Who knows? They’re among those in China who are allowed to dream.

Bruce Arthur is a Toronto-based columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @bruce_arthur