For fear of Olympic embarrassment: China sends 16 North Americans - including the son of an NHL legend

Created: 01/28/2022, 14:33

By: Christoph Klaucke

China has added 16 North Americans to its ice hockey team at the Olympics.

© Imago

China's ice hockey team is hopelessly inferior at the Olympics.

To avert embarrassment, Germany's group opponents send 16 North Americans to the tournament.

Beijing – In just over a week, the whole world will be watching China: the 2022 Winter Olympics will begin in Beijing on February 4. Gold medals are expected to rain down in the realm of the golden mean – for the host, of course.

China wants to play a good role in the medal table in their own country, four years ago they only won gold once.

Finally, Olympia also serves the state apparatus for propaganda purposes.

However, if the desired success does not materialize, at least a poor performance should be prevented.

For fear of an Olympic embarrassment, China seems to be pulling out all the stops.

The Chinese ice hockey team is quickly filled with 16 North Americans.

Olympia 2022: China's ice hockey team sends 16 North Americans - including the son of an NHL legend

Thirteen players from the 25-man squad were born in Canada, three in the USA - including Jake Chelios, who bears the most prominent name.

The 30-year-old is the son of NHL legend Chris Chelios, who played in the world's top hockey league for 26 years and won the Stanley Cup three times.

At the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, he won the silver medal with the USA.

Chelios junior, who after all played five games for the Detroit Red Wings, has been under contract with the Chinese KHL club Kunlun Red Star since 2019 and thus meets the requirements of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to start for China.

Olympia 2022: For fear of embarrassment - China adapts ice hockey rules

According to the rules of the World Ice Hockey Federation IIHF, four years of game practice are actually necessary in the country whose citizenship an actor adopts.

For the Olympics, however, the regulations were adapted to the IOC statutes.

Like most other naturalized players, Chelios could only play for China next year at a World Cup.

The Olympic squad is made up entirely of the Kunlun team, which takes part in the Russian KHL’s game operations – most recently with home games in Moscow and not in China due to Corona.

In Denis Ossipow there is also a native Russian in the squad.

Only six Chinese players remain from the last World Cup in 2019 in the fourth-rate Division IIA.

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Olympia 2022: China's ice hockey team meets Germany with 16 North Americans

The IIHF only decided in November that China would actually be allowed to compete in the men's tournament in Beijing.

The 32nd in the world rankings has no chance in sport, double-digit defeats were feared.

In order to be able to keep up to some extent, the Kunlun players were relied on, although they are by far the bottom of the KHL table.

After the cancellation of the NHL stars for the Olympics, the difference in performance shouldn't be that big anymore.

China is the second preliminary round opponent of the German national team on February 12 in Beijing.

The USA and Canada also play in the group.

Some "Chinese" will thus meet their compatriots.