NHL aims big with pre-season China games

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NHL team The Los Angeles Kings is heading to China for two pre-season games.



The National Hockey League is coming, too. The North American-based ice hockey league will make its debut in China this year with two pre-season games — Los Angeles Kings vs Vancouver Canucks on September 21 in Shanghai, followed by a game in Beijing two days later.

The NHL's foray into the Chinese market has been described as an experiment by Adam Wilkes, president of AEG Asia. The company runs the Shanghai Mercedes-Benz Arena where the Shanghai game will be staged. AEG also holds 50 percent stake in the LA Kings.

"Ice hockey is fast and exciting. Anyone who gets to see a game will come out and simply say 'wow'," said Wilkes. "But it's a process and it will take all levels of engagement from the NHL, the professional teams visiting China, the 2022 Winter Olympics (in China), and the general excitement about developing winter sports market, as well as the involvement of children."

Ice hockey is not new to Shanghai. In 2008, the city was home to the China Sharks, which competed in the Asia League of Ice Hockey. The league consisted of teams from China, Japan and South Korea, which played in a home-and-away format in the regular season, followed by playoffs. But it failed to take off as expected in Shanghai, a city not known for its winter sports.

But now, the sport's foremost league, the NHL, is sensing an opportunity here, and is keen to popularize the sport here after China won the bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

"We see this as a great opportunity for us to grow the game," said Kelly Cheeseman, chief operating officer of the LA Kings. "We have learned a lot from other sports like soccer, basketball and even American football, which came here and achieved success."

European soccer powerhouses like Manchester United and Barcelona saw the potential in China and invested early, while the American basketball league, the NBA, did the same and has seen it grow and become its biggest market outside the US.

Major League Baseball, which is followed in both Japan and South Korea, has played games in Beijing. The National Football League has already opened an office in Shanghai and is planning to hold a regular season game in China. That makes NHL a bit of a late bloomer.

"We want a permanent impact here. We don't want to just play two games and leave, but have a long-term plan instead — at least five to six years," said Cheeseman. "If we manage to see the Kings grow here, that's a second benefit, but the growth of the game of ice hockey is what's important for us."

Despite the national sports bureau's efforts in promoting ice sports in southern China, most cities, including Shanghai, have a weak foundation in winter sport. Among the few ice rinks in Shanghai, only two or three can stage a professional ice hockey game.

The majority of the country's national winter sport team members are from northern provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang.

When asked if a city like Shanghai was a good choice to promote the sport, the Kings' business operations president Luc Robitaille admitted that a venue with facilities for a game was a factor. But he was confident that Shanghai would be charmed by the sport once the fans watch a game.

"I think when people start watching ice hockey and get involved a little bit over the next few years — it wouldn't matter then if you are from north or south — they will simply enjoy and start following the sport," said Robitaille, who added that the LA Kings was planning to launch a Jr Kings youth program in China.

Last year, the Kings cooperated with a Shanghai ice hockey club in Pudong's Feiyang Skating Center and organized a summer camp for 40 local children. The children were invited to Los Angeles to watch professional hockey games.

When asked if lack of equipment and rinks could be an obstacle for the sport, Cheeseman said street hockey and field hockey might be the way to move first.

"In Los Angeles, we launched 26 street hockey programs. We would like to do the same in China, and give kids the opportunity to play hockey on the streets. Just grab two garbage cans and they can be your goals, that's how we played as kids and made the sport work from the grassroot level," said Cheeseman.

"To get the younger generation involved is like building the software for a sport, while China is also catching up in its hardware construction," added Wilkes. "In other Asian countries like South Korea and Japan, their winter sport venues were mostly built in the 1980s and 1990s. In China, the structures built previously were very old, but the country is leapfrogging into the market and catching up very fast.

"The market is the goal, while at the beginning stage, it's more about having fun and creating fans," said Wilkes.

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