With five months to go until the 2022 Winter Olympics, one big question that has loomed large over the Games has now been answered – NHL players will again be back at the Olympics having been forced to skip Pyeongchang in 2018. That means Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews and many more will actually be in Beijing – and soon! Let’s take a look at what this means – for the players, for the Olympics and for hockey fans worldwide.
Agreement Reached After Months of Negotiations
First, let’s get to the details. On Friday, the National Hockey League (NHL), the players’ association (NHLPA) and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) jointly reached agreement that releases the players to go to the Olympics during the league’s scheduled three-week break next February. While this had been provisionally agreed more than a year ago, the details were not finalized until this week, with negotiations taking several turns over the past few months. On balance, it was always more likely that the players would indeed go, but there were more than a few moments when it felt closer to a 50-50 decision.
The agreement allows for the possibility of a later decision to withdraw in the event evolving COVID-19 conditions are deemed by the NHL and NHLPA to render participation by NHL players to be impractical or unsafe.
There is a clause in the agreement that still allows the league to cancel participation – and that clause is far more prominent in the NHL’s announcement than in the NHLPA one – but let’s look at the words used: “impractical or unsafe” (taken from the NHL’s detailing of the agreement).
I can guarantee that the conditions in China will no more unsafe from a COVID perspective than they would be on either side of the North American border, so I don’t think this is an issue. Likewise, we already know that going to this particular Olympics is about as impractical for the NHL as it’s possible to be – it’s on the other side of the world and bubble conditions will be extremely restrictive – but I don’t foresee anything changing or making that situation worse that between now and February.
The big question would be what happens if a COVID outbreak in North America shuts down the league and postpones a significant number of games? Extending the NHL season would be the obvious solution, although the league wants to avoid that at all costs. Whether that would come under the “impractical” heading and would be deemed enough to pull the players from the Olympics remains to be seen. If that were to happen, it could open up an irreparable schism in relations between the players – who have always been desperate to play at the Olympics – and the league – who have always been against letting their players go to the Olympics – but hopefully this remains a moot point.
For now, it’s a green light, which undoubtedly is great news for the Olympics, which is bolstered by the addition of some bona fide sporting superstars. That will only serve to enhance the attention on the Games, with the men’s ice hockey Olympic final historically ranking as one of the most prestigious events at a Winter Olympics.
So How Will China Fare?
With that out of the way, let’s turn to the tournament itself. The final three qualifiers were confirmed last week, with Latvia, Denmark and Slovakia completing the 12-team tournament for the men’s side.
The big problem – and, yes, it is a problem – is that China was already pre-selected into Group A.
My article from May on this topic has been getting a lot of love on social media in the past week or two, but regular readers will know that much has changed since then. For a start, there’s no way that the IIHF will throw China out of the tournament with just five months to go. That was only ever a threat used to speed up the recruitment of heritage players – and it worked.
As I have previously reported, those heritage players (i.e. foreign-born players of Chinese descent) are now in Russia playing for Kunlun Red Star in the KHL alongside 10 or so Chinese homegrown players, who together will form the basis for Team China at the 2022 Olympics. Their naturalization status is unclear and the fact that the IIHF has been willing to throw its eligibility rules out of the window isn’t a great look, but I don’t think anyone really cares at this point. China won’t win a game, and so it benefits all sides – China, the IIHF, and even the other national teams – that the hosts are more competitive than they would have been without the foreign-born recruits. The fact that they are recruits of (at least some) Chinese descent helps mitigate against the argument that their last-minute presence stifles development of the domestic game.
What Will the Scores Be?
You may remember the “100-0” claim from the piece in May if the NHL All Stars were to face the Chinese youngsters (i.e. with no heritage players). Fortunately, we’ll never find out how that would go, but the new Team China will still be overmatched, especially against Canada and the US. I did a quick (new) poll of hockey folks familiar with the level of the Chinese players and all of them thought the scores would be in the double digits, anything from 10-0 to a top-end range of 25-30 goals against. None of them could see China scoring a goal.
One point of debate surrounds “running up the score” – always a contentious issue, especially in North American sports. The US women’s soccer team was castigated by some at the last World Cup after beating Thailand 13-0 and for celebrating some of the later goals, but for European fans brought up primarily on lower-scoring sports (i.e. soccer), in which goal differential is always a factor, it’s simply not an issue: you just score as many as you can.
But here’s an interesting wrinkle. Only the top team in each group at the Olympics is guaranteed a bye to the quarterfinals, meaning that it is still possible that one of the US and Canada may need to fill the net against China in order to maximize their odds of advancing (or else risk playing an extra game in the tournament, which is a significant penalty). We won’t know for sure until the schedule comes out and, of course, depending on what happens in those initial games – but a very one-sided game remains a possibility. Some people I spoke to thought that the NHL players would put sportsmanship above all else – even above goal difference – and would hit the brakes after scoring ten. I’m not convinced they would if goal difference is indeed in play, but time will tell.
How Will China React?
Another question is whether these games will even be shown to a domestic audience in China. I expect this Olympic ice hockey storyline to be burning hot in North America as the Games approach, especially given the geopolitical rivalries involved, but things work differently in China. CCTV, the main sports channel, likes to show almost exclusively Chinese victories – or its rivals’ losses – as evidenced by its post-Olympics scheduling with gold medal performances on repeat (ideally against Japan). But it’s not so keen on showing Chinese defeats.
On Friday night, the channel showed a full rebroadcast of Japan’s shock 1-0 FIFA World Cup qualifying defeat to Oman; it’s hard to imagine they would have shown that game if Japan had won, even in the name of “scouting the opposition” ahead of the China-Japan showdown next week.
Steven Ellis of The Hockey News argued this week that “seeing China play against the best in the world – even if it’s one-sided – could see a boost in participation domestically”. I’m not so sure. The Canada-US showdown will surely be given a prominent spot on the Chinese broadcast, but I can see curling suddenly taking precedence on the schedule when China is due to play either of the North American teams. I could be wrong, but the importance of saving face drives many decisions in China and there isn’t a lot of face to be saved when your country is losing by double digits (and then some) on the biggest stage of all.
What About the Women?
A word on the Chinese women’s team, even though their Olympic schedule is not yet known, because three of its opponents will only be decided in November after the final round of qualifiers. But the Chinese women are already in much better shape than the men for two reasons.
Firstly, do you see how in the picture above all the good teams are in Group A, with hockey minnows China and Japan, plus three qualifiers, in Group B? That’s because – unlike the men’s tournament – the women’s tournament is seeded, with all Group A teams guaranteed a place in the quarterfinals, alongside the best three from Group B. As I’ve argued before, this is exactly what the IIHF should have done for the men, and is the single biggest reason (after allowing China automatic entry into the tournament in the first place, of course), why the Chinese men will be in so much trouble come February.
Second, at a high level, the relative strength between teams in the women’s game is not quite as pronounced as in the men’s game, due to the relative strength and number of women’s pro leagues in global hockey. Don’t get me wrong: a game between the Chinese women and either the US and Canadian teams would still be messy, but China will also be bolstered by some heritage players and if they were to meet top opposition, it would be a knockout/elimination game, meaning their opponents would only need to win, not score as many as possible.
China soccer defeat, Eileen Gu returns to training
In other news, China opened its third round qualifying campaign for the 2022 FIFA World Cup this week with a 3-0 defeat to Australia in Doha. After Japan’s earlier defeat to Oman, the door had opened ajar, but if China loses to Japan on Tuesday (also in Doha), its World Cup campaign is effectively over before it’s even begun. Expect much lamenting in the Chinese media, but as I have previously written, qualification was always going to be a very long shot.
Meanwhile, China’s most famous winter sports star Eileen Gu Ailing has headed to Europe to get her “ski legs back again” after a summer of modeling in China. Incredibly, she only turned 18 this week, but is sure to be one of the faces of the Games next February and her winter season will covered closely by both domestic and international media in the run-up to the Olympics. Note the Anta logo in the second picture below!
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The Chinese team will already be breaking IIHF eligibility rules, although no one seems to care.
Three of the “heritage players” have already played IIHF events for Canada, and one for the USA, putting them in the second category of players, where they should have to play 4 years at the “top level” in China, but simply will not have by the time the Olympics begin.
Victor Bartley, Cliff Pu, Greg Squires, and Ethan Werek playing would all be cheating, it is not even remotely debatable if you can do basic addition, but I have no doubt they will be suited up because the IIHF and IOC will fall over themselves to bend the knee to the CCP.
And reading the eligibility rules again, Mikaël Tam would also be cheating.
The rules state
” male player has participated for at least four consecutive years (1460 days) in the national competitions of his new country, during which period he has neither transferred to another country nor played ice hockey within any other country and has not played for his previous country in an IIHF competition during this four year period.”
Well he didn’t. While by the times the Olympics begin he will have played at least parts of 4 seasons – he played in the Polish league for some reason for all of 2020-21 (plenty of his Team China teammates played for KRS, so the COVID excuse makes absolutely no sense), thus breaking his required 4 year consecutive period.
Its actually really comical, the IIHF and IOC would never allow this from any other country, but for the CCP, anything.