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Pyeonchang Olympics to give ice hockey good chance in China, says IIHF official

Xinhua, April 11, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Winter Olympics in Asia will give ice hockey a good chance to establish itself in China as well as in the rest of Asia, said a top official of International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF).

"The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang is an opportunity to create new openings and I think this will be a good anchor point for the rest of Asia," said Thomas Wu, vice president of IIHF, who is attending the 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey Women's World Championship Division 1 Group B competition which kicked off here on Monday.

"I think for Beijing there is a decent level of playing both locally and the Beijing youth who go overseas to play. And the parents are very involved which is great for the sport."

Wu is serving as Tournament Chairman for the 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey Women's World Championship Division 1 Group B taking place this week at the Capital Gymnasium in Beijing. The tournament features six nations including China, Slovakia, Hungary, the Netherlands, DPR Korea, and Italy.

"Having this competition here in Beijing, the locals can really see what hockey is all about," said Wu, who himself plays organized hockey in Hong Kong and helped establish the Hong Kong Amateur Hockey Club. "In sports competition it's not only how big the name of the event is on an international scale, it's about how locally relevant it is."

Wu said that in Asia, ice hockey remains behind skating in local relevancy but remains optimistic that with proper formats in place and a local effort ice hockey will grow in Asia.

"There's a lot of people in Asia, so in that sense they are underrepresented in the IIHF, which on the positive front means there's a lot of potential," said Wu. "How we at the IIHF look at this is a lot of opportunities. And together with all of the things to come like the 2018 Pyeonchang Winter Olympics people will be exposed to more ice hockey. If we can use this chance to get people to understand more about ice hockey that will be great." Endi