[Epoch Times, February 13, 2022](Epoch Times reporter Xia Yu comprehensive report) This is a hockey team mainly composed of Americans and Canadians. They play professional ice hockey in Russia and are coached by Italians. They practice in English. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, however, they represented China in ice hockey.
On February 10, the Chinese men’s ice hockey team lost to the United States 0-8. In the second round of the group stage on Saturday (February 12), the Chinese men’s ice hockey team lost to Germany again. At this Winter Olympics, the Chinese men’s ice hockey team has attracted much attention from the outside world due to the nationality of the players. The media believes that how the Chinese ice hockey team is formed has become one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
A national Olympic team held together by bureaucratic means?
Like many other winter sports, ice hockey has never had much of a foothold in China. The New York Times reported that although China has been a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation since 1963, so far no men’s team in China has participated in the Olympics. Federation records show there are fewer than 14,000 registered players in China, mostly junior players.
At the Beijing Winter Olympics, two-thirds of the 25-member Chinese men’s ice hockey team came from overseas, including 17 skaters who were born or spent their childhood in North America, and one skater from Russia.
China has one of the strictest nationality laws in the world. With very few exceptions, the CCP does not allow dual citizenship. Article 41 of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Olympic Charter states that any Olympic athlete must be a national of the country where the National Olympic Committee for which he is enrolling is located.
To bring the foreigners together as a team and secure Olympic qualification, the players were signed to a new Chinese club. In 2016, Kunlun Red Star joined the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), a Russian-dominated league, along with clubs from Belarus, Finland and Latvia. China itself does not have a professional league.
“The New York Times” reported that although Kunlun Red Star has obtained a lot of resources, it is very bad in the standings. The Kunlun team is 9-39 so far this season, the worst record in the KHL. Every member of the Chinese Olympic team plays for the Kunlun team, igniting modest expectations in Beijing for the performance of a team that has been held together by bureaucratic means.
The qualification of the Chinese men’s ice hockey team has become one of the biggest secrets of the Beijing Winter Olympics
The Wall Street Journal reported on February 12 that the International Olympic Committee stipulates that competitors must be citizens of the country they represent. How the host country managed to send a national team composed mainly of foreigners has become one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Beijing Olympics. one. The creation of this list involved the Chinese affiliate of the Russian Continental Hockey Federation, creative interpretations of the prevailing rules of international ice hockey, and some possible changes to the rules by the Olympic organizers. None of the agencies directly responsible for the Chinese hockey team — the Chinese Olympic Committee, the International Ice Hockey Federation or the International Olympic Committee — would answer questions about the team’s large foreign contingent.
The most famous name on the Chinese team’s foreign aid list belongs to Jake Chelios, the 28-year-old son of NHL legend Chris Chelios. However, when playing for Beijing, his name was Jieke Kailaosi.
Jake Chelios confirmed that he and several of his Chinese teammates still hold U.S. passports. When asked if he had been naturalized as a Chinese citizen, he said: “I don’t think we should comment on that.”
A rule in the IIHF handbook states that an athlete who changes nationality must “demonstrate that he has participated in national competitions in the new country for at least two consecutive hockey seasons and 16 consecutive months (480 days) after his 10th birthday,” the report said. , before you can represent your new country in competitions.
As the CCP implemented zero-epidemic measures and cross-border travel has been greatly reduced, Kunlun Red Star’s boss, Billy Ngok, temporarily relocated the team to Mytishchi, a Russian town near Moscow. The team trained and played there until January 20 of this year, when they flew to Beijing to move into the Olympic Village.
According to a strict interpretation of the rules of the International Ice Hockey Federation, the months in Russia do not count towards a player’s 480 days, Huari reported. However, due to the special circumstances of the epidemic, the IIHF seems to have ignored this technical problem of the Chinese team.
A spokesman for the IIHF did not comment to Huari on how strictly it enforces the rules, adding in an email: “When an athlete registers for an Olympic competition, the final passport control is carried out by The IOC, not the IIHF.”
Have “long-term dual citizenship” status?
In fact, foreign players on the Chinese men’s team must also qualify for the Olympics. Most athletes competing in the Olympic Games representing countries other than their birthplaces satisfy Article 41 of the Olympic Charter through dual citizenship. This is not possible in China, the CCP policy does not recognize dual citizenship. According to the official website of Kunlun Red Star, 7 of the foreign players have Chinese ancestry and have “long-term dual nationality” status.
But Rule 41 also gives the IOC Executive Board the ability to make exceptions of a “general or particular nature” to its nationality rules. The IOC did not answer Huari’s question about whether its executive committee made an exception for the Chinese team, only reiterating the wording of Article 41 and referring comments to the Beijing government.
IOC spokesman Mark Adams told a news conference on Friday that the rules had not changed and that “usually they have to have a passport”.
The Chinese government and the Winter Sports Center of the State Sports General Administration did not respond to several Wall Street Journal inquiries about the nationalities of Chinese hockey players.
British expert: China makes concessions on player nationality issue
Regarding the nationality of Chinese men’s ice hockey players, Deutsche Welle reported that Mark Dreyer, a British expert who studies China’s sports industry, believes that China’s approach is to save face. “It’s clear that Chinese local players are not competitive in the Olympics. It looks really, really bad, and in the end everyone will be in a mess. China will be slaughtered on the ice rink.”
If players don’t want to give up their foreign passports, some concessions are bound to be made. Dreyer believes that China should be the first to back down.
“I think the initial option was ‘give up your passport and give you a Chinese passport,’ but the players were reluctant,” Dreyer said. “They have a lot of leverage as a group because China knows they are extremely uncompetitive. , need these players.”
“I think in the end China had to compromise and say: ‘Okay, what’s the workaround for that?’ It’s definitely a loophole. They just don’t want the word out so they don’t get said that these people are privileged,” he said.
Responsible editor: Li Huanyu#