Within the new collective bargaining agreement in place between the National Hockey League and its players association is a plan for the players to head to the next two Winter Olympics, after missing out in South Korea in 2018. This is really good for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing when it comes to exposure, television rights and overall global appeal of the Games. The NHL is one of the largest sporting leagues in the world, ranking sixth in terms of revenue, just behind the English Premier League. This is also really, really bad for the Chinese men’s ice hockey team, who are facing serious embarrassment as host nation in a tournament they have no business being in. Not only does China not have one NHL roster player, they find themselves in what could be pegged as the tournament’s Group of Death alongside the two gold medal favourites in Canada and the US. Last year the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) told China their men’s and women’s teams need to improve if they are to justify their host nation qualification spot, in what should have been seen as a serious warning. Since then they have taken steps at improving, sending players overseas for camps and looked into offering journeymen pro hockey players with Chinese lineage paths to citizenship. Filipino-Canadian hockey star Matt Dumba part of growing diversity in NHL But nothing will help them when February 2022 rolls around, and the embarrassment, televised to the world, is the last thing China wants. Canada will most likely dress one of its most impressive rosters the world has ever seen. How impressive? Arguably the world’s best player, Edmonton Oilers centre Connor McDavid, will most likely be the team’s second centre behind superstar Sidney Crosby, who has more international experience than McDavid and will be named captain. McDavid, a once-in-a-generation player, regularly makes NHL defencemen look silly with his blinding speed and silky hands. Pity the poor China players trying to chase him. They will then play the United States, who have a host of established talent mixed with probably the most promising youth in the league. Quinn Hughes, one of the league’s up-and-coming defencemen, who helped the Vancouver Canucks overachieve and beat the defending Stanley Cup champions, the St Louis Blues, in the 2019-20 play-offs, will probably slot in on the third defensive pairing and see limited action. China’s team right now comprises players who suit up in the Russia-dominated Supreme Hockey League. To put this in perspective, the league is littered with Canadian, American and European hockey players who were never good enough to make the NHL, but still good enough to head overseas and make a living playing the game. China’s men’s squad is ranked 32nd (out of 54) in the world, while Canada and the US are first and sixth respectively, but the cavernous divide between skill and pedigree will be much worse. Both of these squads will be incentivised to run up the score, given it is a short tournament and goal differential counts in the standings. The chances of both teams potting more than 20 goals on the Chinese squad in round robin play (most ice hockey games average three goals per team) is not out of the question. If a player like American Patrick Kane, arguably the greatest US-born player ever, gets hot, he could literally start scoring or setting up goals every shift. Things get worse though. The third team in the division is Germany, an up-and-coming nation who boast Leon Draisaitl, the NHL’s Art Ross Trophy winner as the leading point scorer. He also took the Hart Memorial Trophy and the Ted Lindsay Award in 2020 as the Most Valuable Player. Japanese-Canadian Nick Suzuki having stellar rookie season with Canadiens Draisaitl, McDavid’s teammate in Edmonton, will also surely run amok on the Chinese, and he will be surrounded by NHL and international players who helped the squad finish second behind ‘banned’ Russia (competing as athletes under a neutral flag) at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. The Chinese men will get one more qualification game after they get blown out by Canada, the US and Germany, and could face the likes of Finland, Sweden or even Russia. All three of these squads are potential medal candidates as well and will not let up either. On the women’s side, things are just as bad. If they get slotted into a group with either Canada or the US, again, 20 or even more goals is not out of the question. China seems hell-bent on suiting up two teams in this tournament regardless of logic. The IIHF splits ice hockey into divisions for good reason – a squad like Canada, filled 100 per cent with NHL players, should never be playing against a team like China in the first place. Alas, watching the likes of Crosby, McDavid, Kane and Draisaitl score buckets of goals at will is going to make for some brilliant YouKu highlight reels. Cue the censors.