Making a long march for Chinese women's hockey
Wayne Scanlan
The Ottawa Citizen
Thursday, November 20, 2003
Players, left to right, Zhang Jing, Mi Xiao Jun and Wang Li Nuo and assistant coach Wang Fu Quan take a break after practice yesterday.
CREDIT: Jean Levac, The Ottawa Citizen
And the Ottawa Senators think they have problems, nursing a two-game losing streak.
They weren't out walking the streets of Ottawa yesterday in search of a Chinese restaurant that might save a hockey player a few dollars in lunch money.
Team China, the national women's hockey team, was doing just that, marching en masse to a restaurant in Chinatown after a two-hour practice at the University of Ottawa.
The Chinese women are allotted $20 per day to cover all meals during their Canadian tour. Some of them lack basic hockey equipment. They'll often skip breakfast in order to have money for a meal later in the day.
Shelley Coolidge, the University of Ottawa women's hockey coach, has a skate blade in her office from one of the Chinese players, a blade that she says "rusted off the skate."
The team can't afford a bus to take them to and from restaurants and arenas, so the players wear out the soles of their shoes in what has become a walking tour of Canada.
When Jan Votruba, a native of the Czech Republic and the new coach of the Chinese team, talks about the fatigue of his players having to play 11 tour games in 17 days, he adds, "Plus there's the six kilometres they walk every day for lunch and dinner.
"They need money for equipment, sticks, meals," said Votruba, the man who first invited Canada's Hayley Wickenheiser to play men's hockey in Europe. "They have almost no benefits."
They have been received graciously by their Canadian hosts.
While visiting Mississauga, the Chinese players were guests at an IceDogs Ontario Hockey League game. A Chinese restaurant invited them in for a discounted meal.
Despite the many hurdles they face in an international women's game dominated by Canada and the United States, the Chinese are improving.
Coolidge says the team that beat the U of O women 3-2 in overtime Tuesday night in Arnprior (they shared a bus ride with the Gee-Gees) is vastly better than the Chinese nationals she saw last year in Alberta.
"It's like going up a division," Coolidge said.
This evening at Sandy Hill Arena, beginning at 5:45, the Chinese women face the Ottawa Raiders of the National Women's Hockey League.
A decade ago, the theme in the women's game was "the Chinese are coming." China finished fourth in the 1994 and '97 world championships, and were fourth in the Nagano Olympics of 1998. Accepted wisdom was that, with women's hockey approved as an Olympic sport, the Chinese sports machinery would crank up the dial and produce a winner.
At some point, similar to other nations outside of North America, sports bureaucrats lost interest in the women's game when they saw how difficult it was to compete with Canada, the U.S. and even Finland.
Coolidge says she thinks China lost heart when it lost to Japan.
Votruba says there are only three dozen legitimate female players in all of China, compared to more than 60,000 in Canada.
Votruba's presence, though, suggests the Chinese are at least giving the program a shot. Votruba, who has coached the Senators' Martin Havlat (in the 2000 world junior championships) and the Colorado Avalanche's Milan Hejduk, has a contract through the world championships in Halifax next spring.
With luck, Votruba might have goaltender Guo Hong, the "Great Wall of China," back on his roster.
This latter day Chinese "wall" stands 5-8 and comes close to filling the net when she's fully equipped. She once stopped 38 of 39 Canadian shots at the 1996 Pacific Rim tournament.
China opens the world tournament by facing the host Canadian team.
"For that first game versus Canada in Halifax," Votruba said, dryly, "we need a goalie bigger than the net."
Hong stayed in Salt Lake City after the 2002 Olympics, where China finished seventh.
Distressed with the program and keen on acquiring a Canadian education, Hong moved to Edmonton and was playing for the Edmonton Chimos until the Chinese government declined to provide her international release.
There's a chance Hong will be able to cut through the red tape in time to represent China in Halifax. She played with her teammates when the Chinese tour of Canada stopped in Alberta. The tour concludes in Montreal. Other stops have included Vancouver and Toronto.
When the team returns to China, it will settle back into the sports centre in Harbin, north of Beijing, where the players live and train full time.
Most of the players are from the Harbin area and learned their hockey there. According to Votruba, there's plenty more to learn.
"The old players all left," he said, "and they wanted to bring in new players, but they have no experience."
The women have had to learn about nutrition, proper practice habits, massage and conditioning. Their coach gives them marks for their willingness to work.
Votruba, 41, a club player in the Czech Republic until a car accident at 28 sent him into coaching, is also trying to build some time off, two days a week, into the women's sport centre schedule.
"Go home," Votruba plans to tell his players. "See your family, your boyfriends. Go shopping."
An ongoing problem for the Chinese is finding competition. It didn't help that Beijing lost the scheduled 2003 world tournament because of the SARS outbreak.
Hence the importance of this Canadian tour, which will be followed by a Japanese visit to China for three games. The Chinese will later visit Russia and Finland for another series of exhibition games.
In Canada this month, the team has showed well against club and university teams. Facing the might of Canada and the U.S. at the world championship is another matter.
By then, at least, the walking tour of Canada should be over.
"For three months, all I've eaten is Chinese food," Votruba grumbled. "I was so excited to go to Canada and eat some good Canadian food. But we always have to go to Chinese restaurants."
Read previous columns by Wayne Scanlan at ottawacitizen.com .
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