This just in: Breaking news on the Olympic hockey front as the Chinese roster has added three new players. Connor MacPing, Austen Majang and Andrei Vasilev-ching have been given the go-ahead by an unbiased panel of IOC mediators to sign lucrative contracts with the Kunlun Red Star of the KHL just in time to facilitate their participation in the upcoming Olympic hockey tournament. To make room for the three recent converts to Chinese nationality, Peng Fei Hang, Ruin In Yang and Zes Un Zhang, the only three actual Chinese players on the Kunlun Red Star team, have been cut.
When asked about their eligibility and the existing rule that a player must have played two full seasons for a team located in the country for which they are competing, it was confirmed that Edmonton and Toronto have Chinatowns and Tampa Bay has lots of fine Chinese dining. This is Dave MacCannell reporting for Fox Sports.
In actuality, if the Beijing Olympics are not rightfully boycotted and if the hockey tournament includes the superstars from the NHL, the Chinese Olympic Hockey Team is likely to be an even bigger joke than the above sports report. Some of the info in the above "report" is actually true! The Kunlun Red Star of the Russian KHL will be the team that represents China in the Olympic hockey tournament. The three Chinese players that were "cut" are actual players on Kunlun, though I'm not sure of the spellings of their names, and they ARE the only three fully Chinese players on the roster. If you want all the details, just watch this vid:
The squad in the video above rank as the 32nd best hockey team in the world somehow. By country rankings, China ranks 32nd and these guys are their team. As silly as that sounds, Australia, yes Australia ranks 33rd! Spain is number 31 so BETTER than the Chinese. Here are the world rankings if you're curious. Remember Korea? You know, the host of the last winter Olympics in 2018? They're 19th on the list. They were given the privilege of participating in the hockey tourney by virtue of their position as hosts. How did they do? Well first of all, it is important to note that in 2018, an unbiased panel of NHL mediators agreed that hockey was not popular enough in Korea to be viable, so did not allow the NHL professionals to participate in the tournament. Korean played three games and lost them all. Their first was against the Czech Republic and they lost 2-1. Their second was an 8-0 lost to Switzerland and their third was a surprisingly competitive 4-0 loss to Canada.
Korea would absolutely destroy China in a hockey game. I don't think there's much argument. The difference between rank 19 and rank 32 is huge! But there is a much bigger difference: despite the fact that hockey is much more popular in Korea than China, the 2022 Beijing Olympic Hockey Tournament will feature the NHL professionals. The greatest players in hockey are going to be playing the 32nd ranked team in the world. The only thing stopping a 100-0 game will be pity.
Speaking of Korea, they might have the record for the biggest hockey blowout ever. In 1998 the Korean under 18 men's team played Thailand IN Harbin, China. They won 92-0. Song Dong Hwan, an actual Korean, scored 30 goals in that game. That's TEN hattricks my friends. What would you call that, a decatrick?
In Olympic hockey, Canada beat Switzerland 33-0 in 1924. The US beat Italy 31-1 in 1948. Don't be surprised to see both of those records fall. For that matter, the most goals in a tournament, 36, could easily be shattered with a severely outclassed team like this competing as well. Most assists, 21, most points, 36, all are records likely to be broken against the Chinese in this year's tourney. It's actually a good thing most of the players aren't actually Chinese because when Xi Jin Ping sees them getting routed every game, they're likely to end up picking cotton with the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Here's the kind of thing you can see in the NHL:
This happened just last week. And I doubt Zegras or Milano will be going to the Olympics. They won't make their country's (USA) team. They are both the best player by a helluva long shot on Team China if they were on it. The Kunlin Red Star are not even a good team IN THE KHL! Their record right now is 9 wins, 23 losses and 4 OT decisions. So they win once every three games in the KHL. They have NO chance of winning a game in the Olympics. But will they be competitive? Let's check out the roster, shall we?
There ARE some names on the team I recognize. Spencer and Parker Foo, the Foo brothers, are pretty good. I remember Spencer having a cup of coffee with the Calgary Flames and scoring 2 goals in 4 games. I wondered why they dropped him, but the Flames are doing just fine this year without him.
Chris Chelios' son Jake will be sporting his old man's number 7. It doesn't appear that he is as good as his Dad, but... Brandon Yip, the team captain played 174 NHL games and I remember his name. Victor Bartley played 121 NHL games, but I don't remember him. That's almost 300 of the 354 total NHL games between the players on the team. There will be teams, such as Canada, Russia, America, probably Finland and Sweden, who have most or ALL of their team members who have played more NHL games than that.
You can check the first vid if you want the whole roster. It's not full of household names. As you know I'm cheering for a boycott, but if the Olympics happen in 2022, and if the pros all go, I'm expecting something like this:
I love that video! lol
It's just another illustration in a sketchpad full of them, of how everybody is bending over backwards to ass-smooch the Chinese. The results of this example are likely to be as ugly as the results of all the others. But it'll be fun to watch in a sad, sad way.
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