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| China is concerned their men's hockey team is going to be terrible... International hockey officials are hoping to avoid a Humiliation On Ice when the Chinese men’s national team debuts at the Beijing Winter Olympics. They begged the NHL to send players to the Games in China, but now they are worried that the home team might not even be able to score a goal. The host nation automatically qualifies for every sport at the Olympics, but the Chinese men’s lineup — with a handful of naturalized Americans and Canadians — will face off against virtual NHL all-star teams from Canada and the United States in the first round. The International Ice Hockey Federation fears historic blowouts could hurt Olympic hockey’s image, especially after persuading the NHL to take a two-week break to allow the world’s top players to compete. To figure out how it might all go down, the IIHF is holding an unusual test next week in Moscow, where players on the Chinese team will play against Russian professionals and attempt to be competitive. It’s not clear what might happen if the team plays as poorly as it has in recent games, which raised fears that it might not score even once on home ice in front of its own fans. Ice hockey is not a popular sport in China, with no pro or significant amateur league. After China won the right to host the Games, an academy was set up to nurture young talent, and Chinese officials went around the world looking for players with Chinese ancestry — or who were willing to naturalize there — who could join the team. But China’s men’s team is ranked 32nd in the world, and it is in a group with the U.S. and Canada, two of the medal favorites among the 12 teams going to the Winter Games in February. It has struggled against other competition. That’s why new IIHF president Luc Tardif scheduled the games in Moscow, where the Beijing-based Kontinental Hockey League team Kunlun Red Star — which has been used as something of a proxy for the Chinese national team to get experience in a professional league — will play against Russian opponents. IIHF and Chinese hockey officials will be watching closely, in person and online, and hoping the team isn’t on its way to being embarrassed against NHL competition in February. “The team we will have in front of us, in two games, we will just to see the score and the way the game was playing, we will quickly know if they’ve got the level or not,” Tardif told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “It will be not only the score but the way the game was played.” It’s unclear who will grade this test — or how. The IIHF said last week it will not remove China from the tournament — it does not have the unilateral authority to do that — and it would be up to the Chinese government to pull the plug. That would be a humiliating step: A host country’s team has never been withdrawn from the modern-day Olympics for solely performance-related reasons, according to Olympic historian Bill Mallon. 
Officials worry China’s men’s hockey team not Olympics readyInternational hockey officials are hoping to avoid a Humiliation On Ice when the Chinese men’s national team debuts at the Beijing Winter Olympics. They begged the NHL to send players to the Games in China, but now they are worried that the home team might not even be able to score a goal.
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