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Say hello, yes, “ni hao” to the Chinese men’s national hockey team.
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Longtime NHL assistant coach Perry Pearn, who has been a globetrotter the last several years, also coaching the Japanese national side, helping in Italy with their men’s squad and also taking a turn in the KHL in Yekaterinburg, starts a nine-game exhibition series against Canadian university and college teams Wednesday.
The Chinese men’s side currently plays in the IIHF’s Division 1b group with countries like Estonia, Romania, Korea, Spain and Croatia. They only lost 1-0 to Lithuania in last year’s 1b championship, and they’re in 1a now, so that’s good. The 1a group might also include teams like Great Britain, Hungary, Norway and Kazakhstan.
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Apart from his coaching duties, Pearn has been the logistical tour point-man and the team services guy, putting the three-week exhibition schedule together. He lined up the competition, the hotel, the meals, the buses, even taking on some equipment stuff.
“Gotta run. I’m teaching a guy how to use the skate-sharpener,” said Pearn, 74, whose well-travelled coaching career started with local NAIT, before 21 years as an NHL assistant coach in Winnipeg, Ottawa, New York, Montreal and Vancouver.
Game 1 for the Chinese team is Wednesday at the Downtown Community Arena against the MacEwan Griffins (9-8-3), who play in the Canada West conference with the likes of the UBC Thunderbirds, University of Alberta Golden Bears, Saskatchewan Huskies and Mount Royal Cougars.
There’s also two games with NAIT this Friday and Saturday, two more against Portage Community College in Lac La Biche, two against Briercrest College located outside Moose Jaw, and a wind-up game against Concordia.
Pearn, in his second year looking after the senior and junior teams for the Chinese program, knows all about Canadian college hockey. The Alberta Hockey Hall of Fame honouree started his coaching odyssey with mighty NAIT, coaching 658 games and winning five Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association titles in a 14-year span before moving to the pros.
During the ’84-85 season at NAIT they were 44-2-2.
So, having his Chinese squad play the Canadian colleges is fitting stuff.
How will they do?
They’ll have their hands full, but this nine-game exercise is as much educational as statistical for the Chinese. Hockey is not a big deal in China, but it’s an Olympic sport and their federation is funding the women’s and men’s programs very well. Because there are fewer women’s teams internationally, they are farther ahead on a world scale, but the Chinese men, most who play in the pro Chinese Hockey League, are getting better. They’re not as good as, say, Japan, which has a long pro hockey league history. Randy Gregg played over there before joining the Oilers. Japan also pushes some of their good young players to come to North America.
The Chinese federation digs deep to fund tournaments and such, but doesn’t have the depth of talent or, so far, the inclination to take their younger talent and get them to teams in North America where they’ll be challenged more.
So coaching the Chinese team is an education for the former educator Pearn.
“I don’t think hockey in China has ever been as big (with the populace) as in Japan or even Korea. It has the potential because there’s lots of good athletes there,” said Pearn, who sees players with hockey skills but not strong hockey smarts.
“We have players who can skate and shoot but the problem is the understanding of the game. It’s because they haven’t been exposed to it enough.
”The hockey sense is not the same as the players I coached in Japan and a long way from what you see in North America. That’s another step to overcome. The idea of managing the clock if up by a goal with two minutes left. You don’t need to make another move at the blueline. It’s the mindset of every shift going out and thinking you’re going to score a goal. When you think like that, somebody’s going to score and it’s not often not you.”
This Chinese team, which isn’t as deep as it could be because some of their better players are on Asian Hockey League teams right now or playing at North America university or junior leagues, will have their hands full with the Canadian teams. Especially MacEwan, who sit second in their division, one spot ahead of the Golden Bears.
But, again, this is a learning exercise for Pearn’s squad which doesn’t play a high-end, competitive schedule back home. The wins and losses on this tour won’t matter as much as playing hard against better Canadian teams.
Why is Pearn doing this job?
Because he’s a lifetime coach who likes to coach, here, there and everywhere.
“We’ve got young kids joining our team and they’re going to get a picture of how much better this (Canadian teams) is. For the Chinese players who only play in the Chinese pro league, they think they’re pretty good and they are, relative to the other players in China. But now you walk out of China and compare yourself with the rest of the world, there’s a reality,” he said.
“One of the benefits of being here for our team is exposing them to how good the teams we’ll be playing are. And these are college teams, not national teams. It’s nine more competitive games that they’ll play if we didn’t come here,” he said.
“The big thing for these (exhibition) games is can we score enough (to win)? Our top two players are playing for a Japanese team in the middle of their Asian League season and forward Eddie Yan is at U of Toronto, so not available. For the upcoming world Division 1b championship in China we might get (San Jose Sharks second-round draft defenceman) Simon Wang, who’s playing major junior (Niagara Ice Dogs) in the OHL, too. But not for these exhibition games,” said Pearn.
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