The 2022 Winter Olympics Impact on NHL Growth in China

By: Sydney Large

In 2022 Beijing, China will be the first city to host both a summer and winter Olympic games. Since the Winter Olympic games have been announced, China's government has developed a plan to increase participation and viewership of winter sports such as ice hockey. This plan included building over 650 ice rinks throughout the country. In 2018, 12,000+ people were  participating in hockey in China. 

The NHL has assisted dramatically with this growth. 

In 2017, the NHL hosted their first two games in China, which were a set of preseason games between the LA Kings and Vancouver Canucks played in Beijing and Shenzhen. In 2018, the NHL held two more games in Beijing and Shenzhen, this time between the Calgary Flames and Boston Bruins. The Calgary vs. Boston games drew 28 million Chinese viewers. Between 2017 and 2018 the ticket sales of the games also increased by 50%. 

In 2018, LA Kings started China’s first and only NHL-affiliated youth hockey program, the Beijing Jr. Kings. The Jr. Kings have continued to grow, but their coach says that there still needs to be a lot of development in place. In 2019, to assist with the development of youth hockey in China, the NHL organized a Alex Ovechkin hosted U12 camp in Beijing. Around the same time the NHL created a satellite office in Beijing with one employee. Their office is located in the same building as the NBA China headquarters. 

The Vegas Golden Knights and Canucks have also worn red Chinese New Year jerseys to honor the holiday. These teams and the NHL have also posted on social media about Chinese New Year and have recognized the importance of growing the game in China. Speaking of social media, the NHL’s Weibo account, a popular Chinese social media platform has over 1 million followers. This growth has been associated with the broadcasting partnership with Tencent. 

In 2018 I spent two weeks studying at Beijing Sports University and saw the impact of hockey first hand. I was surprised to see so many people wearing NHL gear, even outside the university. I also saw outdoor skating rinks, as well as ice rinks located in malls.