The Daily Faceoff Show: The IIHF confirms Team China will play in the Olympics

The International Ice Hockey Committee confirmed that China will play in the men’s hockey tournament at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

IIHF announces Chinese men's national team will participate in #Beijing2022 Olympics, as planned, in Group A: Canada, China, Germany, United States. https://t.co/fbbVNhunoW

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) December 7, 2021

On Tuesday’s episode of The Daily Faceoff Show, Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna talked about how China stacks up against teams like Canada and the United States and whether it’s a good idea to have a team in the tournament simply because they’re the host.

McKenna: “This is a bad idea. China is going to get waxed and it’s going to be ugly.

I don’t know whether this is a money play or an emotional play that the host country had to have a team involved but Norway is a team that’s on the rise in terms of actually being competitive. You’ve got players, like Mats Zuccarello, who can play the game at a high level.

I don’t like the participation factor purely based on hosting. I never even liked it with the Memorial Cup in Canada. I always thought it was a cheesy way to get into the biggest tournament in Major Junior hockey.

I think there are other teams out there who deserve to be there. I don’t think China deserves to be there because they didn’t win their way into anything. Money, emotions, whatever, I guess it all talks.

Seravalli: “I don’t think there’s anyone out there saying this is a good idea but I think, when you look at it, China is a country with a lot of pride. These are their home games, this is their national indoor stadium that the games are being played in and the fact that they’re even icing a team is somewhat impressive given where hockey was in the country 10 years ago.

Yeah, they’re going to get waxed. I would love to see what the spread is going to be by the bookmakers, is it 10 goals, 12 goals? At some point, Canada and the United States are going to institute a ‘make five passes before you score rule.’

I don’t know. I’ll still watch.

You can watch the full episode here…