Wait 20 years to gauge NHL China Games effect

The NHL China Games, conducted this past Thursday and Saturday, come two years after Andong Song broke ice at the 2015 draft. The People’s Republic has sent one of its talents to an NHL prospect pipeline in its history. And now it has savored a weekend-long return package with the Los Angeles Kings-Vancouver Canucks contests in Shanghai and Beijing.

That chalks up to a mutually sweeter swap than what hockey’s definitive circuit and Japan enjoyed in the mid-’70s. In an age where technology helps even minimal common sense prevail, Song checked out where Taro Tsujimoto would not.

Tsujimoto, drummed up at the 1974 draft, was not, in fact, Japan’s first born-and-bred NHL prospect. He was the boredom-bred brainchild of Buffalo Sabres general manager Punch Imlach.

That hoax notwithstanding, Tsujimoto’s native land did accept an eyeful of genuine NHL action two years later. And this was shortly after Sapporo hosted the 1972 Winter Olympics, containing the first high-profile hockey event on Japanese ice.

Although, local spectators got the two worst teams at the time in their worst possible shape. The 1975-76 Kansas City Scouts and Washington Capitals staged a pair of postseason games apiece in Tokyo and Sapporo. They did so on the heels of winning 11 and 12 out of 80 regular-season games, respectively.

Hardly the best way to introduce Canada’s definitive pastime to a “nontraditional,” up-and-coming hockey nation. But in the Gary Bettman era, the NHL has made a fuller commitment to reaching the other flank of the Pacific.

It broke new ice this week in the globe’s most populous country, and it began 20 years ago in another one of the top 10.

As an appetizer for its first midwinter respite to accommodate the Nagano Olympics, the NHL sent the Canucks and Anaheim Mighty Ducks to Tokyo. In stark contrast to the golf-course-primed Caps and Scouts, those teams were breaking the ice on their 1997-98 slates. They would split the series, thus hatching their respective goose-eggs in the regular-season win column.

Granted, this year’s Canucks and their travel partners from L.A. merely engaged in preseason exhibitions. Nonetheless, the 2017 NHL China Games cannot help drawing parallels to the 1997 Anaheim-Vancouver series. The most intriguing variable in each measuring pole will be the quantity and quality of talent percolating on the heels of these international icebreakers.

Eight months after Nagano, the NHL conducted another season-opening series in Japan between the Calgary Flames and San Jose Sharks. The Nashville Predators and Pittsburgh Penguins dropped in for the same purpose in 2000.

With China, the NHL has company in its cause to build bridges and foster new pools of interest and talent. On the women’s side, the CWHL is piloting its partnership with a pair of Chinese franchises this season.

In a Sept. 1 column, The Hockey News’ Ryan Kennedy credited the advent of the Kudlun Red Star and Vanke Stars for finally making the CWHL a paid enterprise. He added that “Interest in hockey is booming in China, in large part because the Asian powerhouse is hosting the Winter Olympics in 2022.”

Between that and the NHL China Series, the present push for pucks in the People’s Republic echoes Japan circa 1997-98. As such, the latter has a bar for the former to raise over the coming decades.

There is no way to spin a spotless side-by-side comparison, but the Internet Hockey Database will be a start.

As of this week, Hockey DB lists 45 all-time Japanese-born players from every league it aggregates. Two played in college the year before the Tsujimoto prank. Two others logged credit for “senior amateur action” before the Scouts-Caps series.

But an easy majority (34) did not start accruing Hockey DB credits until after the turn of the century. Only nine did so before the 1997 twosome in Tokyo.

Among those whose birth years are available, 26 were not NHL-draft eligible when the Ducks and Canucks visited. One, Ryo Namiki, was born 17 days before the opening ceremonies at the Nagano Olympics. Another, Hiroyuki Miura, was drafted by Montreal in 1992 but never made it to The Show.

Last season, Namiki entered the authoritative database by moving to St. Polten, Austria. There he joined the diverse Okanagan European Eagles, an overseas member of the Junior A USPHL.

Meanwhile, he had a pair of countrymen playing at essentially the same level stateside. Kohei Sato played a full year in his final year of eligibility for the North American League. Fellow 20-year-old Yuki Miura played all but seven games and chipped in 17 points for the USHL’s Waterloo Black Hawks.

One Federal League forward (Yuto Osawa) and one Division III collegian (Joe Osaka) rounded out Japan’s representation in 2016-17.

Five players who are now either retired or focusing on international action have played in North America’s major professional ranks. One of them, Yutaka Fukufuji, went to L.A. in the eighth round of the 2004 draft. He had already seen action in the ECHL, and would tend the Kings’ net for four games in 2006-07.

The only other Japan-born NHLer is Ryan O’Marra, although he is a Canadian national.

Nana Fujimoto constitutes the country’s most recent gift to the pros, having participated in the NWHL’s inaugural season in 2015-16. Fujimoto, who was eight when the Anaheim-Vancouver card came to her country, played 16 games for the New York Riveters. The previous year, she attained the top-goalie laurel at the 2015 IIHF Women’s World Championship.

And while not listed on Hockey DB, defenders Sena Suzuki and Aina Takeuchi have seen action in the CWHL. Both were six years of age in the Nagano Olympic year.

Between the CWHL’s initiative and Song’s status as a budding New York Islander, China is already a few strides ahead. Then again, going into the L.A.-Vancouver set, only three Chinese natives were on the Hockey DB record.

Translation: China has sent one-third as many of its skaters to the site as Japan had at this point 20 years ago. They were all born within a six-month span, and have played North American Junior A within the last five years.

But again, Song stands out for making the draft. And while he has lived in Ontario and various U.S. states since 2007, he got his start in Beijing. His arrival at Cornell in 2018-19 will break new ice for him as the first Chinese-born puckster in the NCAA.

And all of this is coalescing four years before Song’s native city hosts the country’s first Winter Games. Conversely, the Vancouver-Anaheim road show was working solo four months before the Nagano Olympics. There were no burgeoning women’s leagues and no NHL draftees (real or fabricated) to strengthen the late-’90s cross-promotion with Japan.

There was, at the very least, the NHL’s return for two of the next three seasons. While the same is not yet assured for China, the CWHL should draw abundant attention.

And at his current trajectory, Song will be a senior for the Big Red during the Beijing Olympics. He will therefore be a pro no later than the following fall.

That may be the most opportune time for another preseason set of NHL China Games. But the twilight of Song’s career will be more indicative of this effort’s success.