Asia at the Olympics
This article is part of a special series we’ve prepared to mark the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina.
As we highlighted in previous parts, had it not been for the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s Olympic hockey team might have looked at least somewhat different. In the end, however, Chinese hockey officials had to make do with what they had, leading to the inclusion of players with no Chinese heritage.
In reality, though, there were only four such players: Americans Jeremy Smith and Jake Chelios, Canadian Ryan Sproul, and Russian Denis Osipov. While none of them had any Chinese ancestry, all saw representing China at the Olympics as a significant career opportunity.
By the way, Russia’s footprint could have been even bigger – behind-the-scenes reports indicated that goaltender Alexander Lazushin and forward Mikhail Abramov were initially in the plans. While Lazushin was ruled ineligible by the IIHF for failing to meet the two-year residency requirement, Abramov was forced out by a positive COVID test just before the Olympics.
How “Chinese” Was Team China Really?
The final roster of Team China became the subject of harsh criticism from numerous media outlets and hockey fans worldwide, particularly from traditional hockey powerhouses. Sports publications raced to outdo one another with mocking headlines, pointing out the high number of naturalized players and their “hastily invented” Chinese names.
However, amid this wave of sarcasm and ridicule, several key points were overlooked:
- A total of 21 out of 25 players had Chinese heritage – the team consisted of 10 China-born skaters, complemented by 11 “heritage players” with Chinese parents or grandparents.
- The Chinese names weren’t necessarily hastily made up – in many cases, they were family namedivs that had been preserved for generations within the North American Chinese community.
- China wasn’t doing anything unprecedented – several European countries had previously relied heavily on naturalized players to accelerate the development of their own hockey programs.
- It’s also inaccurate to claim that China has no hockey tradition. Back in the 1980s, the Chinese national team consistently ranked between 15th and 19th in the world. Today’s generation of players hopes to build upon what is often referred to as the golden era of Chinese hockey.
Naturalized Players Represented Italy, Kazachstan, Germany, and Great Britain Too
Let’s get a little whataboutistic here. To better understand how China assembled its roster for the 2022 Olympics, we need to revisit similar cases that occurred across Europe, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. Even in the new millennium, such instances – though on a smaller scale – continued to emerge. The genie had long been out of the bottle, and China had plenty of precedents to draw inspiration from when constructing its team.
Among the teams that have long relied on naturalized players from Canada and the U.S., Italy, Great Britain, Kazakhstan, and the Netherlands stand out, with Germany and Austria following to a lesser extent. Both Japan and South Korea also bolstered their rosters with North American talent ahead of their respective home Winter Olympics.
Italy
Italy is the undisputed leader when it comes to utilizing naturalized players. If we consider only major tournaments (World Championships and the Olympics) in the 1980s and 1990s, Squadra Azzurra regularly featured at least half of its roster composed of Canadian and American players (primarily of Italian descent), who played in the country’s top league.
The record was set at the 1982 World Championship, where 19 out of 22 players (86% of the roster) were born outside Italy. A decade later, at the 1992 tournament, 18 of 23 players (78%) were naturalized – a squad that, ironically, included Ivano Zanatta, who would later coach China’s Olympic team.
Kazakhstan
The arrival of Barys Astana in the KHL gave Kazakhstan an opportunity to attract elite imports with the prospect of handing them passports and dressing them in the national jersey. This trend gradually intensified and eventually peaked during the 2018–2022 Olympic cycle.
At the 2019 World Championship, naturalized players made up as much as 55 percent of the team. In recent years, however, Kazakhstan’s hockey leadership has put a firm stop to this practice – no foreign-born players have suited up for the national team at the past two World Championships.
The Netherlands
However, the first European country to extensively naturalize foreign-born players was the Netherlands, starting in the 1970s. This trend peaked in the early 1980s when the Dutch briefly reached the A Pool. At the 1981 World Championship in Sweden, 11 of the 22 players on the Netherlands roster were foreign-born, mostly Canadians. This precedent forced the IIHF to introduce the now-standard two-year residency rule for players switching national teams.
Great Britain
Another example is Great Britain, which began incorporating naturalized North Americans in the early 1990s. With a roster bolstered by Canadians and Americans, the British team climbed the ranks from Pool D all the way to the top division of the World Championship. At the 1994 tournament, marking their triumphant return to the elite after 32 years, 14 out of 23 players (61%) were naturalized.
Germany
Germany also made use of foreign-born reinforcements, though to a lesser extent. This trend peaked at the 1996 World Cup of Hockey, where 10 naturalized players took the ice – accounting for 43% of the roster. Germany gradually began moving away from such practices only after 2012.
Austria
Austria’s highest reliance on imports came in 1993 IIHF Worlds and 1994 Winter Olympics, when the team featured seven foreign-born players, making up nearly one-third of the squad. The trend of using imports was so noticeable in the Austrian team that some European countries even coined a nickname for them: the “Austro-Canadians.”
Croatia
One of the last European countries to build the core of its national team around naturalized players was Croatia. This occurred when Medveščak Zagreb, during its stints in Austria’s ICEHL and later Russia’s KHL, recruited numerous North Americans of Croatian descent.
The peak of this experiment came at the 2015 IIHF Division IB World Championship, where Croatia fielded a record 10 foreign-born players. However, the project failed to yield significant success, and the Croatians soon abandoned it.
Hungary
Hungary is among the teams that have long relied on naturalized players to strengthen their roster. Most often, they recruit members of the Hungarian ethnic minority living in neighboring countries (such as Romania or Slovakia), who are, from a hockey perspective, products of their home countries.
To a lesser extent, they have also used players from Canada or other major hockey countries. The 2016 World Championship saw the highest number of naturalized players in the Hungarian lineup – there were 7 out of 25 players.
Japan and South Korea
Arguably, an even greater source of inspiration for China than European nations was Japan and South Korea. Both East Asian countries hosted the Winter Olympics before China did – Nagano 1998 and PyeongChang 2018 – and both reinforced their hockey teams with foreign-born players to boost competitiveness.
Japan largely phased out its reliance on overseas-born heritage players after 2004, following the end of the special IIHF mandate that granted an automatic spot in the World Championship’s top division to an Asian team.
Similarly, South Korea gradually moved away from using imports after the pandemic era, signaling a shift toward homegrown talent.
China’s Naturalization Strategy vs Rest of the Hockey World
The table below provides a comparison of China and other countries in their use of naturalized players. For each country, we list the tournament where the share of naturalized players was at its highest. For the “record holders” in this practice, we’ve included multiple tournaments to illustrate the long-standing nature of these trends.
| Comparison of Naturalization: China vs Other Nations | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Tournament | Foreign-Born Players | Total Players | % of Roster |
| Italy | WC 1982 | 19 | 22 | 86% |
| Italy | WC 1992 | 18 | 23 | 78% |
| Great Britain | WC “B” 1997 | 14 | 22 | 64% |
| Great Britain | WC 1994 | 14 | 23 | 61% |
| China | OG 2022 | 15 | 25 | 60% |
| Kazakhstan | WC 2019 | 12 | 22 | 55% |
| the Netherlands | WC “B” 1975 | 11 | 20 | 55% |
| the Netherlands | WC 1981 | 11 | 22 | 50% |
| Italy | OG 2026 | 12 | 25 | 48% |
| Croatia | WC “1B” 2015 | 10 | 22 | 45% |
| Germany | WCup 1996 | 10 | 23 | 43% |
| Japan | WC 2002 | 9 | 23 | 39% |
| Austria | OG 1994 | 7 | 23 | 30% |
| Hungary | WC 2016 | 7 | 25 | 28% |
| South Korea | OG 2018 | 7 | 25 | 28% |
| Switzerland | WC 1990 | 5 | 24 | 21% |
Team China at the 2022 Olympics: By the Numbers
China ultimately managed to assemble a relatively solid roster despite the exceptionally turbulent circumstances. Moreover, the team (once again, relatively speaking) retained a certain level of authenticity and Chinese identity. Instead of using excessive words, let’s let the numbers speak for themselves:
- China’s Olympic roster featured 25 players – 3 goaltenders, 9 defensemen, and 13 forwards.
- 10 players were born in China.
- 15 players were born outside of China – 11 in Canada, 3 in the USA, and 1 in Russia.
- 15 out of 25 players had a Chinese surname.
- 21 out of 25 players had (to some extent) Chinese ancestry.
- Five players had NHL experience: Brandon Yip, Ryan Sproul, Jeremy Smith, Jake Chelios, and Spencer Foo combined for 253 NHL games.
- All 25 players had played in the KHL at some point.
- The roster also included players with experience in the AHL, Czech Extraliga, Finnish Liiga, German DEL, VHL, MHL, and various lower-tier, junior, or collegiate leagues across North America.
- The average age of the team was 26.40 years.
- The average physical measurements were 182.5 cm/ 85.8 kg.
Asia at the Olympics
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