A year after the Beijing miracle, China made its second-ever appearance in Pool B at the World Championship. The tournament was held in Klagenfurt, Austria, featuring the host nation alongside East Germany, Poland, Norway, Romania, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and China.
The strength of the competition was evident – five of these teams had qualified for the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, though only four ultimately competed, as East Germany withdrew from the olympic tournament.
China a Fan Favorite in Austria
China had no intention of going down without a fight – the squad, nearly identical to the one that had triumphed in Beijing, arrived at the tournament in top form. The Chinese put on a strong showing, and as HockeyArchives noted, they “captivated the Austrian public with their fast and open style of play.” (1)
Though they suffered a few heavy defeats by six or seven goals, they also delivered some impressive results. China stunned Norway, a participant in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, with a 4–2 victory and crushed the Netherlands, freshly relegated from Pool A, by a commanding 8–3 score. They also picked up a point in a 4–4 draw against Switzerland, a team that had won bronze at the Pool B World Championship just a year earlier.
The five points China earned against elite European competition were nothing short of remarkable. A year earlier, that total would have been enough for a comfortable fifth-place finish. Even in this tournament, they had done more than enough to secure survival – all it would have taken was for the final-round matchup between Switzerland and Romania to end with a decisive result.
But fate had other plans. The game, which HockeyArchives later described as a “scandalous parody of hockey,” (2) ended in a 3–3 draw – a result that sealed China’s fate. They finished in 7th place, sending them back to Pool C. Despite this heartbreak, Chinese hockey still had something to celebrate: a 15th-place world ranking, the nation’s best-ever finish – a record that remains unbeaten to this day. But that historic milestone was little consolation for the sting of relegation…
Another Legendary Battle Against Their Longtime Rival, Hungary
For the 1983 Pool C World Championship, China traveled to Budapest, Hungary, with a slightly adjusted roster. However, the core of the Beijing success story still made up more than two-thirds of the squad.
This time, China returned to Pool C in a completely different position. After their performances at home and a year later at a higher level, they were suddenly viewed as one of the tournament’s top contenders. Their blistering-fast style of hockey commanded respect – even from the host nation. In fact, many Hungarians believed the Asian side had the best chance to win it all.
China tore through the early stages of the tournament with ease, slicing through opponents like a knife through butter. But then came a brutal reality check against the Netherlands – a team they had crushed just a year earlier. This time, they suffered a humbling 1–12 defeat.
After settling for a draw against France, everything came down to a decisive showdown for the second promotion spot – once again, against their longtime rivals, Hungary. The hosts got their revenge for the loss in Beijing, edging out China 4–3 to secure a spot among the world’s top 16 teams, sparking a full-fledged hockey fever in Hungary. The hockey gods certainly have a sense of irony – these two teams had now met twice in winner-take-all promotion battles, and both times, it was the underdog who came out on top.
The Response to Failure: a Radical Rebuild
After the disappointment, changes were made – and they were drastic. Head coach Wan Chi Li was replaced by Zheng Ping Wang, and the roster underwent a complete overhaul. Of the players who had been part of the team’s success in Beijing, only four returned for the 1985 C-Pool World Championship in France (as World Championships were skipped in Olympic years at the time): Fu Ping Wang, Zhimin Sun, Jia Qing Sun, and Yong Jun Wang, who had been merely a backup goaltender in 1981.
The revamped squad, once again with an average age just over 23, secured another bronze medal. However, that also meant they failed to move higher – the two promotion spots went to host nation France and Yugoslavia.
China’s dramatic relegation in 1982 remains a dark stain on the country’s golden era of hockey. We will never know how things might have unfolded or where the program would stand today had the national team managed to avoid the relegation that year. One can only speculate that the sweeping roster overhaul following the failed comeback attempt a year later might never have happened – and that the legendary 1981 generation would have been given more time to fully realize its potential.
It’s hard to say today what exactly led to such a radical overhaul of the team. However, considering the low average age of the Beijing squad in 1981, it was reasonable at the time to expect that the generation led by Xi Guang Chen, Chun Jiang Wang, Shao Tang Bian, You Ke Yang, and others still had its best years ahead and would reach its peak sometime in the mid-1980s. Yet, seemingly out of nowhere, most of them stopped receiving call-ups to the national team.
Some insight into this mystery comes from the experience of Czech coaching legend Slavomír Lener, who served as an assistant to Ivan Hlinka during the Czech Republic’s historic gold-medal run at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. In 1986, years before that triumph, Lener – then a young coaching methodologist with the Czechoslovak Ice Hockey Federation – spent six months in China on an internship, assisting the coaching staff of the senior national team (3).
In an interview with the Czech daily Lidové noviny, he clarified that he had no say in player selection as a coach (4):
Battle with Japan for Asian Hockey Supremacy
The next major test for China’s rejuvenated squad came at the Asian Winter Games, which made their debut in 1986 in Sapporo, Japan. The men’s hockey tournament featured four of Asia’s top teams: China, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea. The home team entered as the favorite, having spent most of the years since their appearance at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics competing in the B-Pool. The tournament followed a round-robin format, with each team facing every opponent twice.
Both China and Japan took care of business against the tournament’s underdogs, North Korea and South Korea, winning all their matchups without dropping a point. That meant the head-to-head battles between the two powerhouses would decide the champion. In their first meeting, China claimed a 4-1 victory.
The rematch, which also served as the final game – and the true climax – of the inaugural edition of what is now a long-standing tournament, was a different story. Japan stormed out to a 4-1 lead after the first period, but the resilient Chinese fought back, cutting the deficit to just one goal in the second. That scoreline still favored Japan, but China found an equalizer in the final period. With no further goals, the Land of the Dragon secured gold.
Beating Japan – a nation with nearly three decades more hockey tradition – was more than just a title win; it was a statement, a testament to China’s growing presence in the sport.
Czech Coach Brings New Inspiration – China Remains Unbeaten!
China capped off a successful year at the 1986 C-Pool World Championship in Spain, where, under the guidance of Czech coach Slavomír Lener, the team finally earned promotion after five long years. The achievement was all the more remarkable as China went unbeaten for the first time in its history, winning four games and drawing two. The standout result came in the final round – a 3-3 draw against a strong Norwegian side that was on the rise and would go on to qualify for the Calgary Olympics just a year later.
Goaltender Yong Jun Wang – once a backup to Cui, a standout from China’s memorable run at the Beijing World Championship – delivered outstanding performances throughout the tournament and was rightfully honored by the tournament directorate as the event’s top netminder. (5)
It was during this period that China recorded its best streak of results in history. Between 1985 and 1986, the team won 10 consecutive games and went unbeaten for an impressive 18-match stretch. (6)
Slavomír Lener enjoyed his work as well – so much so that he proposed to the Chinese federation that his internship be turned into a full-time coaching position. However, the Chinese side declined the offer, and after a successful season, he returned home to Czechoslovakia. (7) Perhaps that was one of the reasons why China’s third attempt to stay in the B-Pool ultimately ended in failure.
Back to Old Ways
At the 1987 B-Pool World Championship in Italy, Zheng Ping Wang’s squad failed to make much of an impact and didn’t win over fans the way the 1982 team had in Austria. China lost every game – most of them by lopsided margins – and capped off a disappointing campaign with three double-digit blowouts against Poland, Austria, and France. Not even a 16th-place finish – China’s second-best result in history – was enough to offset the feeling of disappointment.
Lener, however, wasn’t too surprised by the outcome (8):
The next World Championship wasn’t held until 1989 due to the Olympic year. This time, Australia played host to the C-Pool tournament. China failed to find a way to seriously challenge the Netherlands and Yugoslavia in the decisive matchups, finishing in a non-promotional third place.
At the time, few could have predicted that within months, political upheavals would permanently reshape the world map and, in the years to come, bring significant shifts to the global hockey landscape.
▶️ At the end of the article, you can watch highlights from the famous China vs. Hungary game at the 1983 C-Pool World Championship in Budapest.
| This article is part of the series |
|---|
| ⭐ “The Golden Age of Chinese Ice Hockey” ⭐ |
| 1️⃣ Part I: Fever in Beijing, 1981 |
| 2️⃣ Part II: Asia’s Top Force |
| 3️⃣ Part III: Growth & Decline |
Sources, Quotes and Notes:
- hockeyarchives.info/mondial1982.htm
- hockeyarchives.info/mondial1982.htm
- Lener’s tenure remains somewhat shrouded in mystery due to a lack of information, much of which is contradictory. Several Czech media outlets cite 1985 or the 1984/85 season as the period of his time in China.
However, this does not align with the information Lener himself provided in an interview with Lidovky.cz – the Czech coach explicitly stated that he guided China’s national team to promotion to the B-Pool of the World Championship but was no longer with the team the following year when they were relegated again. Logically, this would place his six-month internship in the 1985/86 season.
His exact role also remains uncertain. Lener claims that he “coached” the Chinese national team. However, Elite Prospects’ statistics for the 1986 World Championship do not include any information on China’s coaching staff. Meanwhile, the IIHF Statistical Encyclopedia lists Zheng Wang and H. Jing as the two coaches for the 1986 C-Pool tournament but does not mention Lener. Whether he was the head coach, an assistant, or an advisor cannot be stated with certainty.
* lidovky.cz/sport/cina-se-mymi-radami-neridila.A090425_103917_ln-sport-rozhovory_mis
* idnes.cz/hokej/reprezentace/hokej-cina-pripravny-kemp-khl-kovalcuk.A160329_235025_reprezentace_bem
* blob.iihf.com/iihf-media/iihfmvc/media/contentimages/4_sport/g_and_r/2025_iihf_g_and_r_book.pdf - lidovky.cz/sport/cina-se-mymi-radami-neridila.A090425_103917_ln-sport-rozhovory_mis
- hockeyarchives.info/mondial1986.htm
- nationalteamsoficehockey.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/China-Men-Official-Results-1.pdf
- lidovky.cz/sport/cina-se-mymi-radami-neridila.A090425_103917_ln-sport-rozhovory_mis
- lidovky.cz/sport/cina-se-mymi-radami-neridila.A090425_103917_ln-sport-rozhovory_mis
Leave a Reply