China will launch professional league

In the first week of June, the Beijing National Indoor Stadium, one of the venues of 2022 Winter Olympics, hosted the Chinese Ice Hockey Championship, the domestic league normally played in the so-called "hockey province" of  Heilongjiang, in the north of the country, in the cities of Harbin or Qiqihar, whose clubs divided the victories in the competition.  This season, after two consecutive titles by Qiqihar, Harbin has regained the title, overbearing the five partecipant teams. For the first time a B Group was creating with a record partecipation of 17 teams from different provinces of the country. Shenzhen Guangdong won the competition finishing ahead of Tianjin B and Tianjin. Harbin won also the women's championship.

During the closing ceremony the newly appointed Chinese Ice Hockey Association Deputy Secretary, General Shi Liang announced the creation of a professional league starting next season: "The domestic professional ice hockey league will definitely start this year."  said mr. Lang - "Hockey is a highly professional project. The domestic ice hockey is currently relatively weak. Taking the Beijing Winter Olympics as an opportunity, the Chinese ice hockey needs to be developed. A professional league is an important benchmark for the continued development of the ice hockey project." In order to strengthen the competitiveness of the Chinese ice hockey league, in the start-up phase of the league, the China Ice Hockey Association plans to invite foreign teams to participate, but it's still unclear which ones and from which countries.

In 2016 Red Star Kunlun from Beijing competes in KHL, since 2017 two professional teams - KRS Heilongjiang from Harbin, relocated to Beijing last season and Tseng Tau from Jilin - were created to compete in VHL, the Russian second league

Tweets by @eurohockey