Young Chinese players take to Canadian ice to boost hockey skills

World Junior Championship

Skates scratch the ice and a coach's cry echoes through the arena north of Toronto: "Go! Move, move, move!"

Four teens barrel down the rink, breathlessly chasing a puck.

The scene may be typically Canadian, but the players are all visitors — young Chinese here to master hockey.

"Because it's Canada, like, the best place to play hockey in the world," said 13-year-old Bert Wen, who plays for the Toronto Nationals AAA team.

All four of these players were born in Beijing, moving halfway around the globe with their parents at the age of nine or 10 to lace up with Canadian junior teams. They join many others who come looking for the ice time China doesn't offer. 

Chinese players Kevin Jin, left, Austin Guo and Jason Zhou train to be better skaters in suburban Toronto after moving to Canada to pursue hockey. (Saša Petricic/CBC)

Beijing may have poured more than $4 billion into its upcoming Winter Olympics, but it's struggling to field a respectable national team and opportunities for young hockey players are few.

"They're hungry for it," said Sonya von Kaufmann, who's helped the Toronto Maple Leafs and many figure skaters improve their footwork, as well as running training camps in Shanghai.

Like the four players on the ice on this day, more and more of her young clients are hockey hopefuls from China. 

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"They have a real opportunity here, from East Coast to West Coast in Canada," she said. "Every day, they can get on the ice and practise their skills. It's not the same over there." 

'A very hard decision'

For the Zhous, moving to Canada five years ago was a quest to fulfil their son's hockey hopes. Jason and his mother Fanny packed up in Beijing and relocated to suburban Toronto. 

Jason gets ready to train at a suburban Toronto rink, after coming to Canada from China to pursue hockey. (Saša Petricic/CBC)

"It's a very hard decision," said Fanny Zhou, "leaving his daddy, his grandma and grandpa and all our friends. But for me, his dream is my dream. So I came here with him." 

She now describes herself as an unlikely hockey mom.

Jason was a nine-year-old, obsessed with hockey but "not very good at it," he said, despite skating and playing in China since the age of four. His hero? Wayne Gretzky.

He's faced challenges here, first learning English, then adapting to a faster and rougher game.

"Sometimes, people look at me and they don't think I can play hockey," said Jason. "Some of them don't even know that in China, we're starting to love hockey. And more and more are starting to play it."

Jason is a forward with the Toronto Marlboros under 15 AAA team. Aside from school, his world revolves around the sport. He trains in his family's basement gym and practises shots on goal in a specially built room designed to look like a corner of the ice rink. Canada Juniors Hockey