Minnows China cause a flutter in women’s hockey

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Sydney: Talk about a minority sport. China has 1.3 billion people, but only 200 or so play hockey. There are just six organised teams in the whole country, and they meet in only two competitions each year.

So imagine the surprise of the fancied German and Dutch German women's hockey teams in Sydney when the Chinese squad, which only just squeezed into the Games in the 10th and final slot, gave them both a walloping.

"We were too nervous," said German coach Bethold Rauth after being beaten 2-1 in the opening round-robin. The Dutch lost by a similar margin.Nervous?

Here was a Chinese team cobbled together from left-over ice hockey players and also-rans from the national soccer team. And it took a lot of effort to persuade them that hockey was worth the bother.

"It's tough to attract players," admitted team manager Hu Jianguo, who was drafted in to the hockey team after a career in basketball and handball. The coach is from South Korea, which built a hockey team from scratch for the Seoul Olympics.

"Bent stick ball", as hockey is known in China, has been played by the Chinese for only about a decade since the Asian Games were held in Beijing.

Even the bi-annual national competitions fail to attract more than a handful of spectators. "Crowds are very thin," said Hu.

Still, the Chinese media has been elated at the surprise success of the women's squad.

"The Chinese women's hockey team has turned from a 'dark horse' into a 'giant killer'," the mass-circulation Yangcheng 'Evening News' enthused. "The outstanding performance of the Chinese women's hockey team has broken the pattern of world women's hockey," it said.

Hu put down his team's wins to superior organisation and "unified thoughts" among the players, some of whom hail from the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, one of the few places in China where it is easy to find pitches to play on.

But from now on, he said, China's matches are likely to get tougher. "Other teams are starting to take us seriously," he said.



(c) Reuters Limited.