Breaking new ice

Not the finish they wanted, but China's fresh-faced pucksters have drawn strength from a hard-fought Winter Asiad campaign, as the country's hockey program looks to hit the reset button.

The Chinese national ice hockey program's gamble of casting aside an experienced legion of naturalized players to field all-homegrown squads at major tournaments has not quite paid off. A string of disappointing results for both its men's and women's teams over the past two weeks have cost it dearly on the international and regional stages.

Having missed the Olympic qualification berth for Milano-Cortina 2026 long ago, the Chinese men's squad was hoping to energize its rebuilding efforts with a medal finish at the Harbin Asian Winter Games last week, yet only managed to emerge with a sobering reality check regarding the gap between itself and the sport's continental powers.

The gap is narrowing, though, as evidenced by closer matches against three-time Asiad champion Kazakhstan and higher-ranked East Asian neighbors Japan and South Korea in Harbin, compared to the 2017 edition in Sapporo, Japan.