URL:http://www.globeandmail.com/docs/news/19970404/Sport/SHOCKN.html GLOBEnet Chinese women score an Olympic goal Despite minimum resources, coach Zang Zhinan has produced a national hockey team to be reckoned with Friday, April 4, 1997 By Beverley Smith Sport Reporter In its swashbuckling, high-sticking way, the Chinese women's hockey team has already found glory this week, even before the last puck has been dropped at the women's world hockey championship, which ends Sunday. Unseen before 1992, the Chinese have ensured themselves a berth in the women's hockey event at the Nagano Olympic Games in Japan next year by winning their first two games this week. Their two wins ensure that the mysteriously able team can finish no worse than fourth at the world championships, a qualifying event for Nagano. The top five teams this week will earn Olympic spots; a sixth berth will automatically be awarded to a team from the host country. Canada has also qualified by winning its first two games. The Chinese women defeated the Russians 6-2 and issued a 11-3 drubbing to a Swiss team. Still, coach Zhang Zhinan said they were nervous and not at their best. The Chinese team has been the talk of the week, the object of universal curiosity. "Mentally, they are very patient in their own end," said U.S. coach Ben Smith, whose players tackled the team in a special tournament in Harbin, the seat of hockey in China, in January. "They look very formidable," he said. "They are not afraid to play there. They don't get rattled. They play very hard man-to-man." The Chinese guard their positions like silent, immovable monoliths, he said. They do not back off from a challenge. "You're not going to push them over," Smith said. "They block a lot of shots. They are very unselfish that way. I think they are a very well-coached team." The Chinese coach, a 34-year-old former member of the national men's team, used the word "trust" when he spoke of his relationship with the players in an interview this week. "We trust each other," said Zhang, garbed in an NCAA sweatsuit and speaking through an interpreter. "We have a very close relationship. Maybe it's difficult for other teams to have this relationship with their coach." Perhaps it easy for him because there are only 80 registered players in the women's program in China, a country of 1.2 billion people--and there is a large gap in talent between the very best and the rest. Zhang doesn't have a lot to choose from to make up his team. While Smith said members of the U.S. team at the world championship will make up between 60 and 80 per cent of the team planning on getting to the Olympics, Zhang has no such luxury of choice. What you see in Kitchener, he said, is basically what you will get in Nagano. The Chinese women have climbed as high and as quickly as they have through hard work, Zhang said. At the training centre in Harbin, an industrial city in frigid northern China, the women train eight times a week for nine months of the year. Most are former speed skaters and most are college students. The team members range in age from 19 to 28. Team elder Sang Hong, the 28-year-old captain, has been skating for 14 years and now teaches hockey to others. Another, Guo Hong, is an intrepid goaltender. But Guo, who impressed all at the 1992 and 1994 world championships, isn't the only talented netminder--Smith said there are two with immense ability. China's other goaler in Kitchener is Huo Lina. Even though the Chinese sport association has decided to home in on winter sports such as hockey and figure skating, Zhang said the financing is modest. Some of the team members are wearing skates that are two years old. Zhang is a pioneer of hockey in his country. Northern Chinese became interested in the game during the 1970s because of the influence of the former Soviet Union, which pervaded Harbin. Zhang, who started skating when he was eight, was a member of the national men's team from 1982 to 1992. In that time, the team twice won the Asian Winter Games and rose into hockey's B pool, then dropped back down to C. He was chosen national men's coach in 1992, but became the women's coach a year later. For Zhang, it is a full-time job. It is clear that China has more faith in the advance of its women's team than that of its men's crew. And progress in the women's sport has come in the traditional Chinese manner, through extensive viewing of videotapes. Zhang said his team has been helped greatly by viewing videotapes of National Hockey League games, shown on Chinese television. "They all know Gretzky," he said with a smile. Copyright (c) 1997, The Globe and Mail Company All rights reserved.