Plateau Hockey

I am a Canadian from Edmonton living on the Tibetan Plateau in Western China teaching Tibetans, Inner Mongolians, Han zu, Man zu, and Tu zu Chinese students about the great sport of Hockey.  The easiest/cheapest/most practical way to do this is to play street hockey.


More details here, here, and here.

Here is the latest update


From Last week:

It was a good time this last Tuesday down in the parking lot at Min Da University.  It was a good time and it was also quite different from other times.  Here are the highlights:

-  Last week, one of my dog leash goalie pad straps broke, so this week I decided not to bring them.  No goalie means we can go "full court" with 5 on 5 teams without goalies.  I also wanted to do this to emphasize the importance of team defence.  I wanted to teach them how to keep the ball out of the goal, positioning, and how to clear it out of harm's way.

So, when I showed up and saw about 25 guys there waiting to play, I was glad that we were going to have more room for everyone.  We ran around a lot more, which was nice, and it worked out pretty well.  There are definitely a few guys picking it up quicker than others.  We might be heading towards some sort of mini-tournament one of these days.

- Last week I told the coach that I was going home for my brother's wedding.  He told the guys that they needed to think of good things to give me to take home to my family as gifts from Qing Hai.  The two ideas they came up with were yak jerky and Qing Hai yogurt.

So, this week the coach gave me these:

Yak Jerky

Now, before you get too excited about things I must tell you that I don't even want to start to tell you how not like beef jerky this stuff tastes.  I'll bring some of it back and you can see for yourself, if you dare.

-  I should also mention that the coach was a little under the influence this weekend.  How he does it is beyond me; he must have a good, filling lunch break.  At one point he did some Tibetan dancing with one of the players, at another point he grabbed a stick, rode it like a horse, and displayed his limited Mongolian horse riding dancing skills.  It was fun, though I will also keep a close eye on the situation.

From this week:


We had our first casualties:

RIP

The blue one snapped in a Tibetan guy's hands while he slashed at the ball.  It was one of the older sticks.  It will be missed.

I stepped on the red one while it was in the hands of another player.  I won the puck battle and got a good shot on goal, so it was kind of worth it, in a way.

Down to 8 sticks.  I have a couple more lengths of wood in the apartment, which I can cut into more sticks, but clearly I'll be looking for some real sticks sooner than later.

If you are reading this and you have a keen idea on how to get us some real street hockey equipment out here, then please e-mail me at brettgitzel@yahoo.com.

Regardless, we will keep on keepin' on...

Inside the game

After 3 weeks, the gym class at Qing Hai Minorities University seems to have embraced the Canadian Cultural phenomenon known as Street Hockey.




I played street hockey a lot as a kid.  My brother will tell you that I played a lot of street hockey by myself, but that is only because he was too busy playing Atari to come out and play with me.  You could say that I was a throwback, a boy out in the open air with the wind in my face and piles of hockey dreams in my head.  Bryce was a slave to modern technology.

Winter 2009 - Annual Derman Street Classic

Every Winter when we go back to Canada we play at least 1 game of street hockey.  We'll always have a few guys show up.  We're out there with rickety nets, old half-broken sticks and a tennis ball, but we always  have a lot of fun.  We've had people in their 20's and people in their 50's out there playing.  It's inclusive.  You don't need skates or Rollerblades or anything, just a stick and some heart.

Gym Class

And maybe that's what we've got here on the Plateau.  It's just a bunch of people wanting to try something new, something other than basketball and soccer for a change. 

This past week we had 11 guys show up to give it a try.  The big guy on the left is really good.  He's from Inner Mongolia and has some field hockey experience.  I'm trying to get him to use his size a bit more.

The dude on the far right has shown up every time and he's pretty good.  In fact, it wasn't fair this week to have both of those guys on the blue team.  They did pretty well.

The coach has a blast (as you can tell by the photo, he's the one to my left).  He's a good teacher, always stopping to give a few tips here and there.  They work on passing a lot, which is nice. 

Let me tell you another funny story about the coach:

We are all gathered around and I said, "Okay, I want to invite you all to my apartment to watch a hockey game.  Maybe sometime next week?"

The coach replied, "Wow, thank you, thank you.  Hey, everyone, shake his hand.  Shake his hand."

Everyone proceeded to shake my hand and we worked out a time.  

Funny guy.

Next week we will watch some of 2006 Stanley Cup Final game #5, Oilers vs. Hurricanes.  We all remember that one, don't we?

Regarding the class, I don' t really think this will or needs to go beyond just having a good time once a week.  There really isn't anyone else to play at the moment; though, I did meet a guy last week who plays roller hockey with a bunch of Muslim people in another province.  Maybe we can set up a tournament sometime.

As for me, as I've made pretty clear thus far, I'm just happy to be playing.  The fact that people are actually showing up is a plus.  I'd love to work it up to 2 nets and 2 goalies, playing the whole length of the parking lot.  But as for right now, things are going well.

It's funny, but my love for hockey has grown ever since I left Canada.  I'm glad that it's grown to the level that requires that I start playing street hockey with locals.  Maybe in 10 or 15 years street hockey will be a normal thing for people here.  It's not that I'm trying to impose my culture on anyone.  It's just that hockey is so fun that it needs to be shared with the people around you.  Me and the Mongolian, Me and my brother, and Wayne and Garth.

Other brother Barry and me after a game

Hockey Afternoons in Western China

Here I am.  I am in the middle of China.  I am surrounded by Chinese people and Chinese things.  Yesterday night I saw a man try to fill up the tire of his Volkswagen with a bike pump.  He chose a speedy method, up and down really fast, but I knew that it wouldn't work.  Strawberries can be bought on the street, a long with puffed rice and milk being scooped out of an old, dirty iced tea bottle.  Although it only takes one idiot to kill a pedestrian, I must comment on the fact that the traffic light in front of our complex is getting more attention these days; cars are actually stopping at it.

Yes, here in China you mix the good with the bad.  No matter how much a guy like me tries to blend in with things, I will always be a tall, bald, white guy from Canada.

One of the ways people have figured out how to live here is to do stuff that they are familiar with.  We now have coffee shops and pizza and Thai food.  It's the little things such as these that help Westerners like me enjoy a little break every once in awhile from my imaginary life as a Chinese person.

All that to say, ladies and gentlemen, we now have street hockey!  A few years ago I tried to get hockey going and it kind of worked for a bit, but after the sticks started breaking and the interested people started leaving town, the early morning street hockey games died out.

At the first session.  Photo by D_Hendersen

These days, I have what everyone needs... a man on the inside.  My man is the basketball coach at the University I used to go to.  He saw me carrying some of my home-made hockey sticks down the road and stopped me in my tracks.  He grabbed a stick and moved around the sidewalk, sliding this way and that, and finally taking an imaginary shot at the bus stop.  He asked if we could play sometime.  I said pretty please.  Fast forward a few months and here we are.

I am now teaching street hockey every Tuesday afternoon at the University.  Last week was the first week.  We had 6 sticks, a tennis ball and 2 pylons for a goal.  6 guys showed up, representing 5 different minority groups!  It was quite a diverse group.  Yet, I know that after a few more weeks we will all share the same language... the language of love... the language of Hockey!

After our first class I knew that I needed to build a net.  So, I scavenged the Internet and found out that people make nets out of PVC pipe all day long!  So, I got some pipe and made a net.  It's a little wobbly, but it will work.  Next week I will have some foam cut to make into goalie pads.  My father-in-law is sending out some more stick blades and street hockey balls.  Things are happening.

Of course, what I would really like is real equipment.  I plan on writing in to a few companies to see if we can get some donated.  Basically, I am in a town completely ignorant on hockey.  Supporting this cause would go a long way in supporting hockey in China.

In fact, the coach told me that they used to play ice hockey down by the river on the fishing ponds.  Seriously.  He said that they started in the 1960s, but eventually all of the equipment broke and since getting hockey equipment out here is nearly impossible (it's expensive and hard to find even on the Internet) the games they were playing eventually died out.  What an opportunity we have to bring it back!

It's all quite romantic, really.  This dusty, forgotten town out on the Tibetan Plateau, full of soccer and basketball players, introduced to the sport that their hearts have loved all along without them knowing it.  The sport of dreamers.  The sport of hockey.

As of now, China's hockey team is ranked #39 in the world, just behind New Zealand.  Ladies and Gentlemen, together with me, you are about to take the first step on the way up to at least #36.  Can we make that our goal?  Together?  Dreaming?  Me and you?

During our first class the coach pointed out that hockey is great for your heart.  All that running around, with the sun shining down, is very good for you.  I agreed, being out here away from my culture, hockey is very, very good for my heart.

So, this week, with the NHL season winding down, I will be posting about the new Spring hockey class starting up here in Xining.  I'll take you through the steps that it takes to make hockey happen here in China, from collecting the supplies, to whittling away at wood to make the sticks, to walking out onto the basketball courts and asking people to play.

Stay tuned.