I have a hockey dream (the Winter Olympics have me)

I was the captain of the Chinese national women's ice hockey team and now the head coach of the Beijing Youth Women's Ice Hockey Team. Ice hockey is a collective sport of ice that competes against each other on ice with ice knives and ice hockey clubs. Wearing heavy equipment, the players often sweated profusely after a game.

I started playing hockey when I was 12 years old and have been with ice hockey for 33 years, with laughter and tears. In my hometown of Harbin, there were very few indoor ice rinks, and in winter, we had to train outdoors at minus 30 degrees Celsius, and the bibs and hoods worn by the team members were frozen. Playing ice hockey was fierce, but I continued to train hard because I always had a dream of a Winter Olympics in my heart.

I have participated in two Winter Olympics. At the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, the Chinese women's ice hockey team finished fourth.

The evening of November 14, 2004, was a night I will never forget. The Chinese women's ice hockey team went all out to make it to the final qualifying match of the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, which was also my third impact as an athlete. I thought that our qualification was a foregone conclusion, but in the last 6 seconds, the Chinese team was overtaken by the Swiss team and lost the qualification for the Turin Winter Olympics by one point. At that moment, my mind went blank, staring at the score on the big screen, tears of regret flowing down my face.

In 2007, after retiring from the army, I made a decision that many people did not understand: I gave up the opportunity to coach a professional team and started the basic training of youth ice hockey. At the time, there were only 100 female hockey players registered in official associations in China, and tens of thousands of people registered in some hockey powers. My idea is very simple, that is, I want more people to know about ice hockey and like hockey.

If Chinese women's hockey is to be truly strong, more people must participate. I ran around the schools around the ice rink, and as soon as I saw the little girls, I asked them if they liked to play hockey. I also used my own experience to encourage the young players again and again: "Raising the five-star red flag at the Winter Olympics is a dream that many athletes have been chasing!" We didn't do it, but you can do it!"

After years of development, more and more girls play ice hockey, and now there are more than 400 female ice hockey players registered with the Beijing Ice Hockey Association alone. The Beijing Youth Women's Ice Hockey Team led by me has won the second place in the "Columbus" Cup Women's League in the United States and the runner-up in the Second National Youth Games, and many outstanding players have been selected for the Chinese women's U18 (under 18 years old) ice hockey team. I believe that some of these players will be able to enter the national team and stand on the field of the Winter Olympics in the future to win glory for the country!

(The author is the head coach of the Beijing Youth Women's Ice Hockey Team, and the reporter of this newspaper, Shi Fang, interviewed and sorted out)

People's Daily (2022-02-15 13th edition)