The Nipissing Lakers men's hockey team doesn’t officially kick off the 2025 portion of their schedule until Friday, but they will be on the ice against some stiff competition on Wednesday. That’s when China’s national team rolls into town for one of five exhibition matches the team is playing during the month of January.
Lakers Head Coach Mike McParland says he’s looking forward to the game as it was something he had been working on since last summer.
“Perry Pearn (who has over two decades of experience as an Assistant Coach in the NHL with Winnipeg, Ottawa, New York Rangers, and Vancouver Canucks) is someone I got to know when we played in Switzerland. He took over the men's national team a little while ago and he and I were able to work out the details to bring our teams together.”
Team China is staying in Toronto for January as it prepares for the Asian Winter Games in Harbin, China during the first two weeks of February. “The Asian Winter Games is a very important competition for all Asian countries and has been a point of emphasis for our team this year as the host nation,” says China’s Assistant Coach Cole Bell. “The Games are an Olympic-style event among the Asian Countries, held every four years. This year will see 39 countries represented at the Games, with 14 of them fielding a men's ice hockey team.”
Cole Bell, who has previously worked for several teams in the United States, including the University of Jamestown and Ohio University says, “With a mostly North American coaching staff we identified the Toronto area as a great place for us to hold a training camp and find competitive exhibition games for our team. The idea of coming to North America, and specifically Toronto, came from our Head Coach last year, Spiros Anastas (who is now an Assistant Coach with the Chicago Wolves of the AHL). Taking a look at our options in this area we felt Nipissing would be a great opponent and a terrific challenge for us as we prepare for the Asian Winter Games.”
McParland echoes that sentiment, saying, “Our players have been excited about this game since I mentioned it to them. It will be a great experience for them for sure, and it is a neat opportunity for Team China to prepare for their Asian Winter Games.”
While they are in the Toronto area Team China will play five exhibition games scheduled. Four of them against USports teams and one against an NCAA DIII team. They played Windsor on Saturday, with the Lancers coming out ahead 4-2.
They play Nipissing on Wednesday, January 8, Brock on January 22, SUNY Fredonia on January 24, and Toronto Metropolitan on January 25.
“We’re looking to continue to increase our player’s experience playing in highly competitive atmospheres,” says Bell. “We needed to travel outside of China to do that and USports Hockey provides an excellent opportunity. We have two very important competitions coming up over the next four months and the exhibition games will help set the stage for that and get us on the right track.”
Bell says one of the things China will have to adjust to is the size of the ice. “We have a small handful of guys who have some experience playing in North America at one point or another in their careers, but for many, that was quite a few years ago,” says Bell. “Things will be faster, and likely more physical than they are used to. The transition game is a little faster in North America than the European game, so we will need to adjust to that as well.”
Bell says they have some players who are standouts which fans of international hockey should pay attention to.
“Hou Yuyang (Ethan) led our team in scoring at last year's World Championships and is one of our key contributors offensively. Zhang Zesen (Z) is one of our more veteran players with experience playing for Kunlun Red Star in the KHL (Kontinental Hockey League with member countries based in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and China) and was also a member of Team China in 2022 at the Beijing Olympic Games. On the back end watch for Zhang Pengfei (Miro), a defenseman that plays in all situations and another one of our big contributors offensively.”
In recent years, teams in Asia have been preparing more and more to build their national hockey programs. In fact, North Bay native Joe Butkevich won a bronze medal with China’s womens national U18 team at the 2020 world championships as an Assistant Coach.
“We hope the Asian Winter Games continues to shine a light on hockey,” says Bell. “As a North American on the outside looking in, it seems there are quite a few sports that are more popular than hockey right now in China. Our Association has done a great job over the last couple of years of taking steps to grow the game and reach more young players. Hopefully, this competition continues to help them. It would be great to see more young kids take up the sport and eventually become the next great players on the National team. We hope to put on an exciting show for our home fans and represent China with pride.”
McParland says they hope everyone will come out to watch this exciting exhibition contest. “It would be great if the University and the community as a whole would come out and support this initiative,” he says, “We are partnering up with Jacob Brown from the NOHA and hoping that the hockey players from the area come to the game wearing their jerseys and make it a celebration of minor hockey as well.”
The puck drop is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Memorial Gardens.
