Simply Disingenuous

There are always a few good storylines that come out of the draft when it comes to how much the game has grown across the planet. According to the NHL's public relations, sixteen nations saw players born inside their borders drafted on Friday and Saturday, and that's a very good number. Yes, Canada and the US still led the way, but there were some surprises as South Africa was represented for the first time ever by a non-goalie and Norway had players selected in the first round for the first time while having a record four players selected. The game certainly appears to be global when the NHL publishes numbers like this, but I'm here to tell you that birth countries shouldn't give the NHL or its teams the power to claim they're growing the game as pictured to the left above with the Jets.

The player in question is Kevin He, and he looks like a decent player by all accounts as he skates well and has a quick, accurate shot. He skated with the OHL's Niagara IceDogs this past season, and it should be noted that he was born in China when it comes to his heritage. When he was selected 109th-overall by the Jets, He became the highest-selected Chinese-born player in NHL Draft history.

Just for the record, I feel like "he" and "He" can be interchangable throughout the next couple of paragraphs, but it feels weird using his last name all the time when a pronoun works better. Grammar aside, here's why I have a problem with the Jets' statement.

The NHL first played games in China back in 2017 when the NHL sent the Los Angeles Kings and Vancouver Canucks over to the populous country. The games were played in Shanghai on September 21, 2017 and in Beijing on September 23 with the Kings winning both exhibition contests. If you're doing the math in your head, that was just seven years ago that the NHL introduced their brand of hockey to China, so are they really growing the game when it comes to 18 year-old Kevin He?

In a Sportsnet piece entitled "Breaking the Ice", the writer states,

In September 2007, Greg Jamison, then the Sharks president and CEO, announced that the franchise would partner with the Chinese AIHL team, sending over coaches and players in its system along with funding to help develop youth hockey in the country.

As the article states, this partnership with the China Sharks was anything but fruitful, and the team was folded prior to starting their third season of play in the AIHL. While I'm not suggesting that the China Sharks didn't have an impact at all, what was the level of the impact did they have on growing the game, specifically when it came to three year-old Kevin He when the Sharks folded?

The author of the piece also notes other NHL efforts, writing,

"The Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadians, Boston Bruins and Washington Capitals have all developed initiatives to grow the game and their brands in the country, mostly through grassroots programming. The New York Islanders have hosted a hockey tournament for teams from China for the past decade, and under former majority-owner Charles Wang, the Islanders actually preceded San Jose's efforts, launching hockey camps in China as far back as 2003. Wang has personally helped fund the construction of 30 hockey rinks in the country."

Clearly, the Leafs, Canadiens, Bruins, and Capitals are looking to help China's efforts to grow hockey, but those efforts started after Kevin He was already in Canada. And the Islanders should be commended for their efforts in trying to grow the game in China, but Kevin He was five years-old when his family emigrated to Canada so how much influence would one of those Islanders camps have had in his five years of childhood spent in China?

Did you note which NHL team wasn't part of those efforts? I'll give you a hint: they were formerly known as the Atlanta Thrashers.

Let me be clear in that I believe Kevin He should be proud of his heritage, encouraged to speak about and support grassroots efforts in hockey in his birthplace, and celebrated if and when he's asked to represent his country of birth internationally. Canada is a proudly multicultural nation which promotes people of all races and ethnicities to use their birth country in combination with "Canadian" when describing themselves, and I'd hope that Kevin He is proud of his Chinese-Canadian background. Honestly, it seems he is.

However, for the Jets and, by proxy, the NHL to claim that they had anything to do with his making the NHL as a Chinese-born player when his formative hockey years were spent in Montreal and Toronto is simply disingenuous and gross. He worked his tail off, got noticed by scouts, and was drafted by the Jets who can make the weak claim that they've now selected a Chinese-born player at the highest position in the draft, but Kevin He is a product of Canadian hockey training, not Chinese training.

The Montreal Canadiens actually should be claiming that they selected the highest-selected Chinese-born player in NHL Draft history when they took Taiwanese-born defender Rod Langway at 36th-overall in 1977. After all, Taiwan is a Republic of China, but Montreal has never made that claim while Rod Langway's birthplace is simply that: the place where he was born. Langway grew up in the US for the most part, and he played hockey in Massachusetts. Was Montreal "growing the game" in 1977?

Perhaps the Colorado Avalanche would like some credit for growing the game after drafting Brazilian-born Robyn Regehr in 1998. Or maybe the Jets can claim that their previous iteration grew the game in Germany when the Atlanta Thrashers drafted German-born Dany Heatley in 2000. Do the Los Angeles Kings get to say they're "growing the game" by drafting Slovenian-born Anze Kopitar in 2005, or are they simply looking for the best player they can find at the draft?

There are other examples:

• Two-time Stanley Cup champion Craig Adams was born in Brunei and drafted by Hartford in 1996.
• Claude Vilgrain was born in Haiti, but taken by Detroit in 1982.
• Leo Komarov claims Estonia by birthplace, and Toronto chose him in 2006.
• Olaf Kolzig has a South African birth certificate, and Washington took him in 1989.
• Owen Nolan began life in Northern Ireland, and Quebec chose him first-overall in 2000.
  

None of the teams above went out and claimed they were growing the game in any of those countries just because they selected players from what are considered non-hockey birthplaces, so why would the Jets even attempt to make that connection with their selection of Kevin He? They have zero roots in China, they had zero effect on his hockey career prior to today, and they didn't even exist until Kevin was living in Montreal. The tweet by the Jets at the top of this article is beyond bizarre and completely disingenuous.

If one is going to claim to "grow the game" in any meaningful way, one better be able to produce receipts. Drafting a player from a non-hockey country is, in no way, "growing the game" when he was born there, but played all of his meaningful hockey in a traditional hockey country. Kevin He is a proud Chinese-Canadian man who will hopefully make the Jets' roster one day, but there had better not be another claim of "growing the game" from any team just because they used a draft selection to choose a player.

Without any receipts of actually showing growth, that's the most disingenuous statement I've seen in a long, long time.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!