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Holy salkow, Batman, Miki’s back! Yes, Japan’s very own Babe on Ice, Miki Ando, roared back to form in the opening event of the Grand Prix figure skating series, not only winning October’s Skate America competition in Connecticut, but overshadowing younger teen star Mao Asada, everybody’s current tip for greatness. Ando, of course, was panned after finishing a disappointing 15th at the Turin Olympics, but she’s lost a bit of chunkiness and taken her skating to a higher level; maybe now she will start to fulfill her promise. Next up on the calendar is the NHK Trophy from November 30 to December 3 in Nagano. Japan’s women skaters are hot right now. Catch them while you can. FV See sports listings for details.
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By
Fred Varcoe
Asian Hockey League
Japan, China, South Korea and China start a new cold war
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| Kokudo face off against
the Nippon Paper Cranes |
It’s a shame baseball’s Pacific League hasn’t
taken a page out of ice hockey’s book. While the mandarins
in charge of baseball look increasingly inward (or increasingly
stupid), the chaps running ice hockey here have decided to
look outward and beyond Japan’s shores in an effort to
revive the sport. Or, to put it more bluntly, to ensure its
survival. On September 25, Asian League Ice Hockey will kick
off with eight teams, including Japan’s four surviving
professional teams, two from China, one from South Korea and
one from Russia. It must be said, however, that ice hockey’s
own rulers have done a fairly lousy job at keeping their sport’s
momentum going. Even people within the game are critical of
its governing officials and organization. Ice hockey in Japan
is an eminently marketable product—and should have been
more so after the Nagano Olympics—but it barely gets
mentioned in the media.
The new Asian League might just change that. Soccer has pointed
the way with the A3 Club Championship and the East Asia Championship.
While pan-Asian tournaments don’t always fare so well,
more regional events have far greater viability. The reason
for this is obvious: Local rivalries generate greater interest
in the media and among fans. Japan vs. Saudi Arabia in soccer
might have a certain amount of interest for the aficionado,
but Japan vs. South Korea is a “war” and generates
column inches beyond the sports pages. Another advantage of
cross-border action is that it broadens the horizons and skills
of the players.
In a trial run last year, the Japan Hockey League admitted
Korean champion Anyang Halla Winia for several games. The
Koreans struggled at first, but started to find their feet
as they got used to the standard of play, which is surprisingly
high. Earlier this year, International Ice Hockey Federation
President Rene Fasel visited China to investigate ways of
boosting the game there. Fasel is hoping to bring NHL games
to China in the hope that it will stimulate interest (a ploy
that didn’t work here). Fasel told Xinhua news agency
that the Asian League was just the kind of thing the sport
needed. “AHL is a good idea to promote Asia’s overall
ice-hockey sports,” he said. “The IIHF is proud
to participate in it and be of some help.”
One of the players hoping to shine in the new league is the
much-traveled Shin Yahata-Larson, who played for Japan in
the Nagano Olympics and returned to these shores last season
after stints in France and England (he’s also played
in the Elite League in his native Sweden and in Canada). Yahata-Larson
now plays for the Oji Eagles in Hokkaido. “I think the
Asian League could be a good solution depending on how things
are run and how fans respond,” the hockey heartthrob
(he’s still single, girls) told Metropolis. “I hope
hockey will take off more and one day become one of the bigger
sports in Japan. It’s definitely exciting, and people
that watch it usually come back.”
And that’s the trick: To get the fans in and to keep
them. “Japanese hockey has been up and down over the
last ten years,” Yahata-Larson says. “I think it’s
a matter of grabbing the opportunities to promote the game
when the time is right. The Nagano Olympics was a great chance,
but the opportunity kind of slipped away from becoming a bigger
sport. There are talented players that are born in Japan,
and I think it’s good anytime they take a chance to play
against foreign opposition.”
Each team will play 42 games in the
Asian League, which runs through March 6, after which the
top four teams will take part in the playoffs (March 12-29).
See listings for details.
Kei Koyama photos
Discuss sports
with METROPOLIS readers at http://forum.japantoday.com
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