Sports diplomacy through hockey was the focus of a 2025 exchange between Wisconsin and China’s Heilongjiang Province
by Laurie Dennis
Sports diplomacy became a special focus for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) in 2025 through an $80,000 public service grant to organize an exchange of hockey coaches.
Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the exchange featured ten Chinese hockey coaches visiting Wisconsin in March, followed by ten American hockey coaches (mostly from Wisconsin) traveling to northeastern China in June.
“The world would be more peaceful if we had more such programs,” said Wu Lanfeng, president of the Jiamusi Hockey Association in China and a member of the delegation of coaches that visited Wisconsin.
Coach Wu carried wooden hockey sticks and black markers to delegation events in Wisconsin, collecting signatures from such hockey luminaries as UW-Madison Women’s Hockey Coach Mark Johnson, who appended his name with the phrase, “’80 Gold,” for his Olympic medal from that year’s “Miracle on Ice” game. Wu said the stick and other memorabilia will be added to the hockey museum he is building in his hometown.
The role of CEAS in the 2025 exchange was to manage the visit planning and logistics, working with PH International, a Vermont-based nonprofit focused on sports diplomacy, and with the American consulate in Shenyang, located in northeastern China’s Liaoning Province. The exchange was launched through the consulate’s application to the State Department for a two-way program focused on Wisconsin and its sister state, the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, where hockey is a tradition dating to the early 1900s.
Two cities were chosen to be the focus for each delegation. In Wisconsin, CEAS selected Madison and Milwaukee. Partners in Heilongjiang picked the capital of Harbin and the city of Qiqihar, named the “Best Hockey Town in Asia” at the 2016 Asian Winter Games.
Replacing ping pong paddles with hockey sticks
“We hope hockey can serve as a bridge between China and the U.S.,” said Han Fangbao, director of the Qiqihar Municipal Foreign Affairs Office, in his address to the American coaches on the first day of their visit to his city.
Director Han and his Chinese colleagues called the June visit to their province a new kind of “ping-pong diplomacy,” a reference to the U.S.-China exchange of ping-pong players in the early 1970s that is widely considered a turning point in relations between the two countries.
“China and the U.S. began their friendship through ping-pong players,” said Xu Jichun, director of the Qiqihar Municipal Sports Bureau. “Ice hockey is also a way to do this. Please come every year to Qiqihar!”
In Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang Province, the delegation heard a similar message.
“Exchanges can improve our cooperation and help increase friendship,” Heilongjiang Foreign Affairs Office Deputy Director Yang Hongpeng told the delegation. “We hope to see further cooperation and hope you will encourage more Americans to come here to learn about hockey and culture and economic development.”
While the coaches from China in the March delegation to Wisconsin were all members of the Heilongjiang Ice Hockey Association, the second half of the exchange featured six Wisconsin coaches and four from other states (Minnesota, Texas, Florida and New Hampshire).
Both delegations had a mix of male and female coaches, and a range of ages and experience levels. Several of the Heilongjiang coaches had played for the Chinese national team. The American group included coaches of college, high school, and youth teams of all levels.
Prospective delegation members applied through a portal managed by PH International, with State Department representatives reviewing the applications and selecting delegates.
Dairy State Visit
The March cohort of Chinese coaches arrived in Madison just in time to watch the Wisconsin state high school hockey tournament, where they learned about the hockey tradition of sporting golden mullet hairstyles as they watched Madison’s Edgewood High boys team win the Division 1 championship title.
The delegation also spent an hour at LaBahn Arena watching the UW-Madison women’s team preparing for their successful NCAA tournament run.
In addition to these highlights, the Chinese coaches schedule included:
- Watching a special screening of the 2004 “Miracle on Ice” movie,
- Meeting with Tony Granato (Badger star and a former coach of the men’s Olympic team) to talk about the National Hockey League; and with Fred Berry (former Canadian standout player with the Milwaukee Admirals and owner of the Hockey Haven Superstore) to discuss semi-pro leagues; and with coaches of the Madison Mavericks on hockey training for girls,
- Working with former Badger women’s team captain Claudia Kepler on how to teach new hockey shooting technique drills,
- Observing UW-Madison history and Chinese language classes, along with student presentations about the history of Chinese athletes at UW-Madison,
- Receiving a presentation on Wisconsin hockey history from former Badger hockey player and state Hockey Hall of Fame Coach Mike Cowan,
- Playing in three scrimmages.
“Getting out on the ice and playing hockey with our guests was amazing,” said Madison Polar Caps Youth Hockey Coach Steve Ridgely, who is also a UW–Madison professor and faculty director of CEAS. “The biggest surprise was how their questions about American youth hockey were exactly the same issues we also worry about as coaches: how much does it cost families, how many practices per week, how many games per weekend is the right number, whether or not to play year round, how do you balance player development with efforts to grow the game.”
Ridgely organized scrimmages for the visiting Chinese delegation with adult leagues around Madison, including at the university’s Bakke Recreation Center. He said entire rosters turned out for the chance to play on the ice with skaters from China.
For the Chinese delegation’s final day in Wisconsin, Coach In-Chief for the Wisconsin Amateur Hockey Association (WAHA) Raja Aylsworth organized a scrimmage at Arrowhead High School’s arena. Each line consisted of both Chinese and American players. When the allotted time resulted in a 14-14 tie, Aylsworth, who served as game referee, called for a shoot-out. Members of the Chinese delegation scored at both ends of the ice, with the onlookers cheering and banging the boards.
“American hockey culture and the numbers of people involved is the dream of what China wants to achieve,” said delegation member Wang Meng, a coach based in the city of Bei’an, as she summarized her experience in Wisconsin. “I want to bring the grassroots hockey idea to my city in a very special way.”
Creating chaos in Chinese practices
The June visit to China also featured several scrimmages, along with a chance to play a “coaches versus kids” game with a boys’ team in Harbin, and a special opportunity to take over running the Sunday morning practice of a girls’ team in Qiqihar.
“Everybody’s smiling, which is the most important thing – having fun,” commented Aylsworth as he watched the guest American coaches holding drills for the teenage players.
The Americans focused on encouraging what several referred to as “creating chaos,” in contrast to the more scripted practice drills they had been seeing in China.
“They didn’t get chaos at first,” said Kathy Griswold, a coach with the women’s team at Rivier University in New Hampshire. “We were working on a stick-handling drill, and the girls just went in a circle. We started to bump into them and then they started to have fun and knock each other around.”
“They did adopt to the unscripted stuff,” agreed Karli Whitaker, a girls’ coach based in Saint Cloud, Florida. “It was fun and new for them.”
In both Wisconsin and Heilongjiang, the visiting delegations toured ice rinks (including the LaBahn Arena at UW-Madison, the Pettit National Ice Arena near Milwaukee, and the hockey venues for the February 2025 Asian Winter Games in Harbin).
Coaches also experienced local food and culture. In Wisconsin, that meant sampling ice cream and cheese curds and touring the Harley Davidson Museum and the state capitol building, while in Heilongjiang, Americans visited a nature reserve for red-crowned cranes, attended a music concert at a former synagogue, and dined on the local bbq and other northeastern specialties.
“I’ll never look a ‘lazy Susan’ the same way,” said Griswold of the typical Chinese dining style using a round turntable to share dishes. “I pretty much ate my way across China.”
The Americans also met with city and provincial sports association officials in China and toured higher education institutions in Harbin that focus on winter sports training.
On the last night of the exchange, host Zou Yachang, the president of the Heilongjiang Ice Hockey Association, told the American coaches that his trip to Wisconsin in March was his first time to the U.S. He said he especially cherished making new friends and then having them become “old pals” as part of the follow-up visit to Heilongjiang.
“Everyone was so friendly to us (in Wisconsin), and we hope that you felt the same kind of friendliness from people here,” said Mr. Zou, speaking through a translator. “We want this to be a thing we do normally. We hope to see you all again.”
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For more about the exchange, visit the CEAS YouTube playlist “2025 Hockey Delegation to China” and see the daily photo scrapbook on our Instagram account.
For a report on the March visit, see: https://china.wisc.edu/2025/05/06/wisconsin-coaches-in-june-hockey-delegation-to-china/