China faces off with NAIT in men’s hockey exhibition this weekend

NAIT's former hockey coach Perry Pearn is back in Alberta, now as the coach of the Chinese national hockey team. CTV News Edmonton's Evan Kenny has the story.

While Canada’s Prime Minister and a team of diplomats are visiting China on a trade mission, the Asian giant’s men’s hockey team is trading experiences of its own in the Great White North.

In Edmonton, to be exact, where they’re taking on their Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) counterparts for a pair of exhibition games while on a nine-game tour of the province.

China and the NAIT Ooks faced off Friday afternoon and will take to the ice at the Edmonton post-secondary school’s arena again on Saturday at 6 p.m.

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China played MacEwan University on Wednesday and has future dates against colleges that compete in the Alberta Collegiate Athletic Conference, including Augustana University in Camrose, Portage College in Lac La Biche, Concordia University in Edmonton and Briercrest College in Caronport, Sask., during their bye weeks in regular-season play.

China, which is preparing for the world hockey championships this spring, will fly home on Feb. 6.

The idea for the tour came when former NAIT coach Perry Pearn, who guided the program for 14 years from the late 1970s into the ’90s, visited the city over the summer. He now coaches the Chinese team.

Current NAIT head coach Scott Fellnermayr said both NAIT and Chinese players benefit from the games.

“They need some good competition, some good games, and it always helps us,” Fellnermayr told CTV News Edmonton on Friday. “We don’t play a ton of games in a college schedule, so I always say ‘yes’ to exhibition competition when it makes sense.”

Pearn, who will be honoured by NAIT before Saturday’s game, said getting his homegrown players experience with competition “in tough games” is of great benefit.

“(We) try to grow, grow, grow with every experience,” he told CTV News Edmonton. “You’re not growing big pieces, you’re growing little pieces at a time.”

Pearn said his team has “been very competitive,” recounting close losses in their level of last year’s world championship to South Korea, who finished second, and to Lithuania, who took the title.

“We’re close, but we make the bad mistake at the crucial time that costs you a game, so it’s learning how to avoid those and to be a little bit smarter about how you play when you don’t have the puck,” he said.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Evan Kenny