Ip - about the season in the KHL: I haven’t scored so many points since student days as Kunlun Red Star captain Brandon Yip shared opinion!

Kunlun Red Star captain Brandon Yip shared his opinion on personal performance in the current KHL season. The 35-year-old striker scored 13 goals and made 10 assists in 38 regular season games.

“I think that throughout this period we are moving in the right direction, developing and progressing. This applies to the team as a whole, and to me personally. The first season, of course, was the most difficult: a new league, a new country, an unfamiliar culture - in general, completely unusual conditions that had to be adapted to, and at times it was not easy. But the period of adaptation has passed, gradually things went smoothly.

Kunlun Red Star captain Brandon Yip shared opinion

The next year, for the first time in my career, I was entrusted with the captain's badge, and this confidence inspired me. You can judge this even by my performance - I haven’t scored so many points since my student days! Well, in general, this is a big responsibility that encourages me and, probably, helps to keep fit, which is not so easy at my age. This season I also feel good and, it seems, bring benefit to the team. I don’t know how many points I can still score, but, ultimately, this is not so important, because we have a team sport.

And for our team this season, I think, is better than the previous ones. Of course, we still do not know how it will end, but in any case we are progressing. At least, we still have very real chances of getting into the playoffs, and in the past by this time we had already lost them. And we win more often than in the previous two years. So I repeat: we are developing and following the right course, ”KHL press service quoted Ipa as saying.

“The owner of Kunlun is so rich that a personal butler wipes his lips.”

Spittin ’Chicklets podcast invited Kunlun player Brandon Yip. He was born in Canada, lived his whole life in North America. He played in the NHL and the AHL, then left for Germany, and spent the last two years in Kunlun. In the 2018/19 season, he was the captain and top scorer of the team, and he has accumulated many interesting stories about China and the KHL.

“We have to explain that a stick is a stick for hockey, not for food”

Ip: We are trying to do the same thing as basketball - to introduce China to hockey, but it is much more difficult. In basketball, everything is clear - there is a ball, you need to throw it in the ring. There are clubs, pucks, complicated rules. It's one thing to bring hockey to Arizona, where they imagine that this is another thing - to China. One even has to explain that a stick is a hockey stick, not a chopstick (laughs). Much is incomprehensible. In basketball, there was Yao Ming, who became the NBA star, unfortunately, there is no Chinese player in hockey who would succeed in the NHL.

China does all this for the sake of the Olympics. They will automatically participate in the hockey tournament, but the problem is that there are simply no Chinese hockey players. I have to look for people like me - Canadian or American Chinese who play in the lower leagues, bring them here and prepare for the Games. The white guys in the team call us “faziats” - fake Asians (laughs).

Bissonnet: do you speak Asian?
Ip: there is no such language, there is mandarin (laughs). I'm trying to learn it, but I have to be the face of the team.

Bissonnet: I suppose you speak English there, and the Chinese are enough for you already, you're at home, speak normally!
Ip: they calculate me, they know that I'm a fake Chinese. In addition, I am above them. The language is so complex, just awful. The key is important there, for example, the word “ma” has four completely different meanings, depending on how you pronounce “a”. I'm freaking out on this one. We need to learn the language, but so far I have taken only five lessons. The teacher probably thinks I'm a complete idiot.

Whitney: you still need passports.
Ip: that’s exactly what they want to do - to issue passports to all “faziats” so that we can play for China at the Olympics.

Bissonnet: do you think they could buy Crosby, have him undergo eye surgery and give Chinese citizenship?
Whitney: Tuukka looks like an Asian, it can also be.
Admiral: arenas being built in China? After all, if they want to develop hockey, they must invest in children's hockey.
Ip: if the Chinese want to do something, they will do it. Over the past year, they have built 150 ice rinks, included hockey in the school curriculum from first to seventh grade. The state provides support, in China they want hockey to become in the country like football or basketball.

Whitney: Can juniors see progress?
Ip: sure yes. The problem is that hockey is not popular. The real Chinese, national team players, have speed and skill, but lack teamwork. We need North Americans who will show them how to play, teach strategies and so on.
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