NEW YORK – The New York Islanders will be the first NHL team to play in China, the native country of their owner Charles Wang. The club will fulfil an old wish of the American-Chinese entrepreneur and play some exhibition games with the Chinese national team.

Wang announced the plan in an interview with the New York Times. The team will hold part of their pre-season camp in Beijing, September 14-23, and practise and play in the 17,000-seat Capital Indoor Stadium, which was used for the 2008 Olympic Summer Games.

China is 29th in the IIHF World Ranking. Most Chinese players come from the north-eastern province of Heilongjiang, from Harbin and Qiqihar. In those cities the Islanders will also play games as well as in the South, in Shanghai, Wang’s hometown. They will play in venues that played host to IIHF events in the last few years.

The country has only one professional team, the China Dragons, which is in last place in the Asian League. The team was founded by a merger of the teams from Harbin and Qiqihar and relocated first to Beijing and later to Shanghai.

“We have approval from the NHLPA, the NHL and the Chinese government, and they are welcoming us and are excited about us coming,” Wang said. “It will be an experience for our team, and an experience for the Chinese hockey fans to see an NHL professional team. It’ll be a wonderful event to have the Chinese national team play alongside and with us.”

Bill Daly, the NHL’s deputy commissioner, expressed his support for the trip. “The Far East, and China in particular, represents a huge untapped opportunity to grow both participation and interest in our game,” Daly told the New York Times. “Charles Wang has always recognized this potential and has worked tirelessly over a number of years on a project to expose the NHL and NHL players to the Chinese people and culture.”

The Islanders will be the first NHL team to play in China. NHL teams have played regular-season games in Tokyo, Japan, in 1997, 1998 and 2000. Washington and Kansas City also played exhibition games in Sapporo and Tokyo in 1976, the first time NHL teams travelled to Asia.

Since Wang bought the Islanders, the franchise has established close ties to China and runs an office in Harbin for the franchise’s Hope Project that also includes exchange programs in youth hockey between New York and China. Wang has also helped to build outdoor rinks in the Heilongjiang province and donated equipment.

Wang wants not only to show world-class hockey to his native country, but he also wants to show the players something new. “We have a young team that’s really coming together,” he said. “They’re great kids, and I want to give them something that will open up their eyes. When they see the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, it’ll just blow them away. I wanted them to bond together with an experience that will really bring them together, an experience they’re never going to duplicate in their lives.“

Wang also joked that the facility in Beijing will be better than the Islanders’ Nassau Coliseum referring to his struggle with the authorities for a new project.

While the Islanders will conquer a new country for the North American league, six other teams will open the season in Europe. The Carolina Hurricanes and the Minnesota Wild will play two games in Helsinki, Oct. 7-8. Both teams together have currently six Finns under contract. The Columbus Blue Jackets and the San Jose Sharks will open their season in Stockholm, Oct. 8-9, and also have six Swedes on their rosters. For Stockholm it will be the third consecutive year that the Globen Arena will host NHL regular-season games while Helsinki hosted two teams last year.

For the first time ever, six teams will open the season in Europe as the Boston Bruins and the Phoenix Coyotes will play two games on Oct. 9-10 in Prague, which already hosted two NHL games in 2008. Also the Czech fans can look forward to some national heroes as Phoenix has five Czech players on the roster and Boston two.

“Fans in Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic will have the opportunity to watch some of their own home-grown players competing in these regular season NHL games, which will certainly be a great experience for everyone involved,” said NHLPA Chief of Business Affairs, Mike Ouellet.

It will be the fourth straight year that the NHL sends teams to Europe for their season opener after the mentioned cities and London in 2007.

MARTIN MERK

With files from the New York Times