Winter Olympics 2022 - Inside the odd Olympic journey of China's men's hockey team

JEREMY SMITH REMEMBERS laughing.

It was the 2018-19 season, and Smith was a goalie for the AHL Bridgeport Tigers, an affiliate of the New York Islanders. It was the ninth minor league team of his career. He was getting older. Outside of 10 games with the Colorado Avalanche, his NHL dream hadn't been realized. He was in hockey purgatory. «I was an NHL bubble guy, always a No. 3 goalie,» he said.

His career, and his life, changed with a phone call. It was his agent. Someone had offered Smith a contract for next season. It was a team based in the hottest of hockey hotbeds:

Beijing, China?

Smith, 32, initially laughed at the randomness of the suitor. «If you're joking, I'm waiting for the punchline,» he recalled thinking. «But it was a two-year contract. They were serious.»

There was more to the offer. The Kunlun Red Star in Russia's Kontinental Hockey League served as an incubator for the Chinese men's national team. Smith wasn't just being offered the chance to play professionally in the KHL; he was being given the chance to be the goaltender for the host nation in the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Again, this struck Smith oddly. He was a native of Dearborn, Michigan, not mainland China. To his knowledge, he did not have any Chinese ancestry. So he wanted to make something clear to his potential new team when responding to the contract offer.

«I told them I can't renounce my U.S. citizenship,» said Smith. «They were like, 'Do not worry. We will not ask you. This is not what this whole process is about. It's about getting you qualified for the Olympics.'»

This was, it turns out, no joke: China spent several years trying to avoid being a laughingstock at their own Olympics. They imported players like Smith and former NHL players