Hockey Body 'has A Lot Of Room For Improvement'

An anthem blunder at an ice hockey tournament last month showed the city’s ice hockey association has ‘a lot of room for improvement’, a sports official said on Thursday.

However, the honorary secretary-general of the Sports Federation & Olympic Committee, Edgar Yang, did not say whether any punishment was forthcoming for the Hong Kong Ice Hockey Association over the mistake – when a song associated with protests in Hong Kong in 2019 was played in place of the national anthem at an Ice Hockey World Championship match.

Following a 45-minute meeting between the two bodies, Yang told reporters the federation would discuss the matter at a board meeting on Friday, before making an announcement on its assessment of the incident and how it would be dealt with.

The leader of the ice hockey team, Annie Kwan, said she agreed that “any organisation has room for improvement”, and said there had been misunderstandings over the matter.

She added that a report has now been submitted to the federation to clear things up.

Asked whether she was worried her association would be punished, Kwan said “There's no point in worrying, because the mistake has already been made.”

“Of course I feel innocent,” she added.

Authorities have warned that anyone found to have breached rules over the playing of the national anthem would be punished.

The federation had earlier submitted a preliminary report to the government which accused the ice hockey association of failing to explain clearly how it provided the anthem to tournament organisers.

The association has apologised for the mistake, and said it had provided a hyperlink to the national anthem to the organisers, who were unable to download the correct song as the page was in Chinese only.