Inline hockey has always been a sport that grows wherever it can find a foothold.
Give it a smooth patch of concrete, a handful of determined players, and just enough free time to ignore sensible life decisions, and somehow the game survives. It appears in unlikely places, spreads through tiny communities, and slowly builds itself through equal parts passion, determination, and people refusing to grow up!
There are few places on Earth hold greater potential for the future of sport than China.
This year, MIHWA is proud to welcome China into the growing Masters Inline Hockey family for the very first time, as one of the world’s fastest growing inline communities takes another major step onto the international stage. For team organiser and longtime player Ji Zhi, known to most simply as Alan, the story is deeply personal. In many ways, the growth of Chinese inline hockey and the growth of his own life in the sport have happened side by side.

China held its first ever Inline Hockey Championship in 2004, an event now widely regarded as the official birth of organised inline hockey in the country. By pure coincidence, or perhaps fate, this was also the exact year Alan first picked up a stick.

“My school offered roller sports PE classes, and my PE teacher was a former professional ice hockey player,” Alan explains. “Thanks to his guidance, I first got to play inline hockey at school, and later represented my middle school in that very tournament.”

There were only six teams at that first championship.
Alan’s team finished sixth out of six. “As expected,” he laughs. But like all good hockey stories, the important thing was never really the result. It was the beginning.
Over the following years, inline hockey slowly spread across southern China, particularly in areas without traditional ice hockey infrastructure. School programs appeared, clubs began forming, and national teams emerged for Asian and World Championship competition. China would eventually even claim an Asian Championship title along the way.
And all the while, Alan kept growing alongside the sport itself.
By 2016, he represented China at the World Championships in Asiago, Italy, experiencing elite international inline hockey for the very first time.
“It blew my mind,” he says simply. At the same time, the game itself was accelerating rapidly. Commercial junior clubs began emerging across China, introducing thousands of young players to inline hockey. Alan himself founded two clubs, Joker and Land sharks, helping build the foundations for the next generation of Chinese players. The growth since then has been extraordinary. From fewer than 20 teams nationally in the early years, China’s 2025 National Championship now features more than 200 teams across four age divisions. Regional championships are now held across the country, Chinese inline hockey brands have emerged, and for the first time ever, inline hockey officially became part of China’s National Games in 2025. A major milestone in the sport’s legitimacy and future growth.
Not bad for a sport that once barely managed to fill half a dozen teams. And perhaps this is where the rest of the inline world should begin paying attention.

Because if the last twenty years are any indication, China may represent one of the single biggest opportunities the sport has ever seen. A country with enormous sporting infrastructure, rapidly growing youth participation, and a culture that understands discipline, competition, and long-term athletic development could eventually become a major force within international inline hockey. For now, though, the mission remains beautifully grassroots.
Like every good Masters team, this Chinese squad is built on friendship, history, sacrifice, and veteran bodies making increasingly concerning noises during warmups.
Alan’s first ever coach, Wang Xingzhi, will travel to Germany alongside him, together with his very first team captain. The squad itself brings together players from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and even a longtime friend already based in Germany.
It is a wonderfully MIHWA sort of team: international, slightly chaotic, deeply passionate, and built almost entirely through personal connection and love for the game.
Naturally, because this is inline hockey, Alan also somehow found time to become a referee.
Starting in 2015, he began officiating internationally, working Asian Championships and serving as an off-court official at the 2025 World Games. Like many longtime players, he slowly assumed his playing career might eventually give way to whistles, rulebooks, and explaining penalties to angry middle-aged men.
Then he discovered MIHWA.

“Who wouldn’t want to be a ‘young’ player again?” he says. “It felt like I was stepping back 20 years in time.”

Honestly, every Masters player reading this understands exactly what he means. That spirit sits at the very heart of MIHWA. Not simply competition, but rediscovering the joy, camaraderie, chaos, and ridiculous international adventures that made us all fall in love with hockey in the first place.

MIHWA Vice President Pete Wirt says:
“One of the greatest privileges of MIHWA has been watching our game continue to grow in places where inline hockey is off the radar. Seeing China arrive at this stage, with players who have spent twenty years building the sport from almost nothing, is genuinely inspiring. If this is only the beginning of China’s hockey journey, then the future of our sport continues to be very exciting indeed.”

For Alan, however, the meaning remains simple.

“When I was a junior player, my dream was to let inline hockey take me all around the world,” he says. “Now, thanks to MIHWA, I feel I am one big step closer to making that dream come true.”

And perhaps that is the real story here. Not simply the arrival of another new team, nor even the emergence of a potential future powerhouse in the sport. But the fact that somewhere, twenty years ago, a young player in a school PE lesson discovered a game that stayed with him for life, and has now carried him all the way to Bavaria, surrounded by old teammates, old coaches, and a brand new international hockey family.

So, is a hockey giant about to arrive? Maybe. But one thing is already certain. China has arrived at MIHWA, and the family just became a whole lot bigger.