For the episode #32 we are opening the door to Mark Simon from China. You will learn about his story and his adventure in China and how he is trying to change hockey in China.
Mark Simon, from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, has been living in China since August of 2006, beginning this stage of his life as an ‘ESL’ teacher in Beijing. Not even knowing there was hockey to be played or coached in China, he didn’t even bring his hockey equipment until finding the Beijing International Ice Hockey League (the adult, largely-expat league) in the summer of 2007. With hockey being the passion of his life, Simon was now able to see an opportunity to follow this dream by getting involved with coaching and eventually managing one of Beijing’s most successful youth clubs, the Imperial Guard, which he helped lead from 2008-2012. The ‘IG’ is known as one of the elite clubs in Chinese youth hockey history.
He continued teaching English half-time and coaching/managing half-time until 2010 when he was hired by Asia’s agent for Canada’s CIMCO Refrigeration, CTC Industries where he headed the rink operations business. This included outdoor and indoor projects in Urumqi, Xinjiang Province, at the Worker’s Stadium in Beijing and in Yichun, Heilongjiang.
Shortly after being relocated to Shanghai near the end of 2012, Simon left CTC to become the Hockey Director at the Feiyang Skating Center. In 2 years there, he helped build a kids hockey program, a Learn to Skate program and year-round adult leagues. This employment ended with a mutual agreement in March of 2015.
So far in 10 years of Chinese youth hockey involvement, Simon has coached over 700 players between the ages of 6-65 (including weekly adult and girls groups). He has taken teams to tournaments and games throughout China (Beijing, Shanghai, Harbin), Hong Kong (7 times), Taipei, Canada (Ottawa), Singapore, Japan and Korea (including several players from former teams and some from Thailand - one team was recently named ‘Asia United’).
Reach Mark Simon:
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.simon.3382
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