When the puck drops on the Beijing 2022 men’s ice hockey tournament on Feb. 9, it will mark 24 years since Japan last participated — as the host nation of the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano — and 42 years since it qualified outright for Lake Placid in 1980.

If Nikko Ice Bucks COO Takayuki Hioki has his way, 2030 will mark the end of that drought for good.

The businessman and entrepreneur, whose resume includes producing the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, is bullish on Sapporo’s chances of receiving the torch from Milan-Cortina 2026 and hosting the Winter Games in eight years — and what that could mean for reviving flagging domestic interest in hockey.

“Hockey is the most valuable winter sport, and building momentum for hockey in Japan will be mandatory for the Winter Olympics,” Hioki told The Japan Times in a recent interview.

“I think the chances (of Sapporo hosting) are very high and we have to be prepared for that.”

Hioki’s warning comes at a critical turning point for men’s ice hockey in Asia.

Since 2004, the region has rested its hopes on Asia League Ice Hockey (ALIH), which was formed after the collapse of domestic leagues in Japan and South Korea, to raise the region’s level of play and improve its Olympic performances.

Those improvements have yet to materialize, however. Asia’s last three Olympic appearances have come through automatic host qualification: Japan finished 13th of 14 in Nagano while South Korea was last of 12 teams at Pyeongchang 2018.

Even host nation China’s spot in Beijing was not confirmed until December after International Ice Hockey Federation officials voiced repeated concerns over the team’s preparations, fearing embarrassing routs at the hands of the United States and Canada.

That’s in spite of efforts to build the Chinese program through Kunlun Red Star, which has competed in Eastern Europe’s Kontinental Hockey League since 2016, and the Chinese Ice Hockey Association-backed China Dragon, which participated in ALIH between 2007 and 2017 and briefly partnered with the NHL’s San Jose Sharks.

No matter how China fares at these Olympics, however, Hioki believes the future is bright for the sport in the world’s second-largest economy — and that Japan should take note of how foreign countries are building venues that can generate revenue year-round.

“The hockey business will be getting bigger in China, I believe, because the number of venues is much higher,” he said. “(Venues) in China are much better because American event companies like AEG are entering joint ventures with Chinese businesses, so it’s going to be at least a 15,000-capacity venue. ... In Japan, the government owns the venue and does not allow us to change anything.

“Every time I visit games in the United States, you see the big monitors everywhere, and the sound system is awesome. And that's how to monetize a 365-day operation. Every day you have football games, basketball games, hockey games, women's sports, concerts, political rallies.

“The idea is that they can monetize and distribute that content, but Japan is not at that level.”

Although Japanese teams dominated ALIH in its early years — winning its first six championships — recent results have favored Korean powerhouse Anyang Halla as well as PSK Sakhalin, based in the eastern Russian city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

But with the league in a holding pattern since the start of the pandemic, Hioki believes that it’s time for a rethink of the Asian hockey calendar to create a schedule that emphasizes both domestic and international play — much like that which already exists for soccer.

“We don't need to kick out ALIH, this is a fantastic global opportunity, with different (playing) styles and different things,” he said. “But we don't need to base everything (around it) from the start of the season to the end.

“I’ve told ALIH that we should create a pool system or an Asian championship, like (soccer’s) J. League and the Asian Champions League.”

Among the keys to rekindling local interest will be creating a stable business environment. Japanese hockey suffered a severe blow when longtime patron and Seibu Prince Rabbits owner Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, a former Japanese Olympic Committee president and a key figure behind the successful Nagano 1998 bid, was arrested for securities fraud in 2005.

Tsutsumi’s downfall, combined with the 2008 financial crisis, forced the two-time ALIH-winning Prince Rabbits to dissolve after the 2009 season, while Nippon Paper shut down its four-time champion Cranes in 2019 — only for the club to be reborn the following season as the East Hokkaido Cranes.

The Ice Bucks are one of the few professional teams to have reached financial stability, with Hioki rebuilding the club’s business operations after he was brought on in 2010 by legendary soccer commentator Sergio Echigo — who at the time served as Nikko’s president and senior director.

“At the time, only Nikko was a professional team while the others were corporate teams like in American football’s X League,” Hioki said. “The problem was that hockey teams used to be owned by Seibu Group or Oji Paper ... Only the Bucks were motivated to run the team professionally.

“My experience on the international business side didn’t tick with the people who have only lived (in the hockey community). I felt like a square peg in a round hole, telling the league that they had to change how they operate, because I didn’t think this model would (be sustainable) over the next 20 years.”

Over time, Nikko’s successes — including 2015, when it became the first-ever pro outfit to win the All-Japan Ice Hockey Championship — has inspired other teams to follow. The Oji Eagles became the last former Japan Ice Hockey League team to make the switch when they became Red Eagles Hokkaido in 2021. The Yokohama Grits brought hockey back to the greater Tokyo area when they were founded in 2019, but Hioki hopes to see more exposure for the sport in the metropolis and other major cities such as Osaka.

“I know the hometowns are based around the factories (of clubs’ former parent companies), but we have to hold centralized games in the Tokyo area and even Osaka,” he said, “and then we have to spike the league’s exposure, maybe four times a year, with centralized games.

“We have to spend money to bring in people. The exposure and the marketing and the planning is very important, and how to get money from outside of the hockey industry ... no one’s worked on that for the past 40 years.”

Even more important to building up Japan’s program, especially with just eight years on the clock until the hypothetical Sapporo Games, will be the unification of national coaching strategies and a stronger focus on giving the stars of 2030 more time on the ice.

“We have to focus on the 14, 15, 16-year-olds and not put veterans on the national team,” Hioki said, “and the coaching system has to be one system, or the Asian League teams in Japan have to work together to build one route to get that Olympic status.”

But even as Hioki urges Japanese hockey to reboot its philosophy, he notes that a holistic solution — rather than one that focuses entirely on the Olympics — cannot be the end goal if long-term success is to be achieved.

“A difficulty in Japan is the cycle of the fan base. In truth, they love the Olympic Games too much, and they just see the middle, then forget about that in four years, then see it again,” he said.

“The leagues, the federations and the associations are thinking about the medals first, and the club is thought of as a practice field. But the clubs spend money, they pay the players, and they build the fan base of the sport.

“The federations need to respect professional teams more, because the most important thing is a balance and integration of the league and federation. Otherwise, it's always tough to build a sustainable sport.”