Chinese Taipei National Team

The Chinese Taipei National Team represents Chinese Taipei in international competitions.

Achievements

 * IIHF Challenge Cup of Asia winners: 2008, 2010.

History
Chinese Taipei's international activities began in 1987 with the 1987 World Championship Pool D, although it didn't quite start the way it was expected to. The team was scheduled to participate in the 1987 Pool D tournament, but the Chinese Ice Hockey Association refused to allow them to participate, as China didn't recognize Taipei's autonomy. In consequence, they did their best, with success, to obstruct their participation. The International Ice Hockey Federation found a way to compromise on the question: they allowed Taipei to participate to the tournament, but unofficially. In consequence, the Chinese Taipei National Team played four friendlies in the course of the tournament, one against each of the teams involved. The tournament wasn't exactly easy for them, with some very bad losses to Australia (31-3), South Korea (24-0) and New Zealand (12-1), but they still achieved a 2-2 tie with Hong Kong in their first ever game.

The national team then entered a long hiatus that would stretch until 2000. After a revival of the interest for the sport in the country, the national team sent, from 2000 to 2002 inclusively, a team to the IIHF World U18 Championships. The team was actually pretty successful, finishing second in the Asia-Oceania group of the Division II in their first two tournaments and fifth in the Division I Asia-Oceania group for 2002, a difficult group that also included the much stronger Australia, China and New Zealand.

The IIHF restructured its tournament format in 2003, and several teams no longer took part in the official competitions. Chinese Taipei were one of these and would only return in 2008, after several more years of hiatus during which the team only played several friendlies in 2005, among which were the team's first ever win, 5-3 over Thailand. Chinese Taipei once again sent U18 contestants at the 2008 World U18 Championship, where they once again did very well with a second place. 2008 had indeed been a very good year for the team, as they also won the inaugural edition of the IIHF Challenge Cup of Asia in Hong Kong.

After missing the Challenge Cup in 2009 and finishing 3rd in the U18 Division III, Chinese Taipei forcefully returned in 2010, winning once again the Challenge Cup of Asia, finishing third in the U18 Division III and for the first time, they also iced a team at the U20 level for the 2010 World Junior Championship Division III. The team lost to Iceland 11-1 and to North Korea 7-4, but defeated Turkey twice, once in the preliminary round 7-4, and again in the playoffs round 6-3, which ensured Chinese Taipei would finish 5th in the tournament.