From the Chiefs to China: Former Spokane player Jason Fram looks back fondly on unique Olympics experience

A decade ago, Jason Fram arrived in Spokane as a teenager prepared to play his first games in the Western Hockey League.

Every time he talks about it now, Fram said, “It feels like a millenia ago. It makes me feel really old.”

Fram played five seasons for the Chiefs, captaining them during the 2015-16 season when the defenseman scored a career-high 12 goals. He ranks 10th in Chiefs history with 308 regular-season games played.

He spent the next three seasons primarily playing for the University of Alberta, but he was offered a surprising opportunity: to play in the Kontinental Hockey League and, eventually, in the Olympics – representing China.

It all came to be, culminating in the 26-year-old Fram’s experience playing in Beijing in February for a country that had hardly an organized hockey program a decade ago.

“It was a double opportunity in a sense,” Fram said Tuesday, still recovering from jet lag back in Vancouver, British Columbia, his offseason home. “When they first came to me with the offer, it definitely caught my eye.”

Fram was one of a number of North American-born players whom the Chinese invited a few years ago to join their burgeoning hockey program. Up until last month, the Chinese had never competed in men’s hockey at the winter Olympics, and doing so even this year was in danger late in 2021, when the International Ice Hockey Federation reportedly considered subbing in Norway for the 32nd-ranked Chinese team.

But during a pair of KHL games that amounted to auditions for the Kunlun Red Star hockey team, the Chinese acquitted themselves and remained in the Games.

Red Star first joined the KHL in 2016 and is one of five teams in the league based outside Russia. Fram joined the team for the 2019-20 season.

But Fram – who has Chinese heritage generations back on his mother’s side – is a Canadian citizen, and even he was confused at first about how he was going to be eligible to play for China’s national team.

“I had to do a lot of research myself,” Fram said.

IIHF rules let players represent a country if they have spent at least two years playing for the national team and living in the country. Fram’s time in Kunlun made him – and many others born outside China – eligible to play.

Whereas in previous seasons the Red Star were composed of many more foreign-born players, this season, Red Star narrowed its roster to those who would eventually represent the nation in 2022. That allowed the team to play all season together in preparation for the Games.

“(It was) a blend of the heritage guys like me and then the Chinese-born national guys as well,” Fram said.

The team took a hit competitively, though: Red Star finished 9-32-5-2 and had the fewest points (25) in the 24-team KHL, easily the worst of their six seasons in the league.

At the Olympics – which, as it came to be, were played without National Hockey League players – the Chinese drew a four-team group with the United States, Canada and Germany. China lost the group-play games by a combined score of 16-2, with both goals coming in a 3-2 loss to Germany. It was eliminated in the opening playoff round by Canada, 7-2, and finished 12th among the 12 participating teams.

Still, as far as hockey experiences go, Fram said playing in the Olympics “has got to be near the top.”

When Fram was a child, he and his dad attended a game between Russia and Latvia when his hometown Vancouver hosted the Games in 2010. Twelve years later, Fram competed against players who were wearing jerseys from Team USA and Team Canada.

“It was incredible,” Fram said. “Everything from the Opening Ceremony to being in the Village, surrounded by these incredible athletes every day, and then you’re sitting in the cafeteria and they’re eating their breakfast.”

Later this spring, Fram said he may compete for China again at the World Championships, and next season he intends to return to China to play for Kunlun again, to face some of the best hockey players in the world in the KHL.

“Just being (in China) the last couple years, I’ve seen how much it’s grown since my first year,” he said. “I definitely was not expecting the support that we ended up getting (at the Games). If it keeps growing at that rate, I can only imagine how much bigger it’s going to get.”

Fram grew up in a country where hockey is ubiquitous; now he plays in a country that has all the facilities and is trying to grow the game from the ground up.

“It is really cool, actually,” Fram said, “to be a part of it.”