Hockey has been played in Chinese Taipei (f. Taiwan) since at least the mid-70s. The Chinese Taipei Skating Association was founded in 1980. Two years later, the first national hockey championship took place, and in 1983, Chinese Taipei became a member of the IIHF. During the 80s, hockey was mainly concentrated in Taipei City, the capital. At its peak there there were four teams: Polar Bears, Snowman, Eskimo (all located in Taipei City) and Twin Star (located at Kaohsiung).

Chinese Taipei entered the international stage in 1987. The national team was supposed to participate in the IIHF World Championship D-pool, but China that didn't recognize the sovereignty of Taiwan managed to obstruct Taiwan's official participation. IIHF eventually decided to allow the team to participate, but only unofficially. Taiwan tied Hong Kong in the first game (2-2), but then suffered big defeats to New Zealand (1-12), Korea (0-24) and Australia (3-31). The Chinese Taipei national team weren't to play an international game again until March 2005 when it participated in a tournament in Hong Kong. While losing 2-6 to the host, in this tournament Chinese Taipei got its first victory ever by beating Thailand 5-3.

The foundation for the recent surge in Taiwanese hockey was made in the 1990s when inline hockey became increasingly popular. I 1996, the Chinese Taipei skating federation made a priority of developing and popularize inline hockey, and scheduled tournaments sprang up across the countries. These tournaments (e.g. Chung-Cheng Cup, the Taiwan Provincial Cup and the the Taipei Chung-Cheng Cup) draw more and more youngsters to take up the new sport. In 2000, over 50 teams participated in the national inline Zhuay-Feng Cup, hosted by the Taipei municipal government, the skating federation and the ice hockey committee of this federation.

Since the sport was very young, there was a great need to learn the techniques and strategies of the game. Many inline players turned to television to get their desired information, but the television only broadcasted ice hockey (primarily from the NHL). This actually helped to spur our beloved game in Chinese Taipei. At the time, in the late 1990s, there was only one, small leisurely ice rink in Chinese Taipei. This rink, called the A-rink, was located in Taichung (it was later closed).

In 1999, Chinese Taipei organized its first (U18) youth team that was send to the annual Asian-Oceanic U18 championship,Division II, at Pyonguyang (North Korea). All the players were inline players, and the team suffered big defeats (PR Korea 0-24, South Africa 1-34, and New Zealand 3-23).

The defeats didn't hold Chinese Taipei back, and the next year, the U18 team fared much better in the Asian-Oceanic championship, getting a tie with New Zealand as its best result.

Hockey, primarily inline hockey, continued to grow in the early 2000s, and in 2004, Chinese Taipei beat Hong Kong in the far-east qualifying game for the 2004 IIHF inline world championship. The Chinese Taipei national team has participated in the IIHF inline world championship on a regular basis ever since.

In late 2003, a Chinese Taipei ice hockey league was started at Shijr with 4 teams. That league, however, quickly shut down as two teams didn't pay their fees for ice time.

In 2004, Geoff Le Cren approached the Chinese Taipei federation to get permission to start a new official league, the Chinese Taipei International Hockey League (CIHL). The federation endorsed the idea and four other Candian ex-pats joined on as executives.
At first the number of Taiwanese players dropped significantly (from around 50% to 30%) because the league was organized by foreigners, but in the past couple of years, the number of local players has increased steadily so they now account for 40% of the players in the league.

Since 2004, hockey has expanded all the way across Chinese Taipei. The sport is still concentrated in Taipei City (7 teams), but the leagues now also include teams from Tainan, Chiayi and Kaohsiung.

There are two leagues: the aforementioned CIHL that is (still) dominated by foreign players (in particular Canadian ex-pats) and the Open Division which is geared towards Chinese Taipei players.
The Chinese Taipei U18 team is drafted from the Open Division.

In late 2005, China. Taipei got its first Olympic size arena with the opening of Taipei Arena (capacity 800). In 2006, the Hungarian coach, Krystof Kovago was invited to Chinese Taipei to help developing the game. Kovago also became the head coach of Silver Monster, the best team in the Open Division (champions in 2007 and 2008). In 2006, Kovago and a squad of young players travelled twice to Thailand in an effort to prepare the players for the international game. In October 2007, the youth team once again travelled to Bangkok, Thailand to participate in the traditional International Charity Ice Hockey Tournament (aka OK Cup).

and it has already become an established tradition that national U18 team will be coached by the coach of the national champion (Open Division). Last year the Taipei Silver Monster won the championship and it was that team (coached by Kristof Kavago) that finished second in Division III.

U18 players are thus responsible for the remarkable international achievements in the past years. Hockey in Chinese Taipei is indeed very young. The oldest local players are only in their early 20s.

While being very promising, this also has its backdrops. Most of the local players are students (mainly from wealthy families) whose studies at colleges and universities have a clear first priority. Also, hockey is not funded or sponsored, implying that the parents have to pay for everything (in the CIHL, only one team, Sababa Bears is sponsored). In 2007, the Taiwan International Hockey Academy was established with the objective of promoting the game.

Still, Chinese Taipei hockey seems to have made the best of its limited resources. Since its rebirth five years ago, hockey has grown steadily. Today, around 1,000 play hockey in Chinese Taipei. That's significantly more than in mainland China that is receiving a lot of attention from the NHL (cf. San Jose Sharks' Shanghai Sharks and NY Islanders' "Project Hope").

If Chinese Taipei received a fair share of the attention NHL gives mainland China, if the national sports federation actually started to fund the sport, and if it got a little more organized, there is little doubt that Chinese Taipei could quickly catch up to the level of that of Korea in the years to come. Right now, the development of Chinese Taipei hockey is too dependent on the passion and energy of a few foreigners.

“The future of Taiwan hockey is all good", Tom Sullivan says. "They just need directors who are active, organized and know sports, and know how to build something. For Taiwan's ice sports, the hockey scene is actually probably ranked 3rd or 4th in Asia — behind Japan, Korea and probably China. Hong Kong might claim they're better, but I don't see it. They seem to have the same problems as in Taiwan, the same issues of organization. [A hockey colleague] told me we're about 4-5 years ahead of Shanghai.”

The U18 Division III World Championship will be played at Taipei Arena. The Arena opened in December 2005 and is the first Olympic size arena in Chinese Taipei (capacity: 800). All the games in the two domestic leagues are played in that arena.

While the World Championship will be the first time, Chinese Taipei hosts an IIHF tournament, it is not the first time it has hosted an international tournament. That event took place in January 2008 with the Taipei Cup. In the final, Typhoon International (a CIHL All-Star team) beat Hong Kong Black Kites.

One of the best players in the CIHL was Matt Stever. Matt Stever was the league MVP in 2007 and the captain of the 2006 champions, Chiayi Sharks. In January 2008, Matt Stever tragically died after a head on collision with his scooter. All the proceedings from the 2008 Taipei Cup went to the Stever family.