The most significant changes at the franchise level are the death of the Seibu Prince Rabbits and the reorganization of the China Sharks --now called China Dragon-- the lone Chinese club in the league. In addition, there have been important changes in the composition of the Japanese teams as a consequence of the disbandment of Seibu and the financial crisis. The teams have made savings by reducing their number of import players.

THE DEATH OF THE SEIBU PRINCE RABBITS
The folding of the Seibu Prince Rabbits send shockwaves throughout the the already shaky Japanese hockey community. With 24 national titles and two AL championships, the Prince Rabbits was one the most succesful Japanese hockey club in recent decades. In September last year, the clubs owner and sponsor, the Prince Hotel and Resorts corporation, citing financial strains, announced its intention to stop its hockey activities. The Prince Hotels & Resorts subsequently negotiated with 20 companies to find new takers for the US$5 mio. team budget, but did not succeed, in part due to the financial crises and the fragile economic situation in Japan, and in part due to the declining popularity of hockey in Japan.

Most of the Seibu players have been able to find new teams. A few have gone overseas.  Long time AL'er, Joel Prpic has returned to his native Croatia and signed with KLH Medvescak which has just entered the open Austrian league (EBEL); forward Go Tanaka has signed with German 2. Bundesliga team, ESV Kaufbeuren and defenseman Ryuichi Kawai, another Japanese national team players, has joined his younger brother, Takuma (the first Japanese player to appear in the Memorial Cup) in Alberta, hoping to find a minor league team. Kawai signed a training camp agreement with Bloomington PrairieThunder (IHL) a few days ago.

Within the Asian hockey league, it is first and foremost the Nikko Ice Bucks that has profitted from the collapse of the Seibu Prince Rabbits. The Ice Bucks have signed no less than six former Seibu players, including national team captain Takahito Suzuki and national team goaltender Naoya Kikuchi. Other national team players such as forwards Yosuke Kon and Sho Sato have signed with Oji Eagles while forwards Chris Yule and Daisuke Obara have signed with Seibu's archrivals, the Nippon Paper Cranes.

FROM CHINA SHARKS TO CHINA DRAGON: A MISSED OPPORTUNITY
The rechristening of the China Sharks to the China Dragon is much more than a name change. It is perhaps the single most important event in the Typhoonic storm that has swept the Asian hockey league in the off-season.

In order to understand its significance, it is necessary to have a little background information:

Ice hockey has never been a popular sport in China. Since it was picked up an organized basis back in the mid-50s, the game has almost exclusively been played in small pockets the the  subartic northeastern parts of the country (the Manchuria, Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces). The first arena with an indoor rink (Capacity 18,000) was inaugurated in Beijing in 1970, but it did little to promote the game outside these provinces.

Nevertheless, after China entered the C-pool in 1972, many predicted, if only by using the country's staggering population size as a parameter, that China would become one of the next great hockey nations and enter the small elite in the next century. As the Cold War ended, development took the opposite path. The number of registered players dropped from around 1,000 to today's 400. The sport has failed to attract the youth. As late as in Spring 2009 when the Chinese championships were played, there were only around 40 players in the U20 category with one single game being played between Qiqihar and Harbin, the traditional power houses of Chinese hockey.

In 2006, the owner of NHL franchise N.Y.Islanders, Charles Wang, who was born in Shanghai, stepped Chinese hockey to the rescue with his 'Project Hope', a major initiative designed to construct several dozens rinks in the Heilongjiang province while providing hockey equipment, coaching and English classroom education to Chinese junior players.

Meanwhile, Qiqihar Snow Leopards and Harbin joined the Asian League as the first Chinese teams in 2004. A third foreign controlled franchise, based in Beijing, the Nordic Vikings, joined in 2005 but quickly folded unable to attract sponsors. Failing to compete in the league, Qiqihar and Harbin were first relocated to Changchun and Beijing under the names Changchun  Fuao and Hosa (named after Harbin's sponsor, a Chinese sporting goods company) and in 2007 merged into one team under the auspicies of the Chinese Ice Hockey Association (CIHA). The idea of CIHA was not only to field a competitive Chinese team in ALIH but also a stronger national team as the players of the Chinese national team were selected from the two teams.

On the other side of the Pacific, Chris Collins a NHL scout and former color commentator of the San Jose Sharks had picked up the old fascination for China's great potential as a hockey nations. He not only managed to get the Silicon Valley Sports & Entertainment (SVSE), the corporation that controls the San Jose Sharks interested in the commercial aspects of an expansion to Asia's largest and fastest growing market, but also getting CIHA interested in forging ties with the NHL franchise. With the strong engagement of the San Jose Sharks, the unified Chinese team, which subsequently relocated to Shanghai, became the China Sharks and adopted a logo that resembled that of the San Jose Sharks. Chris Collins was appointed as GM of the franchise, and SVSE/San Jose Sharks set up two offices in Shanghai (one for marketing and another for team operations).

Initially, the cooperation betweeen CIHA and San Jose Sharks centered on a player exchange program: the San Jose Sharks would send a few lower league players to China Sharks, and CIHA would return young Chinese players to San Jose for conditioning and skills development in the NHL offseason. The plans, however, soon escalated to a grand scale project comprising the development of a junior hockey program, construction of dozens of rinks and the set up of junior leagues around the major cities. It didn't take long before the CIHA and San Jose Sharks started a tug-of-war for control of the franchise. With the increase of foreign players (Asian players not counted) to seven in 2008 and with a view to the fact that the Chinese team was still struggling on the ice, the San Jose Sharks started to exert greater pressure on CIHA in controlling the management of the team. CIHA didn't accept this and in the 2009 offseason cooperation faltered alltogether with the San Jose Sharks pulling out of the enterprise.

With CIHA firmly back in the driver seat, the China Sharks has now been redubbed to China Dragon and adopted a logo that almost perfectly mimick that of CIHA. Also all the North American players, including goaltender Wade Flaherty and Steve McKenna has been send back, and the new team is almost exclusively build around Chinese players. The clock has been turned back and everything is back to the normal--and sorry-state of affairs of Chinese hockey.

FINANCIAL CUTBACKS - LESSER IMPORTS
As elsewhere, the Asian League of Hockey has severely been hit by the financial crisis. Several of the teams have cut back their team budgets and reduced the number of import players.

The reigning Asian League champions, the Nippon Paper Cranes has reduced its number of imports from two (Brad Tiley and Kelly Fairchild) to one (Pierre-Oliver Beaulieu, f. EHC Crimmitsau, German 2. Bundesliga). With the additions of Chris Yule and Daisuke Obara from Seibu, the Nippon Cranes will remain one of the favourites to win the title.

The Nikko Ice Bucks has also reduced its number of imports from two to one. Eric Lafreniere and Mickey Gilchrist didn't get their contracts extended and instead, the Ice Bucks signed forward Bud Smith from EC Dornbirner of the Austrian Nationalliga (second tier). With the addition of six former Seibu players, including the national team captain Suzuki and goaltender Kikuchi and the three defensemen Yamaguchi, Kawamura and Okubu, the ice Bucks has been severely strengthened and could make a run at the title this year after the dismal 2008-09 season where the Ice Bucks finished last as the first non-Chinese team in the history of ALIH.

The Oji Eagles' parent company, Oji Paper, is suffering from severe financial strains. In order to save costs, the team this season fields an all-Japanese squad and no imports. The production of Shane Endicott and Richard Persson may be missed, but the team has found good substitutes in national team and former Seibu players Yosuke Kon and Sho Sato.

Amidst the crisis of Japanese hockey, its comforting to note that a new team, the Tohoku Free Blades, has been established to fill in for the Seibu Prince Rabbits.  The team, which is located in the far north of the Honshu island, was created from the scratch last year and build a roster of 14 players who made the cut in team tryouts. After the franchise was officially apporved to join the ALIH, the lineup has been reinforced with several experienced Asian leaguers as well as imports. Imports include defensemen Brad Farynuk, who got a few games for Quad City Flames in the AHL last season, and Steve Munn, another player with AHL experience but who has played for the Sheffield Steelers (EIHL) in the past two seasons, and forwards John Smyth, a productive player from the Schwenninger Wild Wings (German 2. Bundesliga) and Bruce Mulherin who was one of the scoring leaders for Manchester Phoenix in the EIHL last season. With the further additions of Bin Ishioka (Seibu) and Akifumi Okuyama (Oji), the Tohoku Free Blades looks capable enough to contest for a spot in the playoffs which has been reduced from 5 to 4 teams with the new season.

On the other side of the Sea of Japan, the Anyang Halla of Korea has not only managed to keep the core of its team virtually intact but also signed its most succesful imports (Brock Radunske, Brad Fast and Jon Awe) to multi-annual contracts -- something that was previously unthinkable in the Asian league. Last season, the Anyang Halla became the first non-Japanese team to win the regular season. In the playoffs, the team was, however, eliminated in the semifinals by the Nippon Cranes after a tough 7-game series. It will be interesting to see whether the team can manage to take another step and reach the finals this season. If so, it will become the first non-Japanese team to do so too.

Chuncheon High1, the Korean champion, hopes to rebound from an otherwise disappointing season where the the team finished 5th and was swept 0:4 by the Nippon Cranes in the quarterfinals. The team has brought back its scoring leader center Tim Smith from Bad Tölz (2. Bundsliga) and made a major scoop by signing Trevor Gallant who produced no less than 50 points for Vienna Capitals in EBEL last season.

OUTLOOK
If one is to make any predictions from the preceeding analysis, it is likely that the league will move in two directions this season: It will both be more and less competitive balance. The diffusion of the Seibu players to other Japanese teams will make the four Japanese teams more balanced. It's also likely that the Japanese teams will continue to dominate the league as their lesser imports have been balanced with Seibu enforcements. On the other hand, the league will become less competitive balanced as the China Dragon will be a bust after the departure of the San Jose Sharks engagement with the franchise. It should come as no surprise if the Dragons collect less than 10 points in the 36 regular season games. So far, the team has not gained a single point in 9 games.

ASIAN LEAGUE OF ICE HOCKEY
Official site: http://www.alhockey.com

Rosters:
Nikko Ice Bucks
 Nippon Paper Cranes
Oji Eagles
Tohoku Free Blades
Anyang Halla
High1
China Dragon