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Goalie Ahmed Al Dhaheri fully stretched his arms over the crossbar, looking up to the roof for a gasp of fresh air. He just let in the 30th goal in the ice hockey match between his home country UAE and Kazakhstan and it still had 10 minutes to go.

The match ended at 38-0, a frustrating score, but still with a rather consoling cushion against the biggest goal difference of 52-1 in the ice hockey tournament at the ongoing Asian Winter Games.

"We are not on the same level, we are amateurs against professionals," said Yury Faikou, coach of the United Arab Emirates, which are making their debut at the 21-year-old Winter Asiad.

The Arab country is not alone with stunning losses here as most of the 11 men's ice hockey participating teams, made up of amateurs, are from the "hot" regions without any icy scenery.

Against the Asian powerhouses such as Kazakhstan and Japan, they are slow in speed and rusty in skills, sometimes even stumble on the ice, forcing their goalkeepers to dive for some 100 saves in the regular 60 minutes.

"For our players, they still have to think about how to skate on the rink first," said Michanel Rolanti, head coach of Thailand. "But for the Kazakhs, skating is natural, catching and passing the punk are natural. The only thing they think about is how to score a goal."

Rolanti, who arrived Bangkok two months ago from Boston, the United States, which is staging the only professional ice hockey league NHL in the world, didn't even dare to imagine that there is ice hockey in the tropical country.

"Thailand is really hot and wet, which is not good for ice hockey," he said. "There are 40 adult players throughout the whole country. However, it is already beyond my imagination."

"You can skate and play here outside, and we have to do this in a rink," Rolanti said at the rink of Changchun, Northeast China.

Thailand has only one rink, but it is already two thirds more than that in Hong Kong, China.

"Our rink is pretty small, which is one third of the standard size," said NG Ka Ki Kevin, a Hong Kong policeman who once lived in Canada. "As far as I know, Hong Kong has 400 active players. And most of them have to work. For example, we have firemen, actors and students also. They can only play once a week for one hour. There aren't so many chances for them to get on the ice."

According to Kevin, ice hockey is quite new to people in the area in South China.

"I first got to know of ice hockey when I was 16," said Chon Ka Miu, a Macao player and a sophomore from Jinan University in Guangzhou. "I saw others do it, and it seemed interesting and exciting, so I decided to have a try although I didn't even know how to skate."

Chon scored the first goal for Macao in their debut, a 15-2 loss to Kuwait. And he is among the lucky ones who can afford to play.

"Ice hockey is a very expensive sport," said Rolanti, "A rink may cost one million dollars. And for the players, the outfit, gear and playing on the ice are so expensive that a lot of families cannot afford."

Against the dire conditions, Rolanti has to worry about the survival of the sport in Thailand.

"We have to find sponsors. That's the only way to keep it alive," said Rolanti. "Unfortunately, when you watch ice hockey on TV, it doesn't look fast and exciting. But when you get to a rink and see a hockey match on the spot, you will feel it much much faster. So TV doesn't really help the game."

Without any foreseeable big influence from TV, the way of attracting the youngsters, the future of the sport, to the rink remains to be a puzzle for most of them.

"It is pretty difficult right now as we don't have an organization to attract children," said Rolanti who is now living in Bangkok. "But hopefully in the future, I'm gonna to start a business and I would like to work with NHL to help host programs in Asia for the kids."

It seems that the situation is better in Hong Kong.

"As far as I know, there are around 200 kids participating in ice hockey in Hong Kong. Some are seven or eight, and some 15 or 16," said NG Ka Kin, honorary secretary of the Hong Kong Ice Hockey Association Ltd.

In Hong Kong, there are two small rinks in the shopping malls, a promotion stage for the sport to present itself to the public, especially to the youth.

"Quite often a case when some young kids, who were learning figure skating there, saw us playing hockey and came over saying 'I'm gonna to do this!'" NG said proudly. "This year we will have a standard rink built, and I think we can do a lot of training, a lot of strategy, and we can improve our physical strength too."

"I hope we can play the U18 international tournament in three to four years," the honorary secretary added.