SHENYANG, China, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- 69-year-old Wang Daming and his team of elderly players will soon have to stop playing ice hockey this winter due to the rise of temperatures and the thaw of ice at their local park. His team are all in their 60s or 70s, and ice hockey has become an important part of their life.

Without baffles, goals and a smooth ice surface, these elderly gentlemen utilize their smarts and ingenuity to conquer the inconveniences and play ice hockey here in winter.

"I focus fully on playing ice hockey in each winter. My wife asked me to go to Hainan with her for winter and my son-in-law wanted to take me to Chengdu, but I said that I am not going. Shenyang is the only place that I will stay at in winter," Wang said.

Having played ice sports for many years, Wang is still relatively a new player. "I grew up in an ice hockey family in Heilongjiang. My three younger brothers served for the Mudanjiang Professional Team in their youth and their best finish was the second in the National Games of the People's Republic of China. If a national family ice hockey game is held, my family would definitely take the championship," Wang said.

"This winter is shorter, so we have less time to play ice hockey. The only thing we can do is to expect the next winter."

"The youngest one in our team is 56 or 57 years old, and the oldest one is 74. Most of us work or worked as factory workers, and we have others who were professors, policemen and technical engineers," he said.

Because he can't get access to the National Hockey League on his TV, Wang Daming asked his son-in-law to install a CCTV app for him to watch it.

And Wang hopes that he can be there to watch the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games with his grandson. Enditem