While ping-pong may have thawed tensions with the US, hockey built the bridge between China, Canada

Bob Hindmarch is a name that is all too familiar to many Chinese athletes at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where Canada's National Hockey Program was born.

"I have made many Chinese friends during the six or seven times I have toured China since my first visit to the country in 1973," Hindmarch, UBC's most successful Thunderbirds hockey coach, told China Daily.

When Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau recognized the Peoples Republic of China in 1970, it began a process of cultural exchange in which sports were an integral part.