A FAMILY AFFAIR

Simon Wang has his sights set on becoming the highest-drafted Chinese-born player while his mother, Willa, is working on growing the game back home

BY TONY FERRARI

EVERY TIME THE OJHL’S King Rebellion visited an opposing team earlier this season, the list of scouts at the game was two or three times as robust as usual. The reason was Haoxi ‘Simon’ Wang, a Chinese-born defenseman who stands 6-foot-6 and weighs in at 210 pounds. The hulking blueliner is poised to become the highest-drafted Chinese-born player in NHL history – and third ever after Andong Song in 2015 and Kevin He in 2024 – but his story goes much further back than a weekend game in King City or any other rink in the OJHL. Wang’s love for hockey growing up in Beijing was born in much the same way as it was for his now-peers more than 6,500 miles away in Ontario: he went to the rink with a…

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The Hockey News (Digital) - 1 Issue, Rookie Issue 2025

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