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The Olympic Athletes of Russia

January 25, 2018, 2:57 am
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The Ice Hockey Federation of Russia has on Thursday announced the 25-man roster for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

After the International Olympic Committee has suspended the Russian Olympic Committee due to doping allegations, it was announced that clean Russian athletes would be invited to compete as Olympic Athletes of Russia under a neutral flag at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

An OAR Invitation Review Panel determined the pool of Russian athletes who have fulfilled the pre-games testing requirements and could be invited according to several criteria available to the panel. The original number of 500 athletes has been reduced by 111 by the panel last week.

From this list three goaltenders, eight defencemen and 14 forwards have been chosen to play as Olympic Athletes of Russian in the 2018 Olympic men’s ice hockey tournament by the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia.

The invitations to all athletes will be formally issued at the OAR Delegation Registration Meeting on 27 January in PyeongChang. No roster has been announced yet for the Olympic Athletes of Russia women’s ice hockey team.

The men’s team has a slightly younger roster than in the past with an average age of 27 years and will include a couple of new players.

For Mikhail Grigorenko, Ilya Kablukov, Kirill Kaprizov, Dinar Khafizullin and Nikolai Prokhorkin it will be the first top-level tournament in senior international ice hockey as unlike the others they haven’t played at the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship or the World Cup of Hockey with the men’s national team before.

Three players from the team were on the roster in Sochi 2014 including Pavel Datsyuk, Ilya Kovalchuk and Vyacheslav Voinov. For Datsyuk and Kovalchuk it will be the fifth Olympic Winter Games participation and joining an exclusive club. Only two players – Finns Raimo Helminen and Teemu Selanne – played more, in six Olympics.

39-year-old Datsyuk is the oldest player on the roster and 20-year-old Kaprizov the youngest.

All 25 players nominated play for Russian clubs in the Kontinental Hockey League. More surprisingly, the selected players represent just three clubs. 15 players are under contract with Russian champion and league leader SKA St. Petersburg, eight players join from second-placed CSKA Moscow and two from Metallurg Magnitogorsk.

The team coached by Oleg Znarok is seeded in Group B together with the United States, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Nominations Olympic Athletes of Russia men’s ice hockey team by the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia

Goaltenders:
Vasili Koshechkin, Metallurg Magnitogorsk
Ilya Sorokin, SKA St. Petersburg
Igor Shestyorkin, CSKA Moscow

Defencemen:
Vladislav Gavrikov, SKA St. Petersburg
Dinar Khafizullin, SKA St. Petersburg
Bogdan Kiselevich, CSKA Moscow
Alexei Marchenko, CSKA Moscow
Nikita Nesterov, CSKA Moscow
Vyacheslav Voinov, SKA St. Petersburg
Artyom Zub, SKA St. Petersburg
Andrei Zubarev, SKA St. Petersburg

Forwards:
Sergei Andronov, CSKA Moscow
Alexander Barabanov, SKA St. Petersburg
Pavel Datsyuk, SKA St. Petersburg
Mikhail Grigorenko, CSKA Moscow
Nikita Gusev, SKA St. Petersburg
Ilya Kablukov, SKA St. Petersburg
Sergei Kalinin, SKA St. Petersburg
Kirill Kaprizov, CSKA Moscow
Ilya Kovalchuk, SKA St. Petersburg
Sergei Mozyakin, Metallurg Magnitogorsk
Nikolai Prokhorkin, SKA St. Petersburg
Vadim Shipachyov, SKA St. Petersburg
Sergei Shirokov, SKA St. Petersburg
Ivan Telegin, CSKA Moscow

Head Coach:
Oleg Znarok
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Crossing 38°N

January 25, 2018, 4:38 am
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Normally the border is strictly closed and heavily guarded but today a delegation of North Korean hockey players and officials crossed the border to the south.

The 2018 Olympic Winter Games will be joined by athletes from the northern part of the peninsula following the breakthrough discussions between the involved parties on Saturday. The athletes will march together at the opening and closing ceremonies with the unification flag and some individual athletes will compete and travel to PyeongChang 2018 later.

The most remarkable move, however, is to have a unified team in a team sport with athletes from the two Koreas that have been separated for over 60 years after the Korean War.

In women’s ice hockey the two teams are not far apart from each other also on the ice. The 23 players from the Republic of Korea (“South Korea”, 22nd in the 2017 IIHF Women’s World Ranking) will stay together but will be joined by 12 players from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“North Korea”, 25th in the ranking) and be granted an exception to have 35 players on the tournament roster of the unified team.

However, the game-day roster will remain at 22 like for all teams in the tournament and according to the agreement at least three North Korean players will play in each game.

The joint team was first proposed at high-level inter-Korean talks between the administrations of the two countries on 9th January before reaching an agreement and working on the details that were approved and announced on Saturday in Lausanne, Switzerland, where the International Olympic Committee is headquartered following discussions on how to integrate the new players with the IOC and the IIHF.

In order to prepare for the historic team effort, the 12 players came to South Korea on Thursday and earlier than the other athletes. The delegation crossed the demilitarized zone around the 38th parallel north that divides the Korean peninsula near the cities of Kaesong and Paju. They were brought to Jincheon, about 90 kilometres south of Seoul where the South Korean players have been practising.

The 12 players crossed the border in apparel with the DPR Korea flag but will soon be equipped with new apparel for the unified Korean women’s team. The team will compete under the unification flag picturing the Korean peninsula and will have a different abbreviation (COR instead of KOR) in the Olympic women’s ice hockey tournament.

The delegation coming from the north were welcomed with flowers by their new Korean colleagues from the south, head coach Sarah Murray and Mongwon Chung, the President of the Korea Ice Hockey Association governing the sport in the south.

According to South Korean news agency Yonhap it was agreed that the players from the north and south will run separate practices before they will officially be joined together to practise as a unified team as of next week.

On 4th February the team will play an exhibition game against Sweden before starting the 2018 Olympic women’s ice hockey tournament on 10th February against Switzerland.

The full 35-player roster will be published on IIHF.com at a later date.
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Sweden adds two

January 26, 2018, 3:08 am
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Sweden has finalized its men’s national team for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

The Swedes had earlier announced a preliminary 23-man roster with two forwards to be added last week. Head coach Rickard Gronborg has now made the decision and added two KHL players to the roster.

John Norman of Jokerit Helsinki and Patrik Zackrisson, scoring leader of Russian club Sibir Novosibirsk, will be part of the team for the 2018 Olympic men’s ice hockey tournament.

For Zackrisson it will be the first top-level tournament with the men’s national team. He has been playing exhibition games since 2008 but has never been nominated to the Olympics or World Championships but was on the World Junior squad in 2007.

The updated roster includes five players who have won gold at the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship last spring including goaltender Viktor Fasth and forwards Dennis Everberg, Carl Klingberg, Joel Lundqvist and Linus Omark.
12 players join from teams in the KHL, nine play in the domestic SHL and four in Switzerland.

Joel Lundqvist, who captained Sweden to gold last May, is the most experienced player with 141 international games for the Swedish men’s national team. Defenceman Staffan Kronwall (104) and forward Linus Omark (101) also have more than 100 national team games where Omark scored the most (19) goals.

34-year-old Lundqvist is also the oldest player on a roster full of experience with an average age of 29. Only one player is younger than 23: millennial Rasmus Dahlin. The 17-year-old defenceman is a candidate for becoming the next number-one-draft pick in the NHL and recently played at the 2018 IIHF World Junior Championship where he won a silver medal and the Best Defenceman award.

Sweden will have a pre-tournament game in Incheon near Seoul against Canada on 12 February before the tournament starts in Gangneung where all ice sports competitions will be held.

Tre Kronor won silver at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games. This year they will face countries from their neighbourhood in the preliminary round with archrival Finland, Norway and Germany.

Goaltenders:
Jhonas Enroth, Dynamo Minsk (BLR/KHL)
Viktor Fasth, Vaxjo Lakers
Magnus Hellberg, Kunlun Red Star (CHN/KHL)

Defencemen:
Jonas Ahnelov, Avangard Omsk (RUS)
Simon Bertilsson, Brynas Gavle
Rasmus Dahlin, Frolunda Gothenburg
Johan Fransson, Geneve-Servette (SUI)
Erik Gustafsson, Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk (RUS)
Patrik Hersley, SKA St Petersburg (RUS)
Staffan Kronwall, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl (RUS)
Mikael Wikstrand, Farjestad Karlstad

Forwards:
Dick Axelsson, Farjestad Karlstad
Alexander Bergstrom, Sibir Novisibirsk (RUS)
Dennis Everberg, Avangard Omsk (RUS)
Carl Klingberg, EV Zug (SUI)
Anton Lander, Ak Bars Kazan (RUS)
Par Lindholm, Skelleftea AIK
Joakim Lindstrom, Skelleftea AIK
Joel Lundqvist, Frolunda Gothenburg
Oscar Moller, Skelleftea AIK
John Norman, Jokerit Helsinki (FIN/KHL)
Linus Omark, Salavat Yulayev Ufa (RUS)
Fredrik Pettersson, ZSC Lions (SUI)
Viktor Stalberg, EV Zug (SUI)
Patrik Zackrisson, Sibir Novosibirsk (RUS)

Head Coach:
Rikard Gronborg
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Russian women nominated

January 26, 2018, 10:46 am
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After the men’s team, the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia has also announced the 23-player women’s roster for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

After the International Olympic Committee has suspended the Russian Olympic Committee due to doping allegations, it was announced that clean Russian athletes would be invited to compete as Olympic Athletes of Russia under a neutral flag at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

An OAR Invitation Review Panel determined the pool of Russian athletes who have fulfilled the pre-games testing requirements and could be invited according to several criteria available to the panel. The original number of 500 athletes has been reduced by 111 by the panel last week. Not invited were athletes who the IOC suspended as part of the as part of Oswald Commission findings (see press releases from 12 December and 22 December).

From this list three goaltenders, eight defenders and 12 forwards have been chosen to play as Olympic Athletes of Russia in the 2018 Olympic women’s ice hockey tournament by the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia.

The invitations to all athletes will be formally issued at the OAR Delegation Registration Meeting on 27 January in PyeongChang.

With several players retired or not on the list of eligible athletes, this Olympic Athletes of Russia team will be one of the new generation. With an average age of 22 it will likely be the youngest team in the tournament.

Only six players were part of the team in Sochi 2014 including Yelena Dergachyova, Angelina Goncharenko, Anna Shokhina, Yekaterina Smolina, Olga Sosina and Svetlana Tkachyova. Although just 25, Sosina is one of the most experienced players having played both in Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014 and in eight Women’s World Championships. 29-year-old Smolina has the same number of tournaments but had her two Olympic experiences in Turin 2006 and Sochi 2014. Also 33-year-old defender Skachyova, the oldest nominated player, would play her third Olympics after Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014.

At the other end of the scale 11 players are 20 years old or younger. Three were born in 1999, three in 1998 and five in 1997. 17 players would play their first Olympic Winter Games and five players have never played at a top-level championship with the women’s national team: Anastasia Chistyakova, Diana Kanayeva, Viktoria Kulishova, Alyona Starovoytova and Valeria Tarakanova.

16 of the 23 players were on the roster of the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship last spring.

Nominations Olympic Athletes of Russia women’s ice hockey team by the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia

Goaltenders:
Nadezhda Alexandrova, Tornado Moscow Region
Nadezhda Morozova, Biryusa Krasnoyarsk
Valeria Tarakanova, SKIF Nizhni Novgorod

Defence:
Maria Batalova, Tornado Moscow Region
Anastasia Chistyakova, Dynamo St. Petersburg
Liana Ganeyeva, Arktik-Universitet Ukhta
Angelina Goncharenko, Tornado Moscow Region
Yekaterina Lobova, Biryusa Krasnoyarsk
Yekaterina Nikolayeva, Dynamo St. Petersburg
Nina Pirogova, Tornado Moscow Region
Svetlana Tkachyova, Tornado Moscow Region

Forwards:
Lyudmila Belyakova, Tornado Moscow Region
Yelena Dergachyova, Tornado Moscow Region
Yevgenia Dyupina, Dynamo St. Petersburg
Fanuza Kadirova, Arktik-Universitet Ukhta
Diana Kanayeva, Dynamo St. Petersburg
Viktoria Kulishova, SKIF Nizhni Novgorod
Valeria Pavlova, Biryusa Krasnoyarsk
Anna Shokhina, Tornado Moscow Region
Alevtina Shtaryova, Tornado Moscow Region
Yekaterina Smolina, Dynamo St. Petersburg
Olga Sosina, Agidel Ufa
Alyona Starovoytova, Tornado Moscow Region

Head Coach:
Alexei Chistyakov
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Early promotion for Israel

January 27, 2018, 12:36 am
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SOFIA – Two days before the end of the 2018 IIHF Ice Hockey U20 World Championship Division III the winner was determined. In the first game of the fourth competition day Israel beat closest rival Iceland 6-2 and secured the first place in the tournament and promotion for the next’s year Division II Group B. In the previous games the Israeli hockey talents defeated China 3-2, host Bulgaria 4-3 and Australia 7-2.

After a rest day on Saturday the round robin tournament will finish on Sunday when Israel plays New Zealand, a team who is certain to finish in last place with no points so far and goals difference of 11-35.

It was a historic day for Israeli ice hockey as the U20 national team won its first IIHF U20 event in its fourth participation. The debut was in 1997 and the next two were in 2016 and 2017 with a 4th and 5th-place finish. Israel has played in 14 IIHF U18 Championships since 2001, but has just one first place in the Division III Group B in 2013. There are no players from this winning team on the current U20 roster, but 5 years ago there was one American, Derek Eisler, on the team’s officials list as “team staff”. Since 2015 he is the head coach of all Israeli teams (Men, U20, U18) in the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship program with one exception – the U18 team last year. After the deciding victory against Australia, Eisler was happy to share his feelings with IIHF.com.

Congratulations for the great tournament! You’re the champions, how does this sound to you? Your team surprised many here in the Winter Palace.

Yeah, when you look at the schedule, the last game is China-Australia. This was supposed to be the final for the gold and silver medals. For us though, this was a motivation to make a run at China. We got the late power play goal to beat them and the next day the momentum was with us to prevail over the tough Bulgarian team. So at that point we thought we are doing pretty good here and our confidence went even higher.

Did you expect such results in Sofia or are you one of the surprised people here?

I expected that our team will be in the hunt for the medals – silver or bronze. As a head coach I had this scenario with two wins and one defeat after the first three games. I thought that we can play very well against Australia and Bulgaria, but maybe to concede to China. So my expectations were exceeded for sure.

Where are the secrets for this success? In this division some small details can make big difference.

If you look at that team, the difference is that we have many pieces to solve the puzzle. We have great goaltending, solid defence and good forwards. We have more kids that are playing overseas in North America. They are coming older and playing there on a pretty good junior level hockey. There are players from teams in Sweden and Austria. So conditionally we have our best overall roster and we also were really concentrated to be a team and to make sure to explore this team intelligence that we have been talking about. We also found the right defencemen for the power play unit and players that are ready to block shots and be solid penalty killers. We have some guys from the Israeli league who are taking their roles as contributors on the other lines, so we brought a well-rounded team here for the championships.

As a coach you want to induce the team work, but are there any players that you want to point out for their efforts in the tournament?

Our two goalies were really, really good. Without those two guys we wouldn’t be here. Raz [Werner] did a great job against China and today it was Yehonatan’s [Reisinger] turn to make big saves. So they both raised to the occasion and played that level they are supposed to. And without good quality goaltending you can’t win gold medals. I have the luxury to alternate good goalies every game. The last two years Raz was the best goalie in the U18 Division III Group A and U20 Division III Championships. Yehonatan won silver medal last year with the U18 team and was also voted as the best goaltender.

It seems that if Israel wants to develop hockey, it can be done easily with all the connections that the country has in Russia and North America. Do you see this trend coming in the future?

I see big trend coming for Israel hockey. I think with the success this U20 team just had here, the kids back home are watching it, everybody in Israel is seeing this. There are more and more projects for ice rinks and there will be more people playing hockey. So I think just the sheer volume of interest will go up. The economics is there, the connections are there, everything is in place. Now it’s just a matter of people willing to put a time and effort in growing hockey in the country and to use these connections wisely and build it up.

Saturday is a day off. You already did your job here, so how will you celebrate the promotion to the Division II Group B?

With a win in our last game on Sunday!

Click here for scores, stats and a live stream from the tournament.

IVAN TCHECHANKOV
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Liiga goes on export

January 28, 2018, 5:04 am
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Finland’s Liiga breaks new ground across the Gulf of Finland as HPK Hameenlinna gets the better of the Pelicans Lahti in Estonia's capital of Tallinn.

A crowd of 5,003 inside Tallinn's Tondiraba Ice Hall was kept on the edge of their seats until the very end as HPK Hameenlinna edged Pelicans Lahti after penalty shots. 18-year-old in-form prospect Kristian Vesalainen became the hero of the night as his game-winning penalty shot sees HPK Hameenlinna prevail 4-3 in a historic night for both Finnish and Estonian hockey.

“The event was great. 5,000 spectators witnessed a great regular time hockey plus overtime and then penalty shots. In other words, the game script was written by a perfect writer,” said Rauno Parras, President of the Estonian Ice Hockey Association, after the game.

Trailing 0-2 and appearing down and out, three unanswered goals by Ville Viitaluoma, Joonas Lehtivuori and Teemu Turunen turned the game into HPK Hameenlinna’s favour. Despite Jesse Saarinen equalising for the Pelicans Lahti with just 2:34 left of the game, HPK avoided a third straight defeat against their local rivals this season thanks to the prowess of Winnipeg Jets first-round draft pick Vesalainen. With two points secured HPK moves up to 11th in the Liiga standings as their fine run of form continues in their hunt for a play-off spot. The Pelicans Lahti stay in ninth place.

“We did a fine comeback in the end, but it was unfortunately only enough to get us a point. In overtime, there was an opportunity to convert but this time around this is how it ended,” said the Pelicans Lahti’s Jesse Mankinen, who despite only winning one point lavished praise on the playing at the Tondiraba Ice Hall. “The event itself was great and we should have more of these. The crowd followed the game with enthusiasm and there was a great atmosphere inside the arena throughout the evening,” he continued.

As the high-octane encounter in Tallinn was a fine example of, plenty is at stake when the Pelicans Lahti and HPK Hameenlinna lock horns with each other. Both part of a historical region of Southern Finland, the Hame Province, their matches often turn into dramatic affairs and full of excitement. In short, an ideal match to showcase to a wider audience.

“Ice hockey is one of the finest export products in Finland. The Pelicans want to be an innovative pioneer in its operations and for that reason, the Pelicans wanted to be the first team to bring a home game to a foreign country. The idea of Tallinn was born together with our cooperation partners last winter and the idea was received with excitement in Finland as nothing similar has been done in the past,” said Pelicans Lahti CEO Tomi-Pekka Kolu.

An estimated 1,500 fans had expected to travel from Lahti to Tallinn, which marked another eventful chapter in the history of the Pelicans. Originally formed in Vyborg in what today is Russia, the club was forced to relocate 210 kilometres west and become Reipas Lahti after Vyborg was lost during World War II.

The Lahti-based club also became the frontrunner in nurturing Finnish-Estonian relations out on the ice. When fielding blueliner Vjatseslav Kulpin during four games during the 1993/94 season, they became the first Finnish top division team to ice an Estonian national team player. It’s a cooperation encompassing the Gulf of Finland, which Pelicans Lahti now wishes to develop further.

“With this match [played in Tallinn], we hope to market ice hockey, Liiga and of course also our own club Pelicans in Estonia. Hopefully, this will also help the development of Estonian ice hockey,” said Kolu as the club announced right after this weekend’s encounter that plans were already in place for a return next season.

While last season saw Latvia’s Dinamo Riga successfully play two KHL games at the very same venue, Tondiraba Ice Hall, the Estonian Ice Hockey Association now hopes that this season’s introduction of Liiga hockey can get even more teams to take note of Tallinn as a potential venue. With the Estonian hockey’s poster boy, 24-year-old Robert Rooba skating for Champions Hockey League finalists JYP Jyvaskyla, perhaps he could be next in line for a temporary return home to showcase his skills?

“We are more than happy to host top-level ice hockey events in Tallinn every season. Adding a few KHL, Liiga or SHL [Swedish Hockey League] matches into the local ice hockey calendar on an annual basis would be great for the Estonian hockey,” said Rauno Parras, President of the Estonian Ice Hockey Association.

HENRIK MANNINEN
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U20 Division III concludes

January 29, 2018, 6:53 am
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The silver and bronze medals were up for grabs on Sunday at the 2018 IIHF Ice Hockey U20 World Championship Division III in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia after Israel had secured the top spot and promotion on Friday (see story and interview).

Four teams had chances to finish in the top-three. Iceland was ahead in this race with seven points before the last game day, followed by China and Bulgaria with 6 and Australia with 5.

In the first scheduled game Israel completed its perfect record (5 wins/5 games) with a 5-0 blanking of New Zealand, which finished last with zero points. Mark Revniaga, the captain of the Israeli team, scored two goals and finished the tournament with the most goals (11) and points (15). He was selected as the best forward by the directorate of the championship. Mark, whose father was assistant coach for the Israeli team in Sofia, is playing for New York Apple Core in Brewster. Raz Werner, a goaltender for the Grastorps IK in the Swedish U20 Elite, had the only shutout in the whole event after making 26 save and finished the competition with a 2.00 GAA and a 93.41% save percentage.

“We brought a well-rounded team that had all the pieces to produce and we worked as a team the whole week. Everybody was involved and followed our game’s strategy,” said the head coach Derek Eisler. Even when his team earned the promotion on Friday, he was seen on the stands, scouting the Kiwis and preparing the tactics for the last game. So it is not a coincidence that Israel was first in almost every statistical category in the end - scoring efficiency (19,53%), power play (44,44%, 12 from 27), goaltending (92,31%) and in second place for penalty killing (84,85%).

The drama unfolded in the next matchup on Sunday: Iceland vs. Bulgaria. The hosts could finish on every position from second to fifth in the standings, depending on their match, but also on the last encounter of the day: China vs. Australia. A win for the Icelanders would guarantee them second place, a win for Bulgaria would guarantee the third place for the host nation. And the Chinese players were watching the game from closeby, cheering for the Bulgarians, so they could have a chance to finish second by defeating Australia.

Iceland was leading half of the way on an early goal by Edmunds Induss at 2:52, but in the second period Daniel Dilkov tied the score at 13:08. With his aggressive style Miroslav Vasilev took three opponents to the right circle and then passed the puck back to Dilkov, who was alone in front of the net. He was able to beat the goalie with his third try.

The third period started with power-play goal for Iceland. Six minutes later Dilkov, who plays for the MsHKM Zilina U20 team in Slovakia, scored again after carrying the puck through the neutral zone and blasting a shot from the top of the left circle. The Bulgarian top line had the upper hand on the opposition most of the time, but the score was still 2-2 when Iceland was called for icing 18.6 seconds before the end.

Stanislav Muhachev, the head coach of Bulgaria, took a time-out and drew a combination. Veselin Dikov won the faceoff and passed the puck back to Dilkov, who shot through traffic. Suddenly the puck was again on Dikov’s stick and he scored the game-winning goal from close range in the open net after the Icelandic goalie was out of position.

“I need to sit down, can’t stand on my legs right now. We thought that the faceoff will be in the right circle, so during the time-out I drew a combination for this side and then it turned out it is in the left. Nothing you can do after that. I was just watching how the puck bounced back to Dikov,” explained Muhachev immediately after the nerve-wracking game.

“It’s a great tournament for us. The only sad note is that we couldn’t beat Israel as we had our chances. But when you compare the teams in the group and our preparation, I think the third place is success. Our top line played on high level. Dilkov was impressive with his movement and skating, Vasilev showed his speed and energy. He was very emotional during the whole process and was fully involved in every moment, taking things internally. And I want of course to point out the captain – Dikov. I’ve know him since he was a child. He was a true captain and helped this team a lot with his leadership. Without him this would not be achievable.”

In the last game China defeated Australia 6-1 and took the second place having the tie-breaker against Bulgaria after beating the host badly on Thursday (10-4). The captain Rudi Ying had two goals and an assists to finish second on the tournament’s scoring list with 14 points (8+6) ahead of Dilkov (8+5) and Vasilev (5+7). The expectations were high for China as the project for developing the game in the country for the 2022 Winter Olympics is in full mode. The first two games were frustrating though – a 2-3 loss against Israel and 1-2 defeat to Iceland. After that China won three in a row with a 27-7 goal record.

“Our players are looking much better than the opposition here, but we missed our chances in the first games and made some mistakes too. We outplayed every other team, but against Israel, for example, we scored only two goals on 36 shots and allowed three on just 12 shots. If there was a playoff-system as a year ago, we would have had a chance to win it all, but this tournament is very short and you can’t afford to lose a game,” said the China’s U20 national team head coach Alexander Barkov.

“Israel won the tournament deservedly as they played smart and tactical hockey in all games. They did that against China, waiting for their chances and scored the game winning goal on a power play eight minutes to the end. Against us their coach matched his top line to our top line all the time and didn’t take any risks. It worked again,” Bulgarian head coach Muhachev explained his opinion about the tournament winner.

Iceland had to settle for fourth place while top-seeded Australia was fifth. Winless New Zealand is relegated to the 2019 IIHF Ice Hockey U20 World Championship Division III Qualification.

Click here for scores and stats.

IVAN TCHECHANKOV
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Unified Korean Team

January 30, 2018, 3:04 am
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The 35-player roster for the unified Korean women’s ice hockey team at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games has been named.

Athletes from the north and south of the Korean peninsula will walk under the unification flag at the opening ceremony of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games not for the first time. But for the first time ever in Olympic history athletes from the two Koreas will compete together as a team in an Olympic event at the 2018 Olympic women’s ice hockey tournament.

To make this ambition with a short preparation time come true, 12 players from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (commonly known as “North Korea”) crossed the normally closed border to join the 23 players of the Republic of Korea (“South Korea”) earlier than other athletes from the north and form a unified team.

According to the agreement between the two countries and the IOC and IIHF for this ambitious project, 22 players will be selected for each of the games from the exceptionally big tournament roster and at least three North Koreans will play in each game.

Ten months earlier at the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship Division II Group A at the Olympic ice arenas in Gangneung, the two countries competed in the same division that served as a test event. Just crossing the border to compete was already historic considering that the inner-Korean border forms one of the biggest political divides. But after the game the two teams came together for a historic joint team photo to celebrate the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace on 6 April 2017. It was much more important for the 5,800 fans in attendance than the result – the southern team edged their northern rivals 3-0.

It was also thanks to that gesture that the idea of a joint team was born when the governments of the two Koreas discussed sending North Korean athletes to the Olympics in the south. And eventually came to an agreement with about four weeks left.

The roster includes all 23 South Korean players who have already been preparing for the Olympics and have been together in a similar line-up for the past two years. That includes players like Do Hee Han, who was named the best goaltender of the tournament last year, or the scoring leader of that team, captain Jongah Park.

The team improved during the last years by becoming centralized and being joined by Koreans who have learned their hockey abroad. Six players have two citizenships and for them the 2018 Olympics means discovering their Korean roots. One of the interesting storylines is Yoonjung Park, who recovered her Korean citizenship. She was born in Korea and adopted by an American family. In the U.S. she is better known under the name Melissa Brandt and her (non-Korean) sister Hannah Brandt will be competing at the tournament as well, but for Team USA.

Last Thursday one goaltender, four defenders and seven forwards crossed the inner-Korean border to join their new colleagues in one of the most confidence-building measures between the two Koreas that are formally still in a state of ceasefire since the end of the Korean War in the 1950s. Also a coach, Chol Ho Pak, crossed the border and will join the team staff of the unified team that will compete under the unification flag and with a separate abbreviation (COR).

The 12 players were all on the team that came to Gangneung last April in the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship Division II Group A, just that this time they will compete together on one team and with the Korean peninsula on the jersey. Among them are the top-two forward lines including two players who made the top-20 scoring list at the event, Su Hyong Jong and Un Hyang Kim. Most of them have competed for the DPR Korea national team for many years and they are aged between 21 and 28. The 28-year-old is Ok Jin, who on Sunday got her birthday cake in South Korea and represented DPR Korea in six IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship events.

The very youngest and oldest players on the unified team come from the south. Heewon Kim is just 16 and one of eight millennials on the team. Soojin Han is 30 and has represented the Republic of Korea in eight IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship events and two Asian Winter Games.

Sarah Murray from Canada will serve as the head coach of this historic team. The daughter of former NHL, Team Canada head coach and IIHF Hall of Fame member Andy Murray came to Korea in 2014 to improve the national team program and prepare the players for the Olympics. She will have plenty of players to choose from, which will be a challenge at the same time.

It’s 35 players who will compete in Group B against Sweden, Switzerland and Japan but who are also ambassadors of a historic sport and peace project in the not always easy relations between the two Koreas.

Goaltenders:
Dohee HAN, Ice Avengers (KOR)
Genevieve Kim KNOWLES, Phoenix (KOR)
Pom RI, Sajabong (PRK)
So Jung SHIN, Ice Beat (KOR)

Defence:
Mihwan CHO, Ice Avengers (KOR)
Jong Hui CHOE, Kimchaek (PRK)
Suyeon EOM, Ice Avengers (KOR)
Chung Gum HWANG, Taesongsan (PRK)
Sol Gyong HWANG, Jangjasan (PRK)
Selin KIM, Ice Avengers (KOR)
Chaelin PARK, Ice Beat (KOR)
Ye Eun PARK, Ice Beat (KOR)
Yoonjung PARK, Phoenix (KOR)
Su Jong RYU, Kimchaek (PRK)

Forwards:
Un Gyong CHOE, Susan (PRK)
Jiyeon CHOI, Ice Avengers (KOR)
Yujung CHOI, Ice Beat (KOR)
Randi Heesoo GRIFFIN, Phoenix (KOR)
Soojin HAN, Ice Beat (KOR)
Danelle IM, Phoenix (KOR)
Ok JIN, Kanggye (PRK)
Su Sie JO, Ice Beat (KOR)
Su Hyon JONG, Taesongsan (PRK)
Siyun JUNG, Ice Avengers (KOR)
Heewon KIM, Ice Avengers (KOR)
Hyang Mi KIM, Taesongsan (PRK)
Un Hyang KIM, Kanggye (PRK)
Un Jong KIM, Taesongsan (PRK)
Hyein KO, Ice Avengers (KOR)
Eunji LEE, Phoenix (KOR)
Jingyu LEE, Phoenix (KOR)
Yeon Jeong LEE, Ice Beat (KOR)
Caroline Nancy PARK, Phoenix (KOR)
Jongah PARK, Ice Avengers (KOR)
Song Hui RYO, Taesongsan (PRK)

Head Coach:
Sarah MURRAY
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Search

Getting the call right

January 30, 2018, 7:53 am
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The IIHF has introduced its guidelines for the use of coach’s challenges during the Men’s and Women’s Olympic ice hockey tournaments.

There are two situations possible for issuing the Coach’s Challenge:

1) Off-side situation prior the scoring of a goal

2) Interference on a goaltender

Only one Coach’s Challenge per team per stoppage will be permitted.

After the scoring of the goal in the final minute of play in the 3rd period and at any point in Overtime (in any games), the IIHF Video Goal Judge Booth Operations can initiate the review of any scenario that would otherwise be subject to a Coach’s Challenge.

Coach’s Challenge Procedure

The IIHF Office will implement at the 2018 OWG Men’s and Women’s Hockey Tournaments technology (either a handheld tablet or a television or computer monitor) that will allow On-ice Officials, in conjunction with the IIHF Video Goal Judge Booth Operations (IIHF Referee Supervisor and Operators), to review replays if, and only to extent, a formal Coach’s Challenge has been initiated. To the extent practical, the replays made available to the Game Officials on the ice will be the same replays that are being utilized by the IIHF VGJ Booth Operations.

A Coach’s Challenge should be initiated by the Head Coach of the respective team by direct verbal notification to the Referee on the ice. Once a Coach’s Challenge has been initiated by the Head Coach, the Referee (or Linesman) responsible for the call on the ice will immediately establish contact with the IIHF VGJ Booth Operations via headset and will inquire and discuss with the IIHF Referee Supervisor, prior to the Referee (or Linesman) examining any video, the following: a) the Referee’s (or Linesman’s) “final” call on the ice; and (b) what the Referee (or Linesman) observed on the play.

The on-ice call will then be reviewed simultaneously by the appropriate On-Ice Officials at ice level and by the IIHF VGJ Booth Operations using any and all replays at their disposal. After reviewing the play and consulting with the IIHF VGJ Booth Operations, the appropriate On-Ice Officials will then make the “final” decision on whether to uphold or overturn the original call on the ice. Once the decision is made, the Referee will inform the Official Scorekeeper and will then make the announcement from the ice.

A Coach’s Challenge initiated by the team should be based on the information provided from the coaching staff taking into consideration and using the technology in accordance with the IIHF Rule 26 – Teams Officials and Technology.

The Video Review mechanism triggered by the Coach’s Challenge is intended to be extremely narrow in scope and the original call on the ice is to be overturned if, and only if, a determination is made that the original call on the ice was not correct. If a review is not conclusive and/or there is any doubt whatsoever as to whether the call on the ice was correct, the original call on the ice will be confirmed.



In case if during the issuing of the Coach’s Challenge it become impossible to operate it due to technical problems, then the call on the ice stays, the Coach’s Challenge request is canceled and the team remains its time-out and no penalty is assessed.

What can be challenged?

A team may only request a Coach’s Challenge to review the following scenarios:

1) “Off-side” Play Leading to a Goal (IIHF Rule 78, 79, 81)

A play that results in a “GOAL” call on the ice where the defending team asserts that the play should have been stopped by reason of an “Off-side” infraction by the attacking team.

a) The standard for overturning the call in the event of a “GOAL” call on the ice is that the Linesman responsible for the call, after reviewing any and all available replays and consulting with his colleague Linesman and the IIHF VGJ Booth Operations, determines that one or more Players on the attacking team preceded the puck into the attacking zone prior to the goal being scored and that, as a result, the play should have been stopped for an “Off-side” infraction; where this standard is met, the goal will be disallowed.

b) If the result of the Challenge is that the play was “On-side”, the goal shall count and the team that issued the Challenge shall be assessed a Bench Minor Penalty for delaying the game which can be served by any Player designated by the Head Coach of the penalized team.

c) In the event a goal is reversed due to the Linesman responsible for the call after consulting with his colleague Linesman and the IIHF VGJ Booth Operations, determining that the play was “Off-side” prior to the goal being scored, the clock (including penalty time clocks, if applicable) will be re-set to the time at which the play should have been stopped for the “Off-side” infraction.

NOTE 1:

Goals will only be reviewed for a potential “Off-side” infraction if: (a) the puck does not come out of the attacking zone again; or (b) all members of the attacking team do not clear the attacking zone again, between the time of the “Off-side” play and the time the goal is scored.

NOTE 2:

If one or more penalties (major or minor) are assessed between the time of the “Off-side” play and the video review that disallows the apparent goal, the offending team(s) (and responsible Player(s)) will still be required to serve the penalty (ies) identified and assessed, and the time of the penalty (ies) will be recorded as the time at which the play should have been stopped for the “Off-side” infraction.


2) Scoring Plays Involving Potential “Interference on a Goaltender”

A play that results in a “GOAL” call on the ice where the defending team asserts that the play should have been stopped by reason of an “Interference on a Goaltender” infraction by the attacking team.

a) A play that results in a “GOAL” call on the ice where the defending team asserts that the goal should have been disallowed due to “Interference on a Goaltender”, as described in Rules 94xiii, 95i, 95iii, 95iv, 151 Definition, 151i-151v, 183i-183v, 184 Overview, 184ii –184iv, 185ii, 185iv, 186i-186v.

The standard for overturning the call in the event of a “GOAL” call on the ice is that the Referee, after reviewing any and all available replays and consulting with the IIHF VGJ Booth Operations, determines that the goal should have been disallowed due to “Interference on a Goaltender”, as described in Rules 94xiii, 95i, 95iii, 95iv, 151 Definition, 151i-151v, 183i-183v, 184 Overview, 184ii – 184iv, 185ii, 185iv, 186i-186v.

b) A play that results in a “NO GOAL” call on the ice despite the puck having entered the net, where the On-Ice Officials have determined that the attacking team was guilty of “Interference on a Goaltender” but where the attacking team asserts: (i) there was no actual contact of any kind initiated by an attacking Player with the Goaltender; or (ii) the attacking Player was pushed, shoved, or fouled by a defending Player causing the attacking Player to come into contact with the Goaltender; or (iii) the attacking Player is in the Goal Crease at the moment the puck crosses the plane of the goal line and in no way affects the Goaltender’s ability to make a save or play his position.

The standard for overturning the call in the event of a “NO GOAL” call on the ice is that the Referee, after reviewing any and all replays and consulting with the IIHF VGJ Booth Operations determines that the goal on the ice should have been allowed because either:

(i) there was no actual contact of any kind initiated by the attacking Player with the Goaltender; or (ii) the attacking Player was pushed, shoved or fouled by a defending Player causing the attacking Player to come into contact with the Goaltender; or (iii) the attacking Player is in the Goal Crease at the moment the puck crosses the plane of the goal line and in no way affects the Goaltender’s ability to make a save or play his position.

c) In the rare situation where the Referee overreacted and called “Interference on a Goaltender” where the puck was on its way to the net and after reviewing any and all replays and consulting with the IIHF VGJ Booth Operations determines that the goal on the ice should have been allowed, no penalty will be assessed for “Interference on a Goaltender”. All other penalties not associated with “Interference on a Goaltender” should be assessed and served in a normal way.

d) A team may only request a Coach’s Challenge for “Interference on a Goaltender” if they have their time-out available and the Coach’s Challenge must be effectively initiated prior to the resumption of play. If the Coach’s Challenge does not result in the original call on the ice being overturned, the team exercising such a Challenge will forfeit its Time-out. If the Coach’s Challenge does result in the call on the ice being overturned, the team successfully exercising such a Challenge will retain its Time-out.


Initiated Review by the IIHF Video Goal Judge Booth Operations

In the final minute of play in the 3rd period and at any point in Overtime (in any game), the IIHF VGJ Booth Operations will initiate the review of any scenario that would otherwise be subject to a Coach’s Challenge.

Where a Coach’s Challenge is available on a scoring play potentially involving “Interference on a Goaltender” or “Off-side,” the IIHF VGJ Booth Operations will, as an initial and threshold matter, determine that the puck entered the net and is a good hockey goal. This will eliminate the Coaches Challenge by either team.

If a team requests a Coach’s Challenge but Video Review under the above-mentioned rules renders such Challenge unnecessary, then the Challenge will be deemed not to have been made and the Time-out will be preserved.
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Unique Olympic experience

January 31, 2018, 5:20 am
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Michael Swift was pondering his hockey-playing options during the summer of 2011 when a call from his cousin Bryan Young changed his career path.

Swift had just completed his three-year entry-level contract with the New Jersey Devils after signing as a free agent and wasn’t enthusiastic about spending another season in the American Hockey League. As a result, he decided to take his cousin’s advice.

Young, a 2004 fifth-round selection of the Edmonton Oilers, had just completed his first season playing for High1 in the Asia League where his club played against opponents from Korea, Japan, China and Russia’s Far East.

“When I was talking to Bryan that summer he was like, ‘Why don’t you just come over here?’ He had nothing but good things to say about Korea,” recalled Swift. “Something told me to sign and come over and I did. It was obviously the best move I made for my hockey career.”

The Peterborough, Ontario native admittedly wasn’t an avid traveller prior to signing with High1 and put a lot of trust in Young while making the move overseas to continue his hockey career.

“Well, a) I didn’t even know there was ice hockey in South Korea, to be honest,” he said. “I had not even thought about (it). I’m not a world traveller or anything like that so it was pretty outside of the box when people found out I was coming over to Korea to play hockey. I just took his word. He just said, ‘You know, the people are really friendly. The hockey, you’re not killing your body day-in and day-out’. It’s pretty good money for what we get paid to do.”

Now in the middle of his seventh season playing for High1 in Goyang next to the capital of Seoul, Swift is one of six Canadians (plus one American) with dual citizenship preparing to represent Korea at the 2018 Olympic men’s ice hockey tournament.

“After three years of playing over here, the Korea Ice Hockey Association approached me to see if I’d be interested in becoming a dual citizen,” he said. “So I’ve had my passport now for four years. I played for Team Korea the last four years in the IIHF World Championship.”

Last April Swift scored a goal and three assists in five games as Korea edged Ukraine 2-1 at the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group A to earn a promotion to the top division at this year’s IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Copenhagen and Herning, Denmark. It was the first time Korea qualified for the top-level event.

This season, the 30-year-old has 14 goals and 28 assists in 27 games playing for High1 as he prepares for his first Olympic experience.

Growing up in Ontario, and going through the Ontario Hockey League with the Mississauga IceDogs, Swift admits the Olympics was never on his radar.

Swift scored 73 goals and 108 points in 208 games over four seasons in Mississauga. He moved with the team as the franchise relocated to Niagara after the 2006/07 season and became the Niagara IceDogs’ first captain. During his final OHL season, Swift netted 38 goals and 100 points in 68 games.

The five-foot-nine, 165-pound centre’s strong play earned him an entry-level contract with the Devils. He appeared in 176 AHL games with New Jersey’s affiliate before wrapping up his North American career with the Worcester Sharks.

“Honestly not in a million years,” Swift said. “It’s one thing that growing up as a kid people trying to play in the NHL, how many people get a chance to play in the NHL, let alone play in the Olympics every four years?

“The Olympics is, they say, the biggest stage in the world, so it’s something pretty special. Obviously I’m not playing for Canada, but even to just be a part of the Olympics for any country it would be someone’s dream come true.”

Off the ice has been a pleasant surprise for Swift, who didn’t know much about the country prior to moving.

“It’s so easy. Everything is so westernized,” said Swift. “The team gives me a two-bedroom apartment, they give me a vehicle that I drive. You go to the restaurants, everyone speaks English, they’ve got English menus (and) westernized food. You can walk around. Basically I walk out my back door and I can walk into hundreds of restaurants and bars. It’s a pretty neat area.”

Swift says he had no reservations about returning to South Korea despite tensions with North Korea at times.

“Honestly, when I came back over here in August, people from Peterborough, back home, were like ‘Well, you’ve got to watch out for the north’, but I don’t hear anything to be honest,” he said. “Over here I don’t watch TV or the media or read the newspaper so I’m honestly oblivious to what’s going on out there with the north and the south.”

Swift spends his summers in his hometown of Peterborough helping out with the family’s construction business. He hasn’t given much thought to life after hockey. Since receiving his Korean citizenship in April 2014, his focus has been the Olympics.

In December he suited up for the national team at the Channel One Cup in Moscow. Though the Koreans failed to win a game against top-6 nations, Swift says it was a good learning experience.

“We played against Team Canada there so that was a great experience for me and my team that we were able to get that out of the way, to play Canada,” he said. “It was a (surprise), definitely, when we suited up against them there in Russia in December so I think it’s going to make it easier for us when we play against them coming up in the Olympics.”

Swift knows the odds are against his team heading to the Olympics, but is maintaining a positive outlook.

“Our goal is to try and win every game (we play),” he said. “You’re playing against Canada, No. 1 in the world, and no one knows about Korea and we’re obviously a huge underdog, but we’re not going to go into each game preparing like we’re going to lose. You can’t think like that.

“You’ve got to go in with a positive attitude and play hard for 60 minutes. See what happens. You never know, the hockey gods could be on our side, we get a lucky bounce, keep it close - you just don’t know until you play the games.”

DHIREN MAHIBAN
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Korean Hockey Magic

February 1, 2018, 2:43 am
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Korea has a tradition of producing cars and electronics, but the Asian nation also has a fine hockey tradition that dates back nearly 90 years.

Leading up to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, we’re looking back at some of the biggest developments in this sport in an ongoing series called “Korean Hockey Magic.”

To start off, a quick overview of the sport’s history in Korea is in order.

The Korean Ice Hockey Association was originally founded in 1928. Just two years later, the first national champion was crowned: Yonsei University. The 1885-founded private institution in the capital city of Seoul is considered one of Korea’s best universities. And it, along with the nearby Korea University, has remained a dominant force in domestic hockey for decades.

It took time to get things organized. In November 1930, the new Korean Ice Hockey Federation began administering the young sport. A regularly scheduled national championship featuring university teams kicked off in 1946 after the end of World War II. Then came the Korean War that split the country. The Korea Ice Hockey Association governing the sport in the south part applied for IIHF membership in 1959, and on 25 July 1960, Korea became an IIHF member. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from the north part followed three years later.

With a limited player pool and few rinks, international competition wasn’t in the cards right away. The Korean national team made its IIHF debut at the World Championship C-Pool in Barcelona, Spain in 1979. Coached by Man Young Kim and captained by Yung Suk Choi, the Koreans did the best they could in the eight-team, round-robin tournament. They stunned Great Britain with a wild 9-6 win and tied Australia 0-0 en route to a seventh-place finish.

In the 1980s and 90s, the Koreans struggled to gain traction, mostly remaining in the C Pool with occasional relegations to the D Pool. But in the new millennium, they finally began to make progress.

They earned their first promotion to Division I in 2001 after topping Division II with victories over New Zealand, South Africa, Iceland, Australia, and Spain. Another landmark came in 2007 when they hosted a Division II tournament in Seoul and got promoted with a perfect record. Using homegrown talents like scoring forward Kisung Kim, Korea has managed to never fall below Division I since 2010.

At the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group A, the decision to stock up on naturalized North Americans playing pro hockey for Korean club teams in the Asia League during the push toward PyeongChang paid off. Korea moved up to the elite division for the first time ever and left former top-division teams like Hungary, Kazakhstan and Poland behind. Under ex-NHLer head coach Jim Paek, the Koreans edged host Ukraine 2-1 on Michael Swift’s shootout goal in Kyiv, which put them through to the 2018 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Denmark.

It was the first time in decades an Asian nation has qualified directly to the elite division. (Japan played in the top 16 from 1998 to 2004, but did so as the annual winner of a Far East Qualifier tournament versus China and Korea.) It was also a huge milestone prior to the 2018 Olympics.

For Korean hockey fans, things have never looked more exciting in the Land of the Morning Calm.

LUCAS AYKROYD
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The Roman spring of Chris Lee

February 1, 2018, 8:41 am
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If you’re going to judge a player just by his age, Chris Lee would have no business competing for a spot on Canada’s Olympic team.

But the truth is that the last 12 months of his career, at age 37, have been the best six months. And all because of Tyson Barrie. Barrie was in Paris with Canada’s World Championship team last May when he sustained an injury in a freak accident. Hockey Canada needed a defenceman as soon as possible, so Lee, who had been playing in the KHL, was nearby and available.

“It was a nice surprise to get that call from Scott Salmond, and what an opportunity that was,” Lee enthused. “It was completely unexpected. I was the only non-NHL guy who made that roster, and it was just a great experience. And even though I wasn’t an NHL player, the guys made me completely comfortable and part of the team. Team Canada has treated me so well, at the Deutschland Cup and World Championship, and now to get the chance to dress again in this sweater is pretty special.”

Lee got into a game, looked good, then played more and more, got some power-play time on the point, and continued to look strong. “Playing in my first game was amazing,” he continued. “I was nervous, even though I’m an experienced guy. I’ve played a lot of games, but that one made me nervous. And then what a great run we had to the finals, and a great game against Sweden in the gold medal. I wish either team had won in overtime, but it’s a memory I’ll cherish forever.”

Despite being around for close to two decades at a high level, Lee didn’t step right in full of confidence. “I was unsure,” he conceded. “I’ve been away for seven years [since his last game in North America], so it had been a long time. Everyone said I could, so I had that belief down deep, but you never know until you get out there. I thought I did an okay job for the situation I was in. It was nice to get out there and realize I can skate with those guys and play at that level.”

Lee was a teenager in the mid-1990s when exactly zero NHL teams were looking for small, quick defencemen. As a result, he played provincial junior hockey in Ontario for four years, not a good sign for a Canadian with NHL aspirations. From there he went to SUNY-Potsdam, an NCAA school not exactly known for producing draft-quality pro players.

No matter. Lee started at the very bottom, skating for the Florida Everblades in the ECHL for three years. He worked his way up to the AHL but then got bounced around from team to team, the NHL still a long phone call away. From there he headed to the DEL in Germany, on to Sweden for a year, and landed in the KHL in 2013. He played four years with Metallurg Magnitogorsk, which won the championship twice (2014, 2016) with Lee anchoring the blue line.

His impressive play in Paris and Cologne gave him hope for another shot at the NHL. Less than three months ago he left the KHL to sign a PTO (professional tryout contract) with the Los Angeles Kings, but he was released by L.A. shortly before the start of the new NHL season, ending his dreams, again.

“There was a Plan A and a Plan A for me this year,” Lee explained. “I tried to make the NHL again, so it was either make the NHL, or the next Plan A was to make the Olympic team. The first Plan A didn’t work out, so now I’m on to this Plan A. Hopefully I can play well enough to earn a spot on the team.”

Things are looking good so far, even though, because of his NHL Plan A, his first real games of the new season have been with the Canadian team at the Karjala Tournament before joining his previous KHL team Metallurg afterwards for a fifth season. Lee wore the “C” in the team’s first game, against Switzerland, a good sign, to be sure.

“I don’t know,” Lee smiled. “Some of the guys told me I got it because I was the oldest guy, but it was still a special feeling. It means they have trust in me as a player and as a leader. But we have so many leaders anyone could have worn the “C.”

Still, Lee’s endurance, perseverance, and late-career success are inspirational.

“It’s been a weird run,” he continued. “I seem to be putting up better numbers as I get older. It doesn’t always work that way, but I’ve tried to stay healthy and stay in good shape, keep my legs going. I think as long as you can skate, you can play as long as you want. Age is just a number. I’ve been fortunate enough not to have any serious injuries, which is a bit part of it.”

Now Lee will be joining defencemen such as Drew Doughty, Duncan Keith, and Scott Niedermayer as players who can boast to have represented Canada at the Olympics.

ANDREW PODNIEKS
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Korean Hockey Magic

February 1, 2018, 10:00 pm
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Today, Jim Paek is the head coach of the Korean national team at age 50. But in the early 1990s, he made history on the ice with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Leading up to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, we’re looking back at some of the biggest developments in this sport in an ongoing series called “Korean Hockey Magic.”

When the Penguins drafted Paek in the ninth round (170th overall) in 1985, few would have believed that the young defenceman would win two Stanley Cups. Born in Seoul, he moved to Canada at age one with his family. His father, originally trained as a doctor, worked as a biochemist and later sold hospital supplies in Toronto, and his siblings would all go on to work in the medical field too.

During his minor hockey years, Paek invariably found himself the only player of Asian descent, but he persevered. He honed his craft during three seasons with the OHL’s Oshawa Generals and then went pro with the Muskegon Lumberjacks, Pittsburgh’s AHL affiliate. However, despite sparking Muskegon’s offence with three straight seasons of 50 or more points, he was in tough to crack the Penguins’ blue line. In 1990-91, it featured Paul Coffey, Larry Murphy, Zarley Zalapski, and other well-known veterans.

Paek only got into three regular season games, but an international experience took his game to the next level. He was loaned to the standing Canadian national team and played 48 games under Dave King, who was Canada’s head coach at the 1984, 1988 and 1992 Olympics. When Paek rejoined the Penguins for their playoff run led by superstar captain Mario Lemieux, the misfortune of others proved to be his good fortune.

The 185-cm, 88-kg blueliner cracked the lineup for three games during Pittsburgh’s second-round elimination of the Washington Capitals, as Coffey, Ulf Samuelsson and Peter Taglianetti were sidelined with injuries. Paek sat out the conference finals against the Boston Bruins, but was reinserted for Game Two of the Stanley Cup finals versus the Minnesota North Stars. This time, he stuck. He tallied his lone playoff goal in the clinching 8-0 victory in Game Six, converting Lemieux’s beautiful cross-ice feed on a 2-on-1 rush. Paek thus became the first Korean-born player ever to hoist the Cup.

However, his surprising story didn’t end there. He suited up for 49 regular season games in 1991/92, but again saved his best for the playoffs, appearing in 19 games as the Penguins earned their second straight Cup with a sweep of the Chicago Blackhawks.

Unforgettable memories abounded during Paek’s first two NHL seasons, as he teamed up with a long list of legends that also included Jaromir Jagr, Bryan Trottier, Ron Francis, Joe Mullen, and Mark Recchi. He would stay in the NHL until 1994/95, also getting stints with Los Angeles and Ottawa. He continued to ply his trade in the old IHL till 2000, and even saw time afterwards with the Nottingham Panthers in Britain.

But even after Paek retired and became an assistant coach with the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins, he never forgot his Korean roots. Since joining the Korean national program in 2014, his hope has been that some of the winning mentality he learned during those two historic Cup runs will rub off on his players for PyeongChang.

Previous stories from the series:
Part 1: National association born in 1928, sport grows

LUCAS AYKROYD
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Single games on sale now

February 2, 2018, 1:20 am
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The ticket sale for single games has started on 2nd February, which is especially good news for the many fans abroad.

The interest in the upcoming 2018 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Denmark has already proved to be significant

More than 200,000 tickets have already been sold just under four months before the championship starts at the 12,500-seat Royal Arena in Copenhagen and the 11,000-seat Jyske Bank Boxen in Herning.

Sign up for the newsletter and get notified directly when single game tickets become available.

Head of Sales and Marketing, Maja Grimnitz, explains:

“There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic when we look at the current ticket sale numbers. We are significantly ahead of the budgeted figures and are well ahead in terms of the number of tickets sold compared with previous organizer countries at this point. We will be launching the ticket sale for single games on 2nd February, and based on the advance interest figures we have experienced, and what we’ve heard from previous years, we are expecting something of a ticket boom in February. Fans from abroad generally tend to buy tickets later, as many wait to buy tickets for their respective nation’s games rather than game-day tickets, which is what we have been selling so far. The capacity of the two arenas is not as big as, for instance the Lanxess Arena in Cologne or Globen in Stockholm, so we are expecting that tickets for the games in May will be snapped up quickly.”

Ticket sales for single games will be launched on 2 February at 10.00 via 2018.iihfworlds.com.

Click in the menu to see the groups and the 16 qualified national teams, the game schedule and the ticket packages currently offered.
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Birner’s passion grows stronger

February 2, 2018, 12:02 pm
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Michal Birner of the Czech Republic has done it all. Almost.

U18 World Championship? Check (2004). World Juniors? Check (2006). World Championship? Check (2016, 2017). World Cup of Hockey? Yep (2016).

Olympics? No! (not yet)

“I’m happy with the career I’ve had,” Birner said, “but playing in the Olympics would be great! Then I could say I had played in every big tournament, so hopefully I will do that.”

He’s just a few days away. He has played in the last three major international tournaments for the Czechs—the 2016 and 2017 World Championship, and, in between, the World Cup of Hockey in Toronto in September 2016. And he earned a spot on the roster for PyeongChang 2018.

In some ways his participation in these events was surprising. He had a fine junior career, and was drafted by St. Louis in 2004 after having moved to the OHL in Canada to show his skills. But close as he came, he never skated in the NHL and ended up in the AHL and then moving around Europe, seemingly a mid-level talent, and nothing more.

But his story didn’t end there. “I had a bunch of injuries early in my career, and it was a huge disappointment I wasn’t able to make it to the NHL,” he conceded. “Maybe I wasn’t giving 100 per cent to hockey, but when I turned 25, I realized I had to change my attitude, to be more professional, and take better care of myself. All of a sudden, it started paying off. Hopefully I still have a lot of years ahead of me.”

Indeed, Birner’s play in 2016 at the Worlds in Moscow drew interest from North America. “There was a chance after 2016 when I had a good World Championship,” he said of a possible second chance at the NHL. “My agent had some talks with some NHL clubs, but it didn’t work out. I think now I’m at the stage of my career where it would be really tough. I’m comfortable with where I am and the role I have. Of course, the NHL was my childhood dream, but not every dream comes true.”

Birner’s Olympic dreams are very much alive, and just thinking about the possibility of playing takes him back to a childhood memory which he shares with every Czech citizen who was around 20 years ago.

“For the whole Czech nation the Nagano Olympics in 1998 was the biggest upset in hockey history,” he recounted. “No one was thinking the Czech team had a chance for a medal, and we won gold. The whole country stood up for that team. I remember that the games were early in the morning, so I watched with my family or if it was a school day they’d stop classes and the whole school would watch. It was amazing.”

Birner feels good about his play this season, another sign for optimism in his quest for completing participation in all top events. “I didn’t do anything different in the summer,” he explained, “but I’m feeling a lot better now than I was last year. It was difficult with the World Cup last year, a lot of flying back and forth. It took a while to get going, and it wasn’t until after Christmas that I felt good. This year, I felt good right from the start.”

The Czechs had their greatest days around that Olympic win, also taking gold at the Worlds three years in a row (1999-2001) and U20 gold in 2000 and 2001. Recently, the senior team has been in the worst slump in its long history. It hasn’t won a medal since 2012 (bronze), and the current fire-year drought is the longest ever for the great hockey nation.

The Karjala Tournament in November offered some hope, but Birner’s optimism is tempered by experience. “We had a good game against Sweden, but unfortunately we lost. I thought it was our best game. We were skating really well and we were the better team for at least half. Against Switzerland, it’s always a tough game because they play a North American style with a lot of battling, chipping a lot of pucks. We found a way to win. We were really bad against Russia. We lost every battle and they definitely deserved to win.”

As for his own play, Birner was not so forthcoming. “It’s tough for me to judge my game,” he admitted. “The coaches should do that. With the Olympics coming up, I think it’s the goal of ever player in Europe to make their team. We’ll see. I don’t look that far ahead, just go day by day and be good for my club team in Switzerland. If I play well there, I’ll have a good chance to make the Olympic team.”

He did it. After a weekend of games with Fribourg-Gotteron in the Swiss league he will join the Czech national team next week.

ANDREW PODNIEKS
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Korean Hockey Magic

February 3, 2018, 12:30 am
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Will Richard Park guide Korea to unexpected success in 2018? Now a national team assistant coach, he got one of the greatest goals in Minnesota Wild history.

Leading up to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, we’re looking back at some of the biggest developments in this sport in an ongoing series called “Korean Hockey Magic.”

The hockey gods can be unpredictable. Just look at where Park was taken in the 1994 NHL Entry Draft (second round, 50th overall to the Pittsburgh Penguins). Objectively, the Seoul-born American forward who learned to skate at age seven at the Brea Mall in Orange County, California did not go on to as successful of a career as either of the players drafted before or after him.

Mathieu Dandenault (49th overall) won three Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings and the 2003 IIHF World Championship with Canada. Patrik Elias (51st overall) also won three Cups with the New Jersey Devils, became the franchise’s all-time points leader (1,025), and earned three IIHF bronze medals with the Czech Republic at the 2006 Olympics and 1998 and 2011 Worlds.

But with all that said, Park, who moved from California to Canada at age 13 and starred with the OHL’s Belleville Bulls, would achieve his own shining moments over time.

With Pittsburgh, Anaheim, and Philadelphia, he bounced between the minors and the big league for the first six seasons of his pro career. Yet the nifty speedster started to have a real impact as a regular with the Wild in 2001/02. His biggest NHL thrill would come in 2002/03 as the defence-minded club under coach Jacques Lemaire enjoyed its deepest playoff run ever.

Minnesota was in tough against the Colorado Avalanche in the first round. Led by Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, and Patrick Roy, the Avs had won the Cup in 2001 and lost to Detroit in seven games in the 2002 Western Conference final. Forsberg was the league scoring champion with 106 points, while no Minnesota player had more than Marian Gaborik (68 points). The expansion Wild were making their first post-season appearance in three tries. Few expected these journeymen to get far, and those fears seemed valid when the Avalanche grabbed a 3-1 series lead.

However, the Wild rallied in stunning fashion. After a 3-2 road win in Game Five, they went to overtime tied 2-2 at the Xcel Energy Center in Game Six. And then it was time for peak Park.

He swooped in over the blue line, took a pass from Wes Walz, and sent a zinger from the right faceoff circle that beat Roy at 4:22. The over-capacity crowd of 19,350 exploded. Park reminisced later about his shot selection: “I was on Patrick’s left side, and I don’t know why, but I just saw a lot of net between his legs.”

Andrew Brunette famously tallied the Game Seven overtime winner in Denver, and Minnesota would edge the Vancouver Canucks in seven games in the second round before getting swept by Anaheim in the conference final.

Park had other career highlights, such as capturing a bronze medal with the United States at the 2004 IIHF World Championship in Prague. He became a consistent 30-point producer with the New York Islanders in the late 2000s. But now, having retired after two seasons with the Swiss NL’s HC Ambri-Piotta, he’s ready to find out as an assistant coach in PyeongChang whether anything can top the 2003 thrill of downing the Avalanche.

Previous stories from the series:
Part 1: National association born in 1928, sport grows
Part 2: Paek wins Stanley Cup with Pens in 1991, 1992

LUCAS AYKROYD
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Korean Hockey Magic

February 3, 2018, 10:00 pm
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This Finn was as famous for his mouth and his antics as he was for playing on Wayne Gretzky’s line. Who would have guessed Esa Tikkanen would end up in Korea?

Leading up to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, we’re looking back at some of the biggest developments in this sport in an ongoing series called “Korean Hockey Magic.”

In 2004/05, Tikkanen’s decision to suit up with Anyang Halla, Korea’s top pro team, came as a shock. The 1998 Olympic bronze medallist, who played 877 NHL games en route to five Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers, had retired in 2001 after recording 29 points in 46 games with the DEL’s Moskitos Essen. Nonetheless, the 39-year-old Tikkanen wasn’t the first hockey star to migrate to Asian pro hockey after his prime NHL and IIHF days were over.

To cite just a few pre-Tikkanen examples, Olympic gold medallists Vladimir Shadrin and Yuri Lyapkin, who represented the Soviet Union against Canada in the 1972 Summit Series, both joined Japan’s Oji Eagles starting in 1979/80. Garry Monahan, the Montreal Canadiens’ first overall draft pick in the 1963 NHL Amateur Draft and a veteran of 748 NHL games with five clubs, also signed with the Seibu Bears Tokyo that season.

However, in Korea, there has never been a bigger ex-NHLer than the ever-colourful Tikkanen. (With due respect to Steve McKenna, who played two seasons in Korea from 2006 to 2008.)

Since the left wing’s scoring and physical fitness waned in the mid-to-late 1990s, not everyone remembers that this product of Helsinki clubs Jokerit and HIFK was the perfect foil to Gretzky and Jari Kurri when the Oilers captured the 1988 Stanley Cup, scoring 10 goals and 27 assists in that run. He was equally valuable when Edmonton won its lone post-Gretzky Cup in 1990 (13-11-24), and fans of both the Oilers and Calgary Flames will never forget his first-round Game Seven overtime winner on Mike Vernon, as Edmonton marched on to the semi-finals.

Tikkanen’s baffling “Tikkanese” babble was so annoying to opponents that Gretzky, after being traded to the Los Angeles Kings, even wrote in his 1990 autobiography about how he’d like to score his final NHL goal: “Preferably, the puck would go in the goal after it bounces off Esa Tikkanen’s rear end, but I’m not particular.” It seems humorously appropriate, therefore, that there was some confusion about the terms of Tikkanen’s Anyang Halla contract.

He originally thought he was only hired to coach, but the deal stipulated he’d also play for the club, located in a city of 600,000 people just south of Seoul. Whoops! Doing double duty, Tikkanen notched a respectable 25 points in 30 Asia League games – and topped Anyang Halla with 58 penalty minutes. That was no surprise for a guy who tried to kiss both Dale Hunter and Keith Jones to irritate them during a 1994 Rangers playoff series against the Washington Capitals.

In a 2005 Associated Press interview, Tikkanen said he hoped this gig would be a stepping stone to an NHL coaching job and added: “The skill level here is pretty good. The players are fast and technically sound, but they don’t play enough games and that’s something that I think is holding them back a bit.”

Did Tikkanen’s presence kickstart the development of Korean hockey? That’s certainly up for debate. However, it’s undeniable that the very next season, Anyang Halla’s Dong Hwan Song became the first Korean-born player to lead the Asia League with 31 goals. In 2010, Anyang Halla was the first non-Japanese team to win the Asia League championship. And of course, the Korean national team is riding high in 2018 with both the PyeongChang Olympics and the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Denmark on the menu.

You’d like to think Tikkanen – the fourth all-time leading scorer in World Junior history with a silver medal to his credit (1984) and a five-time World Championship participant with one bronze (2000) – had a little something to do with that improvement.

Put it this way: if Chinese hockey enjoys similar long-term growth after the brief stint of another legendary NHL agitator, Claude Lemieux, with the now-defunct China Sharks in 2008/09, the host nation will be very happy at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

LUCAS AYKROYD
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Jagr and Nedved still got it

February 4, 2018, 5:23 am
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In a Czech second-division game that simultaneously marked the return Jaromir Jagr to his home country and Petr Nedved’s farewell game in his hometown, Jagr’s Rytiri Kladno defeated Nedved’s HC Benatky nad Jizerou 7-2. However, the final score doesn’t do justice to the night it was in Liberec.

Before the game, many thought that the two 40-somethings would be merely making cameo appearances, and that alone was enough to make it an event of national significance. However, the two Czech hockey legends left much more of an imprint on the game than that, with Jagr recording three assists, Nedved a goal and an assist, and both players – the two oldest in the game by more than a decade – had more ice time than any other forwards on their teams.

“I felt pretty good out there,” Jagr said after the game. “I was a bit worried it wouldn’t go so well, but it turned out fine.”

“I think it was a great evening, I really enjoyed it,” Nedved agreed. “I would like to thank my teammates and coaches for giving me this chance, the fans for creating such a great atmosphere around it, and of course Jagr.”

The Saturday night game was the culmination of a week’s worth of events that began with the news that Jagr had been placed on waivers by the Calgary Flames. Once he cleared waivers and was banished overseas on Monday, hockey fans and media in North America lamented “the end of a hall-of-fame career”, accompanied by the predictable reflective articles and comments.

The reaction in his native Czech Republic was slightly different, however. “Return of the king,” proclaimed the official website of the team Jagr owns and now plays for as well.

Ever since he left home at age 18 for greener pastures, his fans in Kladno and around the country have had to follow his career from afar as he won Stanley Cups and NHL scoring titles. That task became somewhat easier after the rise of cable television and the internet, but it didn’t make North American start times any easier to deal with.

There have been occasional homecomings over the years. He suited up for Kladno for stretches during the NHL lockouts of 2004/05 and 2012/13, selling out arenas wherever he went. Demand for tickets was so great during the second return that three of Kladno’s home games were moved from the team’s usual home rink to the much larger O2 Arena in Prague, some 35 km away, with all three games drawing in excess of 15,000 spectators.

Then there was the 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship, where Jagr thrilled fans at O2 Arena a few more times as a member of the Czech national team, most notably by scoring the winning goal in the quarter-final against Finland, and won the tournament MVP – a fitting end to his international career.

But now, it seems, he’s home for good.

“One of the reasons why I came back is so my parents can see me play live again. They haven’t been to America for ten years,” the 45-year-old Jagr said in a press conference on Thursday. “My mom is probably my biggest fan. She’s probably seen me play more games than all of you put together.”

A few things have changed since the last time he played in Kladno. Jagr bought controlling interest in HC Kladno in 2011, rebranded the team Rytiri, “the Knights” and gave them a new colour scheme (double blue and gold) and logo. But without their king leading them, the Knights were relegated in 2014 from the Extraliga to the WSM Liga – the second tier of Czech professional hockey. The team is currently third place in the league and hopes to return back to the top. To do that, the Knights will have to win two playoff series and then finish among the top two teams in a four-team tournament known as the “barrage” – consisting of the two semi-final winners from the WSM Liga and the bottom two teams from the Extraliga.

In order to be eligible to play in the barrage, a player must have played in at least 15 regular season and playoff games combined. With the regular season winding down, that meant that Jagr had to start playing in games right away if he wanted to make sure he would be eligible. Immediately, the remaining games on Kladno’s schedule sold out, home and away. First up was a Saturday night encounter in Benatky nad Jizerou, which presented some logistical problems.

You see, the WSM Liga consists of 14 teams that have vastly different operating budgets and revenue streams. The teams near the top such as Kladno, Ceske Budejovice, Karlovy Vary and Slavia Prague all have their eyes on advancing to the Extraliga and have played there before. In fact, Karlovy Vary and Slavia are only a decade removed from facing each other in back-to-back Extraliga finals. But look further down the standings and you see names like Trebic, Litomerice and Kadan – provincial towns with small community rinks and no realistic chances of advancing upward. Some of them even function as farm teams for Extraliga clubs.

Benatky (which also happens to be the Czech name for Venice, although some real imagination is needed to see a resemblance) is the smallest town in the league, with a population of just over 7,000. Its arena, if that is an appropriate thing to call it, has seating for 200, standing room for about 1,500 more, and no media facilities to speak of. When I contacted a writer of the club’s website to ask about the process of media accreditation, she answered: “Well, we’ve never had any accreditations.”

To rectify the situation, Benatky’s Extraliga parent club, Bili Tygri Liberec, offered to host the game at Home Credit Arena, which opened in 2005 and has seating for 7,500, making it much more capable of meeting the demand of such a spectacle.

It became even more of a spectacle when, seemingly out of the blue, it was announced that Nedved, a Liberec-native, would be coming out of retirement to play for Benatky nad Jizerou in the game. Nedved, who at 46 is three months older than Jagr, had last played competitive hockey in 2014, the year he was a teammate of Jagr’s at the Winter Olympics in Sochi. His connection to Jagr goes deeper than that. The two were both selected in the first round of the 1990 NHL Entry Draft – Nedved second overall by Vancouver and Jagr fifth by Pittsburgh. The two were also teammates in Pittsburgh for two seasons in the mid-90s and for a few weeks with the New York Rangers in 2004.

“The idea came from (Liberec) club president Petr Syrovatko,” said Nedved, who was already scheduled to have his jersey retired by Liberec on Sunday. “We talked and he said that if Jagr played for Kladno, he would probably be in the lineup against Benatky on Saturday. He asked me if I was interested in playing. I wouldn’t have come up with that idea myself, but it was fantastic – a Hollywood ending.”

Nedved was a little bit hesitant considering he hadn’t even skated since September, but admitted that “the adrenaline of such a big game is much stronger.”

However, Jagr warned that he wasn’t 100 per cent physically, as the knee problems that had plagued him in Calgary were still nagging him a bit. He would appear in as many games as possible to qualify for the barrage, but maybe only for a shift or two.

“I felt worse today than I expected,” he said after practice on Thursday. “I’ll play on Saturday in Liberec, and I’m sure fans will want to see me there, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to play the whole game. I just want to make that clear to the fans.”

As expected, the two were in the starting lineup on Saturday, with Nedved at centre for Benatky and Jagr lining up on Kladno’s right wing. Once the puck dropped, the two did not skate straight to the bench and call it a night, as some feared, but skated full shifts, and took regular turns on their teams’ top lines. Then in the 14th minute, Jagr fed a pass to 19-year-old linemate Adam Kubik, who opened the scoring on a beautiful forehand deke. Kubik, who finished the game with two goals and two assists, hadn’t been born yet when Jagr won an Olympic gold medal in Nagano. Two minutes later, Jagr assisted on another goal and got another standing ovation from the sold-out crowd.

But in the second period, Nedved responded. First, he got his team on the board by firing a beautiful wrister from the right wing that went top corner, then minutes later assisted on the tying goal. He got two standing ovations of his own, and after 40 minutes the score was 2-2 and both headliners had two points each. The building was abuzz.

It was still 2-2 halfway through the third period when Jagr got his third point of the game, assisting on the eventual winning goal. With his team down 4-2, Nedved tried to get things going by starting a dangerous rush but he was tripped. On the ensuing power play, a turnover led to a shorthanded breakaway and the 5-2 Kladno goal, and before the game was over, Kladno had racked up a 7-2 win.

However, the five-goal outburst in the third period did nothing to dampen the spirits of everyone in attendance. After the final horn, Jagr and Nedved embraced, both got yet another standing ovation, and Jagr tossed his jersey into the crowd before skating off the ice for the final time.

“I wanted to play the whole game if I could,” Nedved said after leading all players in the game with an amazing 23:56 of ice time. “We’d agreed before that if it didn’t go well I would pull myself out, but I think it went well.”

“He’s amazing,” Jagr said of his opposite number. “That he could play like that after four years of not playing makes the rest of us look bad. It seemed to me he was one of the fastest guys out there.”

Jagr’s 20:21 on the ice was much more than expected as well, and he explained: “I didn’t really know how the knee would hold up, but I played with the brace. It was pretty good. I had almost no pain. The other day I was on the ice for the first time in a month, but somehow it happened.”

So what follows this game for the two? For Nedved, even though he looked to be in fine form and fully capable of playing regularly, it was a one-time thing. The following night, in the very same arena, Liberec’s Extraliga club raised to the rafters the number 93 that he wore for the six seasons he was the team’s captain from 2008 to 2014.

“I look forward to tomorrow. It will be a slightly different evening, a little sadder, but I hope we all enjoy it,” Nedved concluded, fighting back tears.

But for Jagr, it was just the first game in his drive to bring Kladno back to the Extraliga. The next stop will be Wednesday night in Prerov, a town of 45,000 in the eastern part of the Czech Republic, where another sellout is waiting, and then next Saturday, the King makes his much-anticipated home debut in Kladno.

“We have to start playing like we’re in the playoffs already,” Jagr said, looking ahead. “I've said it in the dressing room, we can’t just be thinking it's the regular season and we’ll turn it on when the playoffs start and think we’ll win. That's not how it works. These last six games, we have to play as if it's the playoffs.”

DEREK O’BRIEN
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Korean Hockey Magic

February 4, 2018, 10:00 pm
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For years, Japan dominated Asian hockey, both in domestic pro play and internationally. But then a nifty forward named Dong Hwan Song put Korea on the map.

Leading up to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, we’re looking back at some of the biggest developments in this sport in an ongoing series called “Korean Hockey Magic.”

When the Asia League Ice Hockey launched in 2003, the sport wasn’t faring that well in either Korea or Japan. The 1966-founded Japan Ice Hockey League, suffering from low attendance, would dissolve in 2004, and the top Korean league had just bit the dust. So the Asia League provided a new alternative in which the top clubs from different Asian countries battled one another.

The Japanese had qualified to play from 1998 to 2004 in the elite IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship, as they consistently defeated Korea and China in the (now-defunct) Far East Qualifier tournament. Even though they had little success against the world’s top-16 teams, both their domestically developed talent and their high-calibre imports poised them to shine in ALIH.

So it was no surprise when former Montreal Canadiens prospects Ryan Kuwabara of the champion Nippon Paper Cranes led the league with 15 goals in the inaugural season of 2003/04, which had an abbreviated 16-game schedule. In 2004/05, Kuwabara’s Nippon teammate Masatoshi Ito – a right winger who played at three elite Worlds – topped the goals derby with 33 in a 42-game schedule. It looked like a clear pattern was emerging.

However, in 2005/06, Dong Hwan Song changed the storyline. It was easy to see how the “Korean Rocket” got his nickname. Then 25, this stocky, powerful skater wore number 96 – the same number Russian legend Pavel Bure, the “Russian Rocket,” temporarily adopted in 1995/96. More importantly, as YouTube videos attest, Song also scored highlight-reel goals in bunches for Anyang Halla, then the lone Korean club in the league.

That season, Song led the league with 31 goals as the first Korean-born and trained player to accomplish that feat. The former Korea University star’s 62 points ranked him fourth overall behind Paper Cranes star Derek Plante (a three-time 20-goal scorer with the Buffalo Sabres), Czech forward Patrik Martinec, and Masatoshi Ito.

Song wasn’t an overnight success. In fact, he’d already carved out a niche for himself at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. In 1998, he potted a whopping 30 goals in a 92-0 victory over Thailand at the Asia Oceania U18 Championship. It was the most lopsided score in international hockey history, and the Hall requested his jersey afterwards. Song was far ahead of his time, as his real-life explosion predated the 2011 Verizon TV ads in which Alexander Ovechkin scored an “Ovechtrick” consisting of nine goals.

Song’s goals title set the stage for more glory for Korean club hockey. For instance, in 2010, Anyang Halla became the first non-Japanese club to win the championship. In 2014, national team stalwart Kisung Kim made history as the first Korean named league MVP.

In 2016, Song retired with 466 career points in 392 Asia League games. Still, the legacy of the “Korean Rocket” continues to inspire his hockey-loving countrymen.

LUCAS AYKROYD
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Dutch Delight

February 5, 2018, 1:00 am
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The Netherlands u18 women’s national team took first place in the 2018 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 Women’s World Championship Division I Group B Qualification after winning all four games in Mexico City.

The Dutch, which entered its first ever U18 women’s team this year, overcame Spain, Turkey, Kazakhstan and host nation Mexico to finish with a perfect record and claim promotion to next year’s Division IB. It made for a fine start to the international coaching career of Alf Philppen, a 39-year-old former Smoke Eaters player who made a handful of junior international appearances in the 1997 World U20 C Pool.

Saturday’s showdown with the host nation proved decisive. Going into the match-up, both nations boasted 100% records, and the victor was assured of top spot regardless of the outcome of Mexico’s game against Turkey on the Sunday.

The host had good grounds for optimism: its opening game brought a historic victory over Kazakhstan, edging the central Asian hockey nation 4-3 despite trailing 0-3 at the first intermission. Joanna Rojas converted a penalty shot late in the third to snatch the win after having scored the game-tying goal. Then Mexico defeated Spain 4-1, improving on a tight 2-3 loss to the same opponent 12 months earlier in San Sebastian. With home advantage at the Mexico City Ice Dome, there were hopes that this might be the year for Mexico’s girls to advance.

But Dutch goalie Emma Fondse shattered those dreams. She made 41 saves on the night, shutting out the Mexican offence and backstopping the Netherlands to a 4-0 victory. The Nijmegen Devils netminder was one of the youngest players in the competition, celebrating her 15th birthday today when the team will travel back but produced a fine performance to frustrate the host nation.

At the other end, a Netherlands attack that had exploded in an earlier 12-1 demolition of Turkey delivered what was needed. Late in the first period, having absorbed the pressure from the home team, the Dutch took the lead when Stevie van Onna converted a power play chance. Subsequently, it was the Isabelle Schollaardt show. The alternate captain, who plays her hockey for the Hijs Hokij Wolves, had a hand in all three remaining goals. She got an assist as defender Merel Slopsema doubled the lead in the middle frame, then potted her fifth of the tournament at the start of the third. Finally, Schollaardt put up another assist as captain Maree Dijkema joined her on five goals for the competition. All the while, Fondse kept making the saves as Mexico enjoyed a big lead on the shot count but was unable to get on the board.

Dijkema, of the Geleen Smoke Eaters, finished the tournament with 12 (5+7) points to lead the Dutch scoring ahead of Schollaardt (5+6). The pair attributed their, and their team’s, success to ‘hard work’ in an interview on the Dutch federation’s website after the 5-2 victory over Kazakhstan. Larissa Haverkorn was third in scoring and the top goal scorer with 6+3 points.

Fondse shared the goaltending duties for the tournament with Wolves’ netminder Eline Gabriele, and allowed just one goal in 120 minutes, making 50 saves in total. Both led the tournament in save percentage with 98.04% and 94.29% respectively. Fondse was named best goaltender while Romy Brouwers won the award as best defender of the tournament.

Despite its disappointment against the Dutch, Mexico still took second place in the tournament. The host won its final game against Turkey 3-1, wrapping up a difficult week for the Turks with a fourth loss.

Kazakhstan, relegated from Division IB a year ago, struggled in its bid to make a swift return. Sunday night’s 3-1 defeat against Spain left the central Asian nation down in fourth place, with only a 14-1 hammering of Turkey to celebrate.

Dijkema, Schollaardt and Haverkorn led the individual scoring for the tournament, but two Kazakh players produced noteworthy performances as well. Yekaterina Kutsenko had 8 (4+4) points in the 14-1 victory over Turkey, while Alexandra Golotvina managed 3+4 in the same game. They didn’t add points from the other games and ended up fourth and fifth in scoring before Joanna Rojas, who won the best forward award.

Click here for scores and stats.

ANDY POTTS
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