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Ice Hockey 2015 - 2016 Discussion Thread

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Korea No. 1 in Far East

2018 Olympic host notches historic win vs. Japan

Korea No. 1 in Far East

 

 

Since entering the World Championship in 1930, Japan had been the undisputed Number 1 in the Far East. Today Korea changed this with a 3-0 win.

 

26 April could become kind of a holiday for Korean ice hockey. For the first time in history the men’s national team beat Japan and with seven points from the first three games will end this year’s World Championship program above their Asian rival, who has been winless in three games and will have to play for survival against Italy and Poland.

 

“It was our first win against Japan and I’m very happy and thankful to all the staff and coaches who helped us. We have improved every game here,” said Sanghoon Shin, who was named best player of his team after the game.

 

“We believed in ourselves that we could win. We had a strong will to win against Japan. That’s why we won.”

 

In 1982 Korea played its second IIHF tournament at the World Championship C-Pool in Jaca, Spain, and lost its first official game against Asian rival Japan 25-0. Since then the Koreans have improved gradually and managed first wins against Hungary and Poland in recent years but never to beat Japan. They had an overtime loss in 2012 and 6-5 and 4-2 losses the two seasons after. But now, 34 years after the blowout in Jaca, it was Korea’s time.

 

Whether this is a changing of the guard in Asia, a one-time fluke or a diversified head-to-head race for Asian supremacy in the years to come will be shown by time. But that a Korean win could happen has been as much on the horizon as the next Olympics in PyeongChang after the development in Korea in recent years and didn’t necessarily come as a surprise. It was more a when than an if question.

 

In two decades the Koreans managed to move up from the fourth to the second tier of World Championship completion. Eleven years ago Korea was still 33rd in the IIHF World Ranking. Currently they are 23rd and were even 21st two years ago.

 

The period of improvement coincided with the founding of the Asia League that started 2003/2004. The Japanese saw a departure of teams from their own professional league and saw a continental league as the solution. Korea’s Anyang Halla joined in 2003 and one year later teams from China and Russia’s Far East. In 2005 High1 joined as second Korean team and in 2014 Daemyung Sangmu was formed with hockey players having to serve in the army. All three club teams play in Seoul region and after the 2018 Olympics the Koreans hope that a fourth team will be founded in Gangneung to use one of the Olympic facilities.

 

All four countries involved benefit from the Asia League but none of them improved as much as Korea did during the 13 years. The league opened new business opportunities for hockey, a higher level of competition for Korea and with the growing number of teams more roster spots to develop Korean players. Not few Japanese credit their help through the Asia League as reason for the development. That during the last few years six North American players from these teams were naturalized to play on the Korean national team, obviously didn’t hurt the improvement of the national team either in the short run.

 

For one of these imports the game against Japan started like it finished against Poland. Playing 5-on-3 Michael Swift netted his fifth goal of the tournament at 4:18 from the right face-off circle into the top-right corner. 74 seconds later the Koreans converted the second penalty as well with a goal from Kisung Kim, who was right in front of the net with the puck after a short and quick pass from Sangwook Kim.

 

“It’s really fascinating to win this game. To have three early goals really helped us a lot. We tried to avoid thinking too much about Japan and history because if you think too much about it, it ruins the game,” Kisung Kim said. “It’s a really great moment to step forward for Korean hockey.”

 

At 11:10 it was even 3-0 for Korea. Hyung Yun Shin conquered the puck in the neutral zone and initiated a 2-on-1 by Minho Cho and Sanghoon Shin, who scored his team’s third marker of the day after Cho’s horizontal pass forcing Japan coach Greg Thomson to use his time-out and take out goaltender Shun Hitomi to bring in Takuto Onoda.

 

“We were not prepared the first 15 minutes. We lost every battle. Due to the penalties it was quickly 3-0,” the Japan coach said about the reason for the loss. “I really feel mentally and physically we were not in the game the first 15 minutes. As the game went on we started to get more into the game but Korea was the better team. A game starts at the beginning of the game and not 15 minutes into the first period.”

Korea was still dominating for most of the rest of the period and the second period and had a post shot during a power play early in the second frame.

 

When Sangwoo Sin was assessed a major penalty for checking to the head against Takuro Yamashita, the Japanese got their big opportunity to fight back but the five minutes expired without creating much danger for Matt Dalton, who got the third start in Korea’s net.

During the last period the Koreans made their own life difficult by taking unnecessary penalties but despite four penalties in five minutes against Korea, the Japanese were not able to convert the power plays into goals.

 

The Koreans were closer to scoring the fourth goal than the Japanese to stage a comeback or at least spoil Dalton’s shutout for most part of the game and undoubtedly deserved their historic success in today’s game.

 

Austria beats neighbour

Stays in run for 1st place after win vs. Italy

Austria beats neighbour

 

In their first World Championship encounter in 16 years Austria beat Italy 4-2 to remain unbeaten after three games.

 

Austria was the better team for two periods and went up 4-0 after 46 minutes of play while Italy’s two goals came too late. Andreas Kristler scored the first two goals for Austria.

 

“We can be very happy with the win against Italy. It was a great team performance from the first to fourth line. Everybody finished the hits, blocked shots and luckily we also scored the necessary goals,” Kristler said. “The Italians are a good team but I think we fought more and won the one-on-one battles.”

 

Interestingly these two teams faced each other in an IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship event for the first time since the 2000 Worlds in Russia when Italy, with Armin Helfer on the roster, blanked Austria 3-0. Since then ways didn’t cross mostly due to the fact that the countries were playing in different divisions while regularly moving going up and down between the first and second tier of play.

 

The game was a relaunch of a neighbouring clash and some of the players know each other latest since Italy’s strongest club team Bolzano Foxes joined the Austrian EBEL in 2014. 10 players from the Italian national team and head coach Stefan Mair also share the language with Austria as German-speaking South Tyroleans.

 

Austria had the better start into the game and was rewarded with a goal at 12:21 of the opening period. Kristler deflected Fabio Hofer’s shot from the blueline into the Italian net.

 

Midway through the second period it was again Kristler, who scored for Austria. Hofer conquered the puck at the side boards and the two Austrians battled in front of the net to get the puck past the Italian defence in the crease. The Italians blocked two attempts but third time was a charm for the Kristler and his Austrian teammates.

 

With 50 seconds left in the middle frame Konstantin Komarek made it 3-0 with a shot from behind the right face-off dot during Austria’s first power play that ended after just 19 seconds.

 

The Austrians continued to be the better team in the beginning of the third period and at 6:16 Stefan Bacher made it 4-0 with a slap shot that beat Italian goalie Andreas Bernard high.

 

Italy’s reaction with goals from Andreas Egger and Armin Helfer came too late to become a game-changing moment.

 

“It’s very easy, the team that scores more often wins. It’s one game. Everything can happen. We were ready and fought but they won. It wasn’t our best game and that’s it,” Italy forward Joachim Ramoser said.

 

“There are two more games and even if we can probably not get promoted we are still battling for a medal.”

 

With the win Austria remains in contention for first place before the next games against host Poland and unbeaten rival Slovenia while for Italy will play Japan and Korea to secure their place in the Division I Group A and play for a medal.

 

Poland stops Slovenia

Host gets first win in Katowice

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Host Poland won its first game and landed a 4-1 upset win against Slovenia, the leader after the first two game days, at the World Championship Division IA.

 

The Poles were under pressure after a miserable start into the tournament with losses to lower seeded Italy and Korea while Slovenia looked like the hardest team to beat here in Katowice after the first two game days. But today the Polish national team came back to life also thanks to Tomasz Malasinski’s hat trick.

 

It all started with an early goal. At 3:55 the Poles gained the lead for the first time in the tournament. The Slovenes were not able to clear the puck for a while and Malasinski deflected a shot from Pawel Dronia. But three minutes later the Slovenian fans at Spodek were cheering when their team capitalized on the first power play. After first chances and passes Ziga Jeglic managed to be undisturbed on the left side of the net and scored after Robert Sabolic’s diagonal pass through the zone.

 

Poland became stronger in the middle frame where it early regained the lead when Mikolaj Lopuski scored after a Patryk Wronka shot had gone wide but bounced back from the end boards. Four minutes later the home crowd went wild again when the Poles capitalized on a 3-on-2 attack. Wronka patiently approached the goal from the left side and after a smart horizontal pass Malasinski netted the puck from right of the goal post. With 1:51 left in the period Malasinski completed his hat trick with the 4-1 goal capitalizing on a rebound.

 

Slovenia tried a comeback attempt in the third period and had its chances such as in the 9th minute when Polish goalie Rafal Radziszewski, who had 32 saves in his first game of the tournament, did a wonderful glove save on an Ales Kranjc shot. Six-and-a-half minutes before the end the Slovenes made their own life harder with a team penalty for having six players on the ice.

 

For Poland it was the first win in a World Championship event against Poland in 16 years. The last one happened 2000 at the same site, the historic Spodek arena in Katowice. Poland was hosting the same event and beat Slovenia 3-1. After that Slovenia had three wins, 4-2 in the top division in 2002, 4-1 on Poland’s ice at the Division I tournament in Gdansk in 2004 and 3-2 on home ice in Ljubljana in 2010.

With the win Poland makes the race for first place exciting. Austria took over first place with nine points, one more than Korea and two more than Slovenia. Korea and Slovenia will play a path-breaking game tomorrow.

 

Poland’s chances to earn promotion remain slim but the win was a first step to remain in this tier and battle for a medal in the next two games.

 

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hckošice Mentor

hckošice   14,824

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4 minutes ago, VolleyRuller96 said:

Korea scored the first goal against Slovenia only 40 seconds after the  beggining of the match :yikes:What happened to :SLO since monday ? 

 

 

Remember if Korea will win this match in regular time , they will qualify for top division !!!

 

Kovačevič just equalized the score in power play, well done. Go Slovenia !

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VolleyRuller96   264

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1 minute ago, hckosice said:

I love this goal song! I just love him:d btw great goal by Kuralt. 2-1 for SLO after 1st period

And of course as Always just after i cricitized a team for its weak playing then it started to play much better :d congrats Slovenia!

My favourite Volleyball position: LIBERO. You ask why? Look here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyIOarNAONk

 

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