rom Lucas Aykroyd of IIHF.com,
Hockey is gaining momentum in South Korea – not just from the upcoming XXIII Olympic Winter Games, but also from the national team’s recent promotion from Division IA to the 2018 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Denmark (Copenhagen and Herning). Head coach Jim Paek and assistant coach Richard Park are former NHLers of Korean descent who are leading the charge.
South Korea will become just the fourth non-European country to host the Winter Games after the United States, Canada, and Japan. The already-completed hockey venues are the Gangneung Hockey Centre (capacity 10,000) and Kwangdong Hockey Centre (capacity 6,000).
This will be the first Winter Olympics in Asia since Nagano, Japan in 1998. The 2022 Winter Olympics will take place in Asia in Beijing, China. It’s part of what South Korean organizers are touting as a new Asian era in sports, with the 2020 Summer Olympics also coming to Tokyo, Japan.
Lee, who noted that the distance between PyeongChang and Beijing is less than the distance between New York and Chicago, emphasized that he remains open to negotiations to bring NHLers to South Korea next year.
“As long as the NHL intends to participate in Beijing, they should also participate in PyeongChang,” Lee said. “I don’t think they’ve made a final decision so far. We still have lots to negotiate. Nothing is concluded until the final conclusion is made.”
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