I’m from Hong Kong and I play ice hockey in Hong Kong you can find me in the Hong Kong typhoon ice hockey team and my linemate brother is also playing the Hong Kong vs North Korea game
I actually watched the gold medal game between Bosnia and North Korea in person, and the barn was absolutely full. The fans were into it and the players were feeding off the energy. Not the most beautiful hockey, considering the standard I've become accustomed to watching the NHL, but it's awesome to see the end to end action and a "what the hell is backchecking" style of play. TBH though the Bosnian team started really boxing out the NK and then they had no answer for it. Super interesting experience.
There are 8 total tiers of the Men's World Hockey Championship, if you're interested in checking out the others! (This is the 7th tier, but the first to be played this year)
It was the USSR that introduced ice hockey to North Korea decades ago and clearly they like the sport because they still play it after all those years. A Canadian, Michael Spavor, organised several diplomatic exhibition games throughout the years, which may have helped maintain the popularity of the sport there. I remember seeing a CBC report about him and his nonprofit organisation. He also was the one who managed to have Dennis Rodman to travel to North Korea. I thought it was a good thing, to organize such non-political events, as it can be a way to open some form of dialogue later on. It made the North Koreans see that we are not that bad and that we could be friends. Spavor was arrested by the Chinese government for espionage, was later released and now claims he was used by another Canadian, a real spy called Michael Kovrig, which provoked his arrest. He is now suing the Canadian government for involving him without his consent. You can add that to the long list of gaffes made by our current Canadian government.
@@dwightropp3014 Yep. And I've got news. Spavor and the government just reached a multimillion dollar settlement a couple days ago. Clearly they didn't want him to expose their shenanigans in court.
@@jonah.donohue 1) The current govt sent that spy in China, not the previous government 2) The arrest of Spavor/Kovrig was made after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou on behalf of the USA based on charges that were later dismissed by them, so basically Canada did America's dirty work, got their own citizen in trouble in doing so and were caught in the crossfire due to their incompetence
What people tend to forget about the smaller hockey nations is that the guys are playing for the love of the game in places where the sport is incredibly niche... Kuwait and Malaysia both have teams. Colombia has a program. These guys aren't growing up around the same infrastructure for the sport we had so it's unfair to expect even FPHL level hockey. These guys all have day jobs they have to take time away from to compete and have to spend way more to import equipment and for ice time (if they even have ice in their home town). It's actually impressive when you consider all the hurdles they have to face that they manage to get teams on the ice at all.
Whereas we got suburban kids by the dozens, even ones that dont end up interested, starting early af in house league tyke, to keep them active and teach them to socialize and learn about teamwork, and a culture of not leaving any kid behind that wants to play, and your families attics and second hand sports shops full of cheap accessable gear, if somebody here wants to play hockey, they're gonna, there's plenty of outlets
I play for Lebanon and the team is probably like Jr. B level or so (in Canada) or like Div. 2 or 3 college hockey in USA. Obvs we're not pros, but the hockey is pretty good compared to what people may think
As a Canadian I've been watching the Australian Ice Hockey League online since 2012 and New Zealand Ice Hockey League since 2013. Both countries are a couple divisions higher than this. Is it the greatest hockey ever, no, but is it enjoyable to watch and see the growth of the game in unconventional markets, absolutely
As a Canadian, I hear you. There's professional soccer in North America. The Vancouver Whitecaps are fun to watch, but Canadian soccer is certainly not at the same level as Brazil, Argentina, or European countries soccer.
I think if there was a bigger effort to grow the game in Australia, New Zealand & the UK with real funding & high level skill coaches the game would really take off in those countries... It's gonna be a super slow process till there's a good amount of high level skill coaches in those countries to really take a strong leap forward...
@@alainsoucysergerie9879at least North Korea isn’t commuting a genocide against 7 million uighurs like communist china is. North Korea is evil, but china is even more deplorable
I played for Puerto Rico's team at a tournament about 2.5 years ago. Now they're an affiliate member of the IIHF! Small progress goes a long way, especially for places that may not even have an ice rink!
I have an old team picture of the NY Westsiders of the old Met League. The picture is from the 1970's. The star of the team was Joe Mullen, multiple Stanley Cup winner and Hockey Hall-of-Famer, and there was a couple of Puerto Ricans on that team, including the goalie.
@@RRaquello - Doesn't surprise me; Joe was a great NHLer. Of the top 100 career goal scorers, he has the 17th best goals-per-game average, which is very impressive!
I'm Canadian and of Filipino decent, and I loosely followed the Philippines at this tournament (they are still a relatively new team to the World Championship level). They tore through last year's Division 4 tournament to get to D3B this year, where they came in 4th.
Thanks for covering this. I actually watched a few games of this tourney via streams. I was very surprised to know that my birthplace of HKG has an ice hockey team, and it actually played well. It upset Bosnia in OT in a round robin game!
Go to the IIHF youtube page they have plenty of games from most divisions, I was surprised how good some of the higher division are. Entertaining hockey for sure.
I would say, its like decent level amateur/retiree league. Most likely worse. Look up 1992-1995 scores of these tournaments when teams like Latvia played there. 30-50 goal games playing on 1 skate... Japan would probably beat them 30-1.
If you wanted a deeper look at the men's program, I made a feature documentary about them called Closing The Gap: Hockey in North Korea. Followed them in and out of country while they were playing Div IIB.
@@fleatactical7390actually Namibia is a former IIHF member (and the only *former* IIHF member that's still an existing country), as they have a national inline hockey team and used to play in lower divisions of the inline hockey championship held by the IIHF. But they have no ice hockey team, and after the IIHF ceased to hold the inline hockey championships, Namibia left the IIHF
I live in NE China near North Korea. They do play hockey in China and I see some good training on internet streams. I saw a hockey player loading his gear into mom's car the other day. Two right hand sticks. I'd say in 25 years, Asia will produce bonafide ice hockey talent. Both the guys and gals.
I saw videos a while back about some guys trying to start a league....in Kenya! I believe there is one sheet of ice , in a mall , in the entire country. The obvious nightmare about getting equipment is a real issue , most of it was second hand stuff shipped from some guy in Toronto. But a league was forming , and I give them credit.
Nice stuff. I watched parts of a small Southeast Asian tournament in the Philippines and was a bit surprised by the talent level. Some of the kids had played juniors in Europe.
Hockey in Asia is still in its infancy and partly bec. most of Asia naturally doesn’t have snow. Its still considered an expensive sport so entry is not easy. But it is growing and slowly getting more recognized. Hopefully in the future it will be truly globalized.
I think it’s because of the physicality required. For example South Korea is one of the top countries in the world for speed skating but not hockey because it is the culturally acceptable to have underweight bodies even on men.
@@ingetout I think a lot of it is both physical and mental. Even in North America the asians who climb the ladder are more on the defensive side of the puck. They don't have the same aggressiveness and attack mindset. Physically they are also less likely to initiate contact. Seen it through many youth players even if born in NA. In general, asian athletes are more geared for the precision sports rather than the physically demanding ones. I also have a theory about endurance / VO2max as a genetic hindrance but I'll leave it there.
Its more so genetics. Asians live in agricultural societies meaning they eat less meat and more produce or grains making them smaller and thinner than average. That's why you don't typically see ethnic hockey players unless they grew up in the west.
@@user-bh8rr7rv2yi wish for the day we can move beyond the small frail asian stereotype. think about the fact that hockey requires a ton of special equipment, a rink, time & $$$. when folks can make more money playing basketball (requires much smaller court and one ball) and the entry point is much easier. so, more chinese basketball players than hockey players. also consider population density: good luck fitting rinks in Shanghai or Hong Kong that can be used by more than [% of the population i’m an asian raised in the West. my body looks and functions the way it does because of genetics, not because i was fed soy and eat rice. see how heart disease is working out for Beefeater Westoids
I played on an expat team in South Korea and we had a few Korean players on the team. Though hockey is not popular there, these players were quite good players. They had played junior hockey in Canada or the US. It was a challenge for some of us older beer league players with/against these youngsters, though we did have a few Canadians who had played junior A or B.
International hockey needs the structure FIFA has to continue to grow the game globally. No more of these Mickey Mouse Bettman World Cup of Hockey in 2016 or this Bettman 4-team tourney in 2025! This was awesome to see N.Korea and Hong Kong playing at group levels!
One thing the IIHF should get inspired by FIFA is letting players play for national teams of birth countries of their parents or grandparents without the requirement of spending several players there. It could help those minor national teams to improve and achieve some goods results, which could in turn help ice hockey gain popularity in these countries
@@jakubondrus6064 100% agree. Europe, Central Asia and Asia really relate to national team's success in any sport by any gender. They love to see themselves compete with the best regionally and internationally.
@@BillyJoeMcallisterjust a few weeks ago, there was a heated debate in the Czech Republic over a young NHLer (can't remember his name) of Czech ancestry about calling him up for the WC. Sadly, the current IIHF rules can't allow him to play for the Czech Republic internationally (as he's never played for a Czech team), but it only shows the potential this rule change could bring even to established hockey nations, so imagine how much it could help less developed countries
@@jakubondrus6064 Awful! I recall with FIFA dual passport holders; picking and choosing which country they would play for. Thanks for pointing this out, I will use this in conversations....
We often don't know about the non-traditional countries that still play ice hockey, but they may someday have important contributions. Sean Day was granted exceptional status to the OHL to play as a 15 year old, but you may not know that he actually learned to skate and play while his family was living in Singapore
See, as much as I love the idea of a World Cup and hope that becomes a regular thing, I absolutely adore shit like this. Two countries with no pros, no rep, and no real skill battling it out in the Division III World Championships. There's an inspirational Disney+ movie hidden in there somewhere, I'm sure of it hahahaha
Randy Gregg of the Edmonton Oilers played hockey in Japan. He played for the Kokudo Bunnies. He was also a medical doctor to boot. Calgary Flames head coach Dave King coached hockey in Japan.
To be fair, a solid Senior team in Sask is mostly college/Junior A/CHL players that are in their primes physically. Dominate may be too kind of a word.
Teams in nation where hockey is one of the major sports and regularly exports players that are great but not show level would dominate teams from nations where hockey is so on the fringes it might as well not exist. Thanks for clearing that up guys it really needed to be reiterated.
Well tbf at least the naturalised foreigners are Chinese by descent, UAE team are just naturalised foreigners with no connection to the state other than moving there a few years ago
I agree. Good hockey can be found anywhere in the world. Yes, the level one might see in top tier leagues might not be everywhere, but I said "good" I didn't say "the best". People tend to forget that, for the longest time during the Cold War, the Soviet Union was more or less unbeatable in Ice Hockey, winning basically everything all the time, to the point that when team USA beat them once it was called a miracle. And the centennial all-star team voted by the International Ice Hockey Federation contains 4 Soviet players of their starting line up of 6. One can argue that its because NHL players wouldn't compete in the International Ice Hockey Federation World Cup, which MIGHT be true, but that seems more of a NHL problem than an International Ice Hockey Federation problem. If the NHL really considered that beating the Soviets was important, they would have no problem in allowing their players to represent their country in the World Cup.
You see the same in football in the lower divisions. It's a crossover between a slaughterhouse and Stalingrad in 1942. And, yes, I mean football.. Not eggball a.k.a American football.
The local high school team just made state semi-finals, and from what I saw the HS team would be the bigger, faster, and more skilled team on the ice. I saw a short piece on the DPRK team when they first started, and they have clearly come a long way - vast improvement. If they find a good way to locate and develop talent across their country, they have a future.
The level is Division IIIB and it looks like Division IIIB, but there seems to be a lot of passion among these players and frankly, hockey is not mainstream in these jurisdictions and the infrastructure is thin. North Korea puts more resources into football/soccer and Hong Kong doesn't have harsh winters and rinks are few and far between. Interestingly, considering North Korean winters, a skating/hockey culture with outside rinks during the wintertime is possible in that country. All the neighboring regions bordering the DPRK play hockey and you have some professional teams.
"Brutal camera coverage by the way" - this is actually pretty awesome though. I completely agree that this is great for the game and I love to see people enjoying the game no matter what level they play at.
Great video! I remember that the KHL was thinking of expanding to Pyongyang around 2014 or 2015 or so. There was also talk about maybe putting in a South Korean team to match the team in Beijing. It didn't happen, of course, but it still might happen in the future. North Korea has had good figure skating for decades. I think hockey would be a good fit. Totally off the subject - but did you know there was a Taiwanese drama about 15 years ago that featured a male lead who was on a hockey team? I could see the DPRK, since it's cold. Hong Kong and Taiwan, though? I dunno...
@@jamiecampbell7056Sure - but the NHL is an international league. You're not going to convince Canadians and Russians to go play hockey in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
The nhl needs to try and open the market in asia. Hockey is almost nonexistent there from a popularity and participation standpoint. I definitely feel like if countries like japan, who are having a great run in sports and athletes right now, actually played hockey there’d be a decent amount of talent coming to the nhl from there.
How someone from there even gets to a high level baffles me. There’s a guy from Japan who plays on my hometown ECHL team & im like how did you ever even develop enough to get to D1 college??
@@bobbobertson7568 having a national team doesn’t mean they play the sport. The US has a national cricket team. Vietnam has a national baseball team. Lol.
Tbf the Olympics could've helped popularise ice hockey in Asia in 2018 and 2022, but the NHL refuse to release the best players in the world, thus obstacling the future growth of the sport in a potentially lucrative major market, great choice on their side
I'm Canadian. I lived here my whole life. Ended up marrying a woman from Hong Kong. She taught me how to skate. She took figure skating lessons in her late teens.
U have to realize that Finns didn't just magically get good at hockey. They played out in the ice made for it as a kid. Like I remember my brother taking me to the ice on a I guess cart you could call it made to slid in snow and we were there ice skating the whole day. All 6+ hours.
0:15 - "B", for Bottom of the Barrel. IIHF IIIB is the second lowest level with an annual tournament, the level below containing Indonesia, Kuwait, Malaysia, and Mongolia. And could barely beat Nepal, Tibet, or India's Ladakh province. The tenth tier of UK football is closer to the premiership than IIIB is to IIHF Division I (e.g. Canada, Sweden, etc.).
ngl I'd be actually interested in going to watch some low division hockey games live. Hockey is so small in these countries, so these are niche athletes putting time and effort into something out of pure passion.
This was the first time North Korea participated since 2019. To my knowledge they havent played any friendly matches against any other countries to train for this event. Obviously ice hockey is not their main sport. There was a time in the 90s when North and South Korea were similar in IIHF level and skill. South Korea is now a DIV 1B/1A level team.
We, in Republic of Ireland used to be a part of Div3, but now our ice rink is abandoned for 10 years, cause government took it and never used, we have to go for 2.5 hours to another country one way, to play hockey. And we are allowed to participate in development cups only, since we don't have permanent ice on our territory :(
I remember when Ireland used to compete with Mongolia, Greece, or Armenia in Div3. Mongolia is back already and I wish to see Ireland, Greece, and Armenia back soon!
I played hockey for team South Africa against North Korea at IIHF oceanic world juniors held in North Korea back in ‘99. Crazy experience. (yes, South Africa has hockey too)
Good for Hong Kong, North Korea and any other country that wants to play hockey. As a Finnish native I'm so used to the top tier in international matches that easily forgets that its played all around. Also fell into the mind trap of "they are not taking it serious" while those play in smaller hockey countries do actually want to play as well as they can and enjoy the game.
I played local league hockey in Ontario and we would beat rep teams in tournaments. The North Korean guys in the video are pretty similar. I'd say they're equivalent to a Peewee, maybe Bantam house league team. I'm not sure what the American names would be.
Somewhere in ABC’s vault is film of China’s first competition in mixed pairs figure skating. I saw a brief clip years ago of the man basically throwing his poor partner to the ice, but he maintains a majestic pose as she flails. One of the funniest things I have seen.
Might not be the highest level of play, but, these guys are at least having fun, and the game was competetive. I mean, hey, 10-8, shows you that the defence and goaltending might be lacking, but the celly is banging!
I heard Kim Jon can skate 100miles and hour and scores 20 goals a game.
He also never allowed a single goal as a goalie for 157 seasons in a row, playing 248 games a year
Never pooped once
Heard that too!
20 goals a PERIOD.
gretzky of the east
I scored 144 goals in a game the other day and I was hangover
Excellent work! You are great leader. :)
Yes Dear Marshall, we were all sorry to hear that you had the worst game of your career.
Never had a hangover. They don't make numbers large enough for the amount I score.
@@tartoon5550lmfao
Ah you are joking with us oh great leader! We all know with your super human strength you can never get hungover!
I don't know about that level of play... but that was definitely a world class celly!
I’m from Hong Kong and I play ice hockey in Hong Kong you can find me in the Hong Kong typhoon ice hockey team and my linemate brother is also playing the Hong Kong vs North Korea game
@dwightropp3014 hes lying bro, look at their profile and name
@@forthewynn2058-- It does look like it. Where are their parents?
@frothewynn2058 I’m not lying I will upload my ice hockey video on it and my friend is called Bob Ngan just go see my channel for prove
Just wait the video is with my phone
Go check the HK hockey dad UA-cam channel there is my game in every Sunday
I actually watched the gold medal game between Bosnia and North Korea in person, and the barn was absolutely full. The fans were into it and the players were feeding off the energy. Not the most beautiful hockey, considering the standard I've become accustomed to watching the NHL, but it's awesome to see the end to end action and a "what the hell is backchecking" style of play. TBH though the Bosnian team started really boxing out the NK and then they had no answer for it. Super interesting experience.
Hope you had a nice time in my country i was there too
Bad hockey, bad fans, some really bad countries. What more could you ask for? You have really lowered the bar..
@@Scribe127batter fans then NHL. And bosnia has good fans in general so their hockey fans is probebly good also.
This was a nice change up. I like the coverage of international hockey
There are 8 total tiers of the Men's World Hockey Championship, if you're interested in checking out the others!
(This is the 7th tier, but the first to be played this year)
Right on did you guys go to the Quebec international pee wee hockey tournament?
It was the USSR that introduced ice hockey to North Korea decades ago and clearly they like the sport because they still play it after all those years. A Canadian, Michael Spavor, organised several diplomatic exhibition games throughout the years, which may have helped maintain the popularity of the sport there. I remember seeing a CBC report about him and his nonprofit organisation. He also was the one who managed to have Dennis Rodman to travel to North Korea. I thought it was a good thing, to organize such non-political events, as it can be a way to open some form of dialogue later on. It made the North Koreans see that we are not that bad and that we could be friends.
Spavor was arrested by the Chinese government for espionage, was later released and now claims he was used by another Canadian, a real spy called Michael Kovrig, which provoked his arrest. He is now suing the Canadian government for involving him without his consent. You can add that to the long list of gaffes made by our current Canadian government.
Amen. The current Canadian Trudeau regime is an international embarrassment, as well as its cbc propaganda wing
Wow, good to know! And yes, another gaffe added to the list!
@@dwightropp3014 Yep. And I've got news. Spavor and the government just reached a multimillion dollar settlement a couple days ago. Clearly they didn't want him to expose their shenanigans in court.
What does the last part have to do with our CURRENT govenrment/parliament
@@jonah.donohue 1) The current govt sent that spy in China, not the previous government 2) The arrest of Spavor/Kovrig was made after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou on behalf of the USA based on charges that were later dismissed by them, so basically Canada did America's dirty work, got their own citizen in trouble in doing so and were caught in the crossfire due to their incompetence
What people tend to forget about the smaller hockey nations is that the guys are playing for the love of the game in places where the sport is incredibly niche... Kuwait and Malaysia both have teams. Colombia has a program. These guys aren't growing up around the same infrastructure for the sport we had so it's unfair to expect even FPHL level hockey. These guys all have day jobs they have to take time away from to compete and have to spend way more to import equipment and for ice time (if they even have ice in their home town). It's actually impressive when you consider all the hurdles they have to face that they manage to get teams on the ice at all.
Whereas we got suburban kids by the dozens, even ones that dont end up interested, starting early af in house league tyke, to keep them active and teach them to socialize and learn about teamwork, and a culture of not leaving any kid behind that wants to play, and your families attics and second hand sports shops full of cheap accessable gear, if somebody here wants to play hockey, they're gonna, there's plenty of outlets
I play for Lebanon and the team is probably like Jr. B level or so (in Canada) or like Div. 2 or 3 college hockey in USA. Obvs we're not pros, but the hockey is pretty good compared to what people may think
As a Canadian I've been watching the Australian Ice Hockey League online since 2012 and New Zealand Ice Hockey League since 2013. Both countries are a couple divisions higher than this. Is it the greatest hockey ever, no, but is it enjoyable to watch and see the growth of the game in unconventional markets, absolutely
It takes the players' minds off of their dreadful lives for a couple of hours.
As a Canadian, I hear you. There's professional soccer in North America. The Vancouver Whitecaps are fun to watch, but Canadian soccer is certainly not at the same level as Brazil, Argentina, or European countries soccer.
I think if there was a bigger effort to grow the game in Australia, New Zealand & the UK with real funding & high level skill coaches the game would really take off in those countries... It's gonna be a super slow process till there's a good amount of high level skill coaches in those countries to really take a strong leap forward...
@@dvo1245a century ago, the UK was a dominant force in European hockey. Sad to see how they've fallen out
Dprk hockey #1 🗣
We know you were forced to say this.
Hold tight, pal. Help's on the way.
@@alainsoucysergerie9879at least North Korea isn’t commuting a genocide against 7 million uighurs like communist china is. North Korea is evil, but china is even more deplorable
@@alainsoucysergerie9879 Hahahahaaha I'm ☠
I played for Puerto Rico's team at a tournament about 2.5 years ago. Now they're an affiliate member of the IIHF! Small progress goes a long way, especially for places that may not even have an ice rink!
Nice! More power to ya!
I have an old team picture of the NY Westsiders of the old Met League. The picture is from the 1970's. The star of the team was Joe Mullen, multiple Stanley Cup winner and Hockey Hall-of-Famer, and there was a couple of Puerto Ricans on that team, including the goalie.
@@RRaquello - Doesn't surprise me; Joe was a great NHLer. Of the top 100 career goal scorers, he has the 17th best goals-per-game average, which is very impressive!
I'm Canadian and of Filipino decent, and I loosely followed the Philippines at this tournament (they are still a relatively new team to the World Championship level).
They tore through last year's Division 4 tournament to get to D3B this year, where they came in 4th.
Good to see more countries get a chance at hockey
as a canadian I think this is awesome,hockey's a great sport
Well said!
YEAH! DEEDLE- E...DOODLE- E!!! 🤪
Thanks for covering this. I actually watched a few games of this tourney via streams. I was very surprised to know that my birthplace of HKG has an ice hockey team, and it actually played well. It upset Bosnia in OT in a round robin game!
Instead of highlights, I would like to see a few shifts without any interruptions. That would help understand the levels of
Go to the IIHF youtube page they have plenty of games from most divisions, I was surprised how good some of the higher division are. Entertaining hockey for sure.
I would say, its like decent level amateur/retiree league. Most likely worse. Look up 1992-1995 scores of these tournaments when teams like Latvia played there. 30-50 goal games playing on 1 skate... Japan would probably beat them 30-1.
If you wanted a deeper look at the men's program, I made a feature documentary about them called Closing The Gap: Hockey in North Korea. Followed them in and out of country while they were playing Div IIB.
ua-cam.com/video/qFF2bGm3hKM/v-deo.html&ab_channel=whistlerfilm
This was actually better than I expected.
Looks like they can skate better than certain Leafs draft picks of the early 1980's.
Nice coverage. Hockey can be anywhere. Love it!!!
Namibia?
@@fleatactical7390actually Namibia is a former IIHF member (and the only *former* IIHF member that's still an existing country), as they have a national inline hockey team and used to play in lower divisions of the inline hockey championship held by the IIHF. But they have no ice hockey team, and after the IIHF ceased to hold the inline hockey championships, Namibia left the IIHF
@@jakubondrus6064 Well, I learned something today. I guess then that there are likely a lot more national inline teams out there.
I live in NE China near North Korea. They do play hockey in China and I see some good training on internet streams. I saw a hockey player loading his gear into mom's car the other day. Two right hand sticks. I'd say in 25 years, Asia will produce bonafide ice hockey talent. Both the guys and gals.
Yes I am excited for the future of hockey in Asia. I would love to play on a rink in China or DPRK one day. Love from Canada
Where you at, bro? Harbin? That city was dope.
Changchun, Jilin. 200K south of Harbin.@@chrisg7731
Highly unlikely
I heard Kim jong uno scored 144 goals in a game while he was hungover
Interesting to see a big UA-camr showing footage from lower levels of international hockey. Thank you
Where did you find the stream because i wanted to watch these games out of curiosity and didnt find it
I saw videos a while back about some guys trying to start a league....in Kenya!
I believe there is one sheet of ice , in a mall , in the entire country. The obvious nightmare about getting equipment is a real issue , most of it was second hand stuff shipped from some guy in Toronto.
But a league was forming , and I give them credit.
Kim's slap shot breaks the sound barrier
Nice stuff. I watched parts of a small Southeast Asian tournament in the Philippines and was a bit surprised by the talent level. Some of the kids had played juniors in Europe.
Emerson was playing goalie in our ball hockey league here in Japan a few months ago. He's an amazing goalie!
Hockey in Asia is still in its infancy and partly bec. most of Asia naturally doesn’t have snow. Its still considered an expensive sport so entry is not easy. But it is growing and slowly getting more recognized. Hopefully in the future it will be truly globalized.
there's lots of snow in Asia lol even if we rule out countries like Russia.
I think it’s because of the physicality required. For example South Korea is one of the top countries in the world for speed skating but not hockey because it is the culturally acceptable to have underweight bodies even on men.
@@ingetout I think a lot of it is both physical and mental. Even in North America the asians who climb the ladder are more on the defensive side of the puck. They don't have the same aggressiveness and attack mindset. Physically they are also less likely to initiate contact. Seen it through many youth players even if born in NA. In general, asian athletes are more geared for the precision sports rather than the physically demanding ones. I also have a theory about endurance / VO2max as a genetic hindrance but I'll leave it there.
Its more so genetics. Asians live in agricultural societies meaning they eat less meat and more produce or grains making them smaller and thinner than average. That's why you don't typically see ethnic hockey players unless they grew up in the west.
@@user-bh8rr7rv2yi wish for the day we can move beyond the small frail asian stereotype. think about the fact that hockey requires a ton of special equipment, a rink, time & $$$. when folks can make more money playing basketball (requires much smaller court and one ball) and the entry point is much easier. so, more chinese basketball players than hockey players. also consider population density: good luck fitting rinks in Shanghai or Hong Kong that can be used by more than [% of the population
i’m an asian raised in the West. my body looks and functions the way it does because of genetics, not because i was fed soy and eat rice. see how heart disease is working out for Beefeater Westoids
An 8-10 hockey game would certainly be worth watching.
I played on an expat team in South Korea and we had a few Korean players on the team. Though hockey is not popular there, these players were quite good players. They had played junior hockey in Canada or the US. It was a challenge for some of us older beer league players with/against these youngsters, though we did have a few Canadians who had played junior A or B.
These guys play hockey like they watched nhl on tv once and mimicked it. Amazing
Me, a goalie, being horrified by the score lol
That celly is proof that he has been playing the forbidden American NHL 2015!
Thank for the cool video. Nice seeing other countries play hockey at any level.
International hockey needs the structure FIFA has to continue to grow the game globally. No more of these Mickey Mouse Bettman World Cup of Hockey in 2016 or this Bettman 4-team tourney in 2025! This was awesome to see N.Korea and Hong Kong playing at group levels!
One thing the IIHF should get inspired by FIFA is letting players play for national teams of birth countries of their parents or grandparents without the requirement of spending several players there. It could help those minor national teams to improve and achieve some goods results, which could in turn help ice hockey gain popularity in these countries
@@jakubondrus6064 100% agree. Europe, Central Asia and Asia really relate to national team's success in any sport by any gender. They love to see themselves compete with the best regionally and internationally.
@@BillyJoeMcallisterjust a few weeks ago, there was a heated debate in the Czech Republic over a young NHLer (can't remember his name) of Czech ancestry about calling him up for the WC. Sadly, the current IIHF rules can't allow him to play for the Czech Republic internationally (as he's never played for a Czech team), but it only shows the potential this rule change could bring even to established hockey nations, so imagine how much it could help less developed countries
@@jakubondrus6064 Awful! I recall with FIFA dual passport holders; picking and choosing which country they would play for. Thanks for pointing this out, I will use this in conversations....
The USSR introduced hockey to North Korea during the Cold War. North Koreans playing hockey doesn’t seem strange when you remember the Cold War
What's up with the blue lines?
We often don't know about the non-traditional countries that still play ice hockey, but they may someday have important contributions. Sean Day was granted exceptional status to the OHL to play as a 15 year old, but you may not know that he actually learned to skate and play while his family was living in Singapore
For a country that learned just about everything from the former Soviet Union you'd think these guys would have an elite ice hockey program.
Tbf DPRK wasn't as close to the USSR as you think
See, as much as I love the idea of a World Cup and hope that becomes a regular thing, I absolutely adore shit like this. Two countries with no pros, no rep, and no real skill battling it out in the Division III World Championships. There's an inspirational Disney+ movie hidden in there somewhere, I'm sure of it hahahaha
Can you cover the Div3A tournament in Kyrgyzstan that's starting soon
It would be interesting to see a South Korea vs North Korea ice hockey game
Randy Gregg of the Edmonton Oilers played hockey in Japan. He played for the Kokudo Bunnies. He was also a medical doctor to boot.
Calgary Flames head coach Dave King coached hockey in Japan.
Very cool thanks for posting. Agree that it is a better product than expected.
You are too kind. A senior team from Canada would dominate
I think even a Peewee triple A team could take on these guys
A high school team from Wisconsin or Minnesota would dominate too.
Those guys in the video were brutal
To be fair, a solid Senior team in Sask is mostly college/Junior A/CHL players that are in their primes physically. Dominate may be too kind of a word.
@@randomman4938You left out schools in Michigan, which have the best programs in the country and continent.
Teams in nation where hockey is one of the major sports and regularly exports players that are great but not show level would dominate teams from nations where hockey is so on the fringes it might as well not exist. Thanks for clearing that up guys it really needed to be reiterated.
gotta admit, the dprk unis look pretty sweet
Your commentary was the most brutal part of this vid bro
My favorite thing about this is the DPRK team is mostly Koreans.
China's team 7 Chinese players, rest Canadian/American and a Russian.
They call it the hermit kingdom for a reason, nobody is willingly moving there 😂
Well tbf at least the naturalised foreigners are Chinese by descent, UAE team are just naturalised foreigners with no connection to the state other than moving there a few years ago
@@jakubondrus6064 Three quarters of the UAE men's national team are born in the UAE😀 Are you thinking of the UAE professional league?
@@Tjd1982that was the case in 2022, but in 2023, at least half of UAE's squad at the Div II tournament was naturalised foreigners
Watching Div-3 World Championship footage is a rabbit hole I love to go down every few years. It looks similar to roughly U15 "AA" hockey in Canada.
Thank you for talking respectfully about North Korean hockey without bringing up their government
That's just great :) Scrappy! as Ray Ferraro might say
I agree. Good hockey can be found anywhere in the world. Yes, the level one might see in top tier leagues might not be everywhere, but I said "good" I didn't say "the best".
People tend to forget that, for the longest time during the Cold War, the Soviet Union was more or less unbeatable in Ice Hockey, winning basically everything all the time, to the point that when team USA beat them once it was called a miracle. And the centennial all-star team voted by the International Ice Hockey Federation contains 4 Soviet players of their starting line up of 6.
One can argue that its because NHL players wouldn't compete in the International Ice Hockey Federation World Cup, which MIGHT be true, but that seems more of a NHL problem than an International Ice Hockey Federation problem. If the NHL really considered that beating the Soviets was important, they would have no problem in allowing their players to represent their country in the World Cup.
Kim Jong Un is the greatest hockey player in North Korea
I understand he scored a hat trick on one shot.
@@19trebor53 he did. He was also the inventor of hockey
Gawd you people are simple.
He makes Gretzky look like an amateur
That's high-end bear league level with a few ringers.
18 goals is wild
nah the wild won 10-7
i didn't think it was brutal to watch. i saw some good puck control and accurate passing and clean play. i would watch more.
Man the flat out Hacking each other is brutal!
Looks like the NHL 30 years ago.
You see the same in football in the lower divisions. It's a crossover between a slaughterhouse and Stalingrad in 1942. And, yes, I mean football.. Not eggball a.k.a American football.
@@azynkroneggball 😂😂 I’ve never heard of that
I had no idea this existed but i’m here for it. lol
The local high school team just made state semi-finals, and from what I saw the HS team would be the bigger, faster, and more skilled team on the ice. I saw a short piece on the DPRK team when they first started, and they have clearly come a long way - vast improvement. If they find a good way to locate and develop talent across their country, they have a future.
I'm guessing you are from Minnesota.
First awesome video
Thanks!
@@bedsauce ouch. that missing comma hurts lol
thanks for the coverage.
King Ho has to be the best hockey name ever!!!
The level is Division IIIB and it looks like Division IIIB, but there seems to be a lot of passion among these players and frankly, hockey is not mainstream in these jurisdictions and the infrastructure is thin.
North Korea puts more resources into football/soccer and Hong Kong doesn't have harsh winters and rinks are few and far between.
Interestingly, considering North Korean winters, a skating/hockey culture with outside rinks during the wintertime is possible in that country. All the neighboring regions bordering the DPRK play hockey and you have some professional teams.
The world isnt ready for Korean Gretzky
"Brutal camera coverage by the way" - this is actually pretty awesome though. I completely agree that this is great for the game and I love to see people enjoying the game no matter what level they play at.
Great video!
I remember that the KHL was thinking of expanding to Pyongyang around 2014 or 2015 or so. There was also talk about maybe putting in a South Korean team to match the team in Beijing. It didn't happen, of course, but it still might happen in the future.
North Korea has had good figure skating for decades. I think hockey would be a good fit.
Totally off the subject - but did you know there was a Taiwanese drama about 15 years ago that featured a male lead who was on a hockey team? I could see the DPRK, since it's cold. Hong Kong and Taiwan, though? I dunno...
Hong Kong....Taiwan? What about Arizona, Las Vegas, Florida......sure isn't cold there either.
@@jamiecampbell7056Sure - but the NHL is an international league. You're not going to convince Canadians and Russians to go play hockey in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
The nhl needs to try and open the market in asia. Hockey is almost nonexistent there from a popularity and participation standpoint. I definitely feel like if countries like japan, who are having a great run in sports and athletes right now, actually played hockey there’d be a decent amount of talent coming to the nhl from there.
How someone from there even gets to a high level baffles me. There’s a guy from Japan who plays on my hometown ECHL team & im like how did you ever even develop enough to get to D1 college??
Japan does play hockey. Saw them in an international competition against the US last year.
For years Japan was automatically qualified for the top world cup.
@@bobbobertson7568 having a national team doesn’t mean they play the sport. The US has a national cricket team. Vietnam has a national baseball team. Lol.
Tbf the Olympics could've helped popularise ice hockey in Asia in 2018 and 2022, but the NHL refuse to release the best players in the world, thus obstacling the future growth of the sport in a potentially lucrative major market, great choice on their side
Bro rly said double I HF. Just say IIHF, that’s how everyone says it.
North Korea missed promotion by only 1 point, losing 4-2 to hosts Bosnia & Jerzegovina in front of 1,200 fans!
Honestly these games look fun to watch. The level of play would be much lower but its a high scoring game by both teams which is cool to see
I'm Canadian. I lived here my whole life. Ended up marrying a woman from Hong Kong. She taught me how to skate. She took figure skating lessons in her late teens.
U have to realize that Finns didn't just magically get good at hockey. They played out in the ice made for it as a kid. Like I remember my brother taking me to the ice on a I guess cart you could call it made to slid in snow and we were there ice skating the whole day. All 6+ hours.
Let's assume the ice surface is about as smooth as a gravel road... ? Skate blades catching like crazy, right?
0:15 - "B", for Bottom of the Barrel. IIHF IIIB is the second lowest level with an annual tournament, the level below containing Indonesia, Kuwait, Malaysia, and Mongolia. And could barely beat Nepal, Tibet, or India's Ladakh province.
The tenth tier of UK football is closer to the premiership than IIIB is to IIHF Division I (e.g. Canada, Sweden, etc.).
ngl I'd be actually interested in going to watch some low division hockey games live. Hockey is so small in these countries, so these are niche athletes putting time and effort into something out of pure passion.
It's great that people in non traditional hockey markets are enjoying hockey!
As a hockey fan, I guess I won't be moving to North Korea.
you should cover more about the lower divisions of IIHF, especially Philippines who destroyed the whole Division IV teams.
This was the first time North Korea participated since 2019. To my knowledge they havent played any friendly matches against any other countries to train for this event. Obviously ice hockey is not their main sport. There was a time in the 90s when North and South Korea were similar in IIHF level and skill. South Korea is now a DIV 1B/1A level team.
Mabey Connor Brown can try playing in North Korea ?
We, in Republic of Ireland used to be a part of Div3, but now our ice rink is abandoned for 10 years, cause government took it and never used, we have to go for 2.5 hours to another country one way, to play hockey. And we are allowed to participate in development cups only, since we don't have permanent ice on our territory :(
I remember when Ireland used to compete with Mongolia, Greece, or Armenia in Div3. Mongolia is back already and I wish to see Ireland, Greece, and Armenia back soon!
I played hockey for team South Africa against North Korea at IIHF oceanic world juniors held in North Korea back in ‘99. Crazy experience. (yes, South Africa has hockey too)
I play for Antarctica.... home and home series can be brutal on the body, but i mean it's an overall good experience playing for my country and all
Hockey is awesome! Doesn't matter where, when why or how.
Wow you know that's a great point. Hockey is actually *hard* to play well.
Good for Hong Kong, North Korea and any other country that wants to play hockey. As a Finnish native I'm so used to the top tier in international matches that easily forgets that its played all around. Also fell into the mind trap of "they are not taking it serious" while those play in smaller hockey countries do actually want to play as well as they can and enjoy the game.
I played local league hockey in Ontario and we would beat rep teams in tournaments. The North Korean guys in the video are pretty similar. I'd say they're equivalent to a Peewee, maybe Bantam house league team. I'm not sure what the American names would be.
someone tell skippy that's beer league hockey at best
When you said brutal i was thinking of something completely different...
seeing these videos i just remind myself, if i wasn't Canadian I would be a pro lmao
Somewhere in ABC’s vault is film of China’s first competition in mixed pairs figure skating. I saw a brief clip years ago of the man basically throwing his poor partner to the ice, but he maintains a majestic pose as she flails. One of the funniest things I have seen.
that arena just looks so tiny....
I am sure that Kim Jong Un will have no problems with one of his players picking an NHL contract.
These guys are pretty good. I'm impressed.
God that camera stutter is choppier than a stir fry restaurant.
I was watching this and was surprised that their game with Bosnia was so low scoring.
If you want some international hockey where players can barely skate, check out Bulgaria vs Slovakia women’s game from 2000. Score was 82-0.
It was 2009 lol, but yea, it was a world record at the time
Bro is going to go after you 😅😅😅
Thats mens league D in Canada.
Might not be the highest level of play, but, these guys are at least having fun, and the game was competetive.
I mean, hey, 10-8, shows you that the defence and goaltending might be lacking, but the celly is banging!