South Korea upsets Great Britain in Olympic Qualifer

The Group J Olympic qualifier started today in Nikko, Japan. Four teams will participate, Great Britain (21), Japan (22), Romania (27) and South Korea (28). The opening game was between Great Britan and South Korea. Great Britain was heavily favored going into the qualifier and had confidence too. South Korea had recently risen 3 ranks off a good performance last year.

Korea was recently awarded the 2018 Winter Olympics and have been working towards improving their program. They made deals to send players to Finland to help improve their play and have been looking at improving their prospects at home by adding a military team to the domestic championships to help increase competition.

Great Birtain hasn't qualified for the Olympics since 1948, given the dominance other countries have shown during that time like Canada, Russia and several European countries. Coach Hand, while focused on the task at hand, expressed optimism to the Daily Record about going to Germany next year.

"It would be great for us, as a nation, to have that chance to qualify for the Olympics by going to Germany next year. My main focus, though, is on the tournament in Japan."

Confidence allowed Great Britain to start strong. Just three and a half minutes in Peacock opened the scoring for Great Britain. 30 seconds later Woo-sang Park took a penalty for slashing which lead to a powerplay goal by Longstaff. Won-jung Kim tried to keep Korea in it though as he scored at 5:25 of the first making it 2-1. O'Connor scored for Great Britain late in the period to make it 3-1 heading to the second.

In the second Won-jung scored early to bring them close again. However, Shields scored for Britain mid-way through the period to put them up 4-2. Kim wasn't finished for Korea and at 38:45 he scored his third goal to make it 4-3 and give himself a hat trick. Through two periods Britain had out shot the Koreans 23 to 19.

The third period was quiet, no penalties, and no goals, save for the Koreans. Geun-ho Kim, a veteran forward for Anyang Halla, scored an even strength goal at the six minute making it 4-4. Britain poured on the offense though, out-shooting the Koreans 13-7 on the period. Netminder Sungje Park stood tall and held them at bay.

Overtime solved nothing which sent the game to a shoot-out. First to shoot for GB was Shields who missed while Sang-wook Kim scored for Korea. Longstaff also failed to score for Britain and Min-ho Cho scored in the second round to give a victory to Korea.

While Korea still has to face Japan and Romania, and a trip to the Olympics is far away, a victory like this over Great Britain must almost feel like winning the Olympics to them. Great Britain must win their remaining games to keep their Olympic hopes alive.

 

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