DULUTH, Minn. (Northern News Now) – South Korea has a taste for ice hockey and you can thank at least in part Northland GI’s in the Korean War for spreading the sport across the globe.
Arctic air from northern Canada gives our Northland the temperatures it needs for outdoor hockey. Siberian air does the same thing for Korea.
Retired Duluth teacher John McAlister was ordered to play the game in 1948.
“They put us into a two and a half ton truck, gave us a pair of skates and a hockey stick and a puck and took us out to a frozen rice paddy where we played hockey.” said 90+ year old McAlister in a recent interview.
American missionaries and Imperial Japanese colonizers gave the Korean peninsula its first taste of hockey in the 1920’s.
In the post World War Two 40’s, Korean hockey rinks were primitive.
“A rice paddy isn’t like a rink here because the stubble of the rice growing up above so it’s hard to skate on.” said McAlister.
When the Korean War broke out in the early 50’s, United Nations forces like the Canadians kept the hockey lessons coming to the Korean people.
They held a tournament on the frozen Imrin River in 1952 and have held several reunion games there since then.
Canadian vets feel pucks make great diplomatic tools.
“Today, this great game is bringing us closer to Korea.” said Canadian army vet Claude Charland at the 2018 Imrin Classic.
Today, hockey isn’t huge in Korea but it is known thanks to veterans.
For one brief moment, John McCallister was the greatest hockey player in the country because his opponents were from Alabama and Georgia.
“I was going back and forth between them scoring one goal after another because they couldn’t stand up!” laughed John.
Right now, the South Korean National Team is ranked 19th in the world and it is nice to think that Duluthian John McAlister may have had a slight hand in that.
Holding on to History in Duluth, Dave Anderson, Northern News Now.
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