Asia's first international sports league (ALPHOTO)

A New Beginning
Asia League Ice Hockey was actually launched last year with four teams from Japan and one from South Korea. The league was created after a couple of Japan's corporate-sponsored teams folded, reducing the number of hockey teams in the country from six to four. Something similar happened in South Korea, where the previous three teams were reduced to just one. As a result, neither country had enough teams to support a league within its own borders. Far from aspirations of a spot in the Olympics, ice hockey was on the verge of extinction in these countries. Ice hockey officials from the two nations put their heads together and came up with the idea of an international Asian league as a prescription for the sport's ailing fortunes in the region. Last season the four-team Japan league continued to operate alongside the Asian league, but it was discontinued after teams from China and Russia entered the mix this season, giving birth to a full-scale Asian league.

Each team will play 42 games this season. (ALPHOTO)

Eight Teams from Four Countries
The participating teams from Japan are last season's champion Kokudo (based in Nishi Tokyo City), Oji Paper (Tomakomai City, Hokkaido), Nippon Paper Cranes (Kushiro City, Hokkaido), and the HC Nikko Ice Bucks (Nikko City, Tochigi Prefecture). South Korea's team is Anyang Halla Winia (Anyang), while from China there are Harbin and Qiqihar, and from Russia there is Golden Amur (Khabarovsk). The league's regular season runs from September 25, 2004, to March 6, 2005, with each team playing its seven rivals six times in home and away games for a total season of 42 games per team. The top four teams will advance to the playoffs, to be held from March 12 to 29. Playoff teams will face off in a best-of-three series in both the semifinal and championship rounds, with the winners of each semifinal advancing to the finals to determine the league champion.

Men with Sticks and Passports
Although all the participating teams are located in the Far East, international competition presents a number of extra obstacles compared with playing in a single country, such as time differences, air travel, and language barriers. In spite of these difficulties, the athletes, armed with hockey sticks and passports, continue to compete vigorously as they travel back and forth among the four countries. Fan capacity at games tops out at around 2,000 due to the smallness of Asia's hockey arenas, but in each venue fans pack the seats and heat up the rinks with feverish support for their home teams.

Early in 2004 in Japan, ice hockey was used as the backdrop for a popular TV drama, which turned more people on to the sport's appeal. Those connected with Asia League Ice Hockey are enthusiastic about the surge of interest in their sport, and are intent on creating a league on a par with North America and Europe and where the world's top players will one day hope to compete.

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