BEJIING – A team of “beer-leaguers” from China – Canadians and Europeans – toured North Korea last season – and they were welcomed as celebrities. “It’s a trip you’ll never forget,” said Ray Plummer about the foray to one of the world’s most secluded countries.

Plummer organizes hockey in the Chinese capital of Beijing where expats began to play hockey in the ‘70s with games between Soviets and Canadians on a lake in the USSR embassy.

Most would call today’s version a beer league and Plummer doesn’t make a secret that the aim is to have fun and drink a beer with teammates and players from the other teams.

The teams include some Chinese players, but most of them are expats from North America, Western Europe and Russia, and they are part of Plummer’s organization, Beijing International Ice Hockey. “We even have a Brazilian. There has never been a better mix of players,” Plummer said.

They’re lawyers, diplomats, engineers, teachers, hoteliers, students and all of them speak the common language of hockey. For Plummer and his teammates, playing hockey is an escape from the sometimes chaotic everyday life in the big city.

But the hockey-crazed people also host foreign teams and like to tour in the Far East for other games and tournaments like in Southern China (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau), Chinese Taipei, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia or Thailand. But prior to the 2008-2009 season, they were looking for a new challenge.

There was one place on the map of their region they hadn’t gone – until last autumn. A country where people from the West usually don’t travel, or are seldom given the permission to visit – the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (or short: DPR Korea).

“When we were in Mongolia, playing outdoors at -30° C, we asked on the bench ‘where else could we go?’ The vision for North Korea was born!” Plummer looked back. “It was an opportunity to experience a country and culture shrouded in myth. We would hopefully discover for ourselves what the DPRK is really like.”

And against all odds, a team of nine Canadians, two Finns and one Swede, all of them living in Beijing and Shanghai, got the green light from Pyongyang to enter the country along with three fans – to play hockey and to see a country, most people just know from media reports.

They wanted to be there where no western amateur team has been before, apart from national teams participating in the IIHF World Championship program. A Beijing-based travel agency, with links to DPR Korea and with the Ministry of Sports in Pyongyang, organized the trip for $2000 per person.

“Since we can go to the Bangkok tournament on a tight budget of $500 per person, $2,000 was steep for a five-day tour, but we knew it would be a tour like no other,” Plummer said.

Eventually after submitting their mobile phones at customs before entering the country, they were finally escorted to the 40th floor of their hotel.

They were provided with a local guide who showed them the city, which has few cars and is almost free of electric lighting during night time. Plummer quickly noticed the sterile cleanliness: “There was no garbage in the streets and fields like there is in China. With not much industry, the sky was clear and blue! That was a surprise compared to Beijing’s gray smog.

“We could not roam around the city on our own, but we did get to all of the sites that one must see on their first visit to North Korea,” he said. “Our guides were very understanding of our sometimes-ignorant questions.”

They were also instructed of what not to take photos of. Plummer recalls: “When we heard a Shanghai player from the back of the bus say ‘Hey - I just took a picture of an army guy with a machine gun!’ we thought he was joking until a soldier with a machine gun got on the bus...”

They saw all the sites including the Mass Games where 100,000 people perform dances in a May Day Stadium, and the demilitarized zone which divides the north from the south.

DPR Korea’s hockey program has 1,575 players. It’s the only IIHF member country that has more female than male players. The women’s national team is one of the top contenders at the Division II level. In their best season they were number 12 in the world while playing at the Division I level in 2001. Currently, they’re 18th in the IIHF World Women’s Ranking.

Little is known about hockey in DPR Korea which was introduced to the sport by Soviet and Chinese guest workers in the early ‘50s. The Ice Hockey Association of the DPR Korea joined the IIHF in 1963. In the first World Championship appearance, the men’s national team lost its first C-Pool game to Italy, 11-2, but defeated China and Australia in the same tournament. That was in 1974, five years before their brothers from the south played their first World Championship game.

The men from the North used to be the better team from the Korean Peninsula until they suddenly left the World Championship program in 1993 and stayed out for the following nine years. In 2006, the two Korean teams met again in the Division II tournament in New Zealand with the South scoring the first-ever win, 5-1.

The Soviets also sent teams for exhibition games including the then third-division team, Metallurg Magnitogorsk. In 2008-2009, Pyongyang won the seven-team, 30-game men’s national league while Jagang was the champion in the six-team, 20-game women’s league.

The state-run news agency KCNA focuses on the more successful women’s national team. In 2002 the agency wrote: “The team gave a good account of themselves to win other international matches, drawing concern of the world sports circle as a promising team.”

About the 2007 World Women’s Championship Division II hosted in Pyongyang they wrote: “The IIHF delegate had visited the DPRK some time ago to acquaint himself with the preparation for the championships. After looking around all the objects including the Ice Rink, he expressed satisfaction over the wonderful preparation and was grateful to the officials.”

“It is hard to guess which team will become the champion with the game results up to now,” the KCNA reported after two game days, not mentioning that the host team had lost both games. They won the remaining three games and finished in third place, but DPR Korea hopes to bring the team to the next level.

This was the news agency’s summary after the conclusion of the championship:

“Women's ice hockey made a new start in the DPRK two decades ago with teenage girls who had great ambitions to glorify the nation's honor. The first women's ice hockey team was organized in the then Jagang Provincial Sports Group in Juche 76 (1987), which was followed by various units. The women's ice hockey players had accumulated experience and courage through their continued playing tours. It is fully demonstrating its ability, overpowering the opponents with its intensive attack and tactful skating technique at the current 2007 World Women's Ice Hockey Championships (B Class). Mun Yong Song, secretary of the DPRK Ice Hockey Association, told KCNA that the future of the DPRK women's ice hockey is optimistic.”

No more news about ice hockey has been published since then, at least not in English. But regardless of the political situation, the players have the same goals as athletes all over the world – to enjoy playing their sport and to represent their country.

The games of the 2007 tournament were played in a huge, cone-shape, 6,000-seat ice temple. Portraits of “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il and his deceased father, “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung, adorn the walls. It’s there where the Canadian-European amateurs from China were scheduled to play two games against a DPR Korea national development team. During the warm-up it became obvious that the Koreans would take this game very seriously.

“The rink was amazing,” Plummer, who captained the team, said about the venue. “We could not believe that a bunch of amateurs like us were actually getting off the bus to play inside – with an IIHF referee and linesmen!”

The faces, the smiles and non-smiles of the players in the mixed team photo – it couldn’t have been more diverse. After five minutes and five shots on goal, DPR Korea led 4-0. However, the guests came back and the game was tied at seven after the second period. The guests even enjoyed a 9-7 lead early in the third, but DPR Korea eventually won 11-9.

“Their skill level was about a North American Jr. B team,” Plummer said.

The second game was also close and again won by the Koreans, 6-4.

But everybody was happy. The young Koreans got their much-needed victories while the guests had an unforgettable experience, ‘only’ 800 kilometres from Beijing.

MARTIN MERK


The mixed team photo was the only situation the teams had interaction apart from game action.