Korea’s juniors bounced back into Division I after taking gold at this week’s IIHF Men’s World U20 Championship Division IIA in Dumfries, Great Britain. A last-minute winner in Sunday’s gold-medal showdown against the host nation kept Korea perfect through five games and secured top spot in the group.

Sunday’s promotion decider turned into the Kim Sihwan show. The 19-year-old centre is one of the most experienced players on the Korean roster, having made his senior international debut in Division IB earlier this year. In the big game against GB, he grabbed a hat-trick to guide his country’s juniors to gold.

Kim believes his earlier senior international experience – coincidentally also on British ice – helped him lead his team back to Division IB in this tournament.

“I already had a chance with the senior team in Nottingham last season,” he said. “That was a really good experience for me, I scored a couple of goals and I learned a lot. I think that’s part of why I played well here.
“We came here to win promotion, and as a team that’s what we did.”

Fightback win brings gold to Korea

In Sunday’s big game against host nation Great Britain, Kim opened the scoring after 13 minutes, pouncing on a loose puck before rifling a wrister past Ben Norton from the right-hand face-off circle.

After that, the game turned into something of a personal duel between the tournament’s top scorer, and GB’s scoring leader Jack Hopkins. The latter had an assist Kell Beattie tied it up late in the first, then put the host nation in front early in the second. On 25:19, Britain’s Osborn twins combined – Dawson’s goal, Austin’s assist. That made it 3-1 and the dream of promotion on home ice was very much alive.

However, the Brits blew a 3-1 lead in their previous loss to Lithuania. Today, after two periods of powerful forechecking that neutralized Korea’s pace, they would suffer a similar fate in the third. Early in the final stanza, Kim struck again to squeeze the puck home from a dead angle after Norton’s initial save. Ten minutes later, defender Kong Yuchan got the tying goal on the power play.

Then, amid an increasingly tense atmosphere at the Dumfries Ice Bowl, GB pulled goaltender Norton in search of the regulation time win it needed to take gold. However, the home offence was unable to capitalize. A turnover saw Kim skip past Beattie before potting the clincher into an empty net to complete his hat-trick and Korea’s win.

While Korea celebrated an immediate return to Division IB following last season’s relegation, British head coach Martin Grubb was left to reflect on a game – and gold – that got away.

“There’s no other word for it, we’re devastated,” he told IHUK TV after the game. “We got ourselves in a great position but a couple of minor little details in that third period cost us.

“Korea’s a great team. All tournament they played fast, free-flowing hockey and [nobody] really laid a glove on them. We had them worried for a long time and we know if we were a tiny bit better in that last period then we were golden.”

Silver for Lithuania

Britain’s disappointment opened the door for Lithuania to claim silver. The Baltic nation needed to win its final game of the tournament against China to take second place, and duly delivered with a 6-2 verdict. Britain finished third.

That result left newly-promoted China in a three-way tie with the Netherlands and Spain at the foot of the standings. Each nation had one win, but the head-to-head goal differential left Spain in last place and facing relegation to Division IIB for the first time since 2018.

Among the leading individual performances, Kim Sihwan topped the scoring with 14 (5+9) points. His Korean team-mate Kong Yuchan was the most productive defender with 11 (2+9). Britain’s Ben Norton was the top goaltender at the event, stopping 93.45% of the 168 shots he faced for a GAA of 2.19. Team-mate Jack Hopkins was the leading goalscorer with six markers in five games.