Brock Radunske to retire with Anyang Halla this week

Brock Radunske, a Canadian-born hockey player and Korea’s first naturalized athlete, will have a retirement ceremony on ice with his former club here this month.

Anyang Halla said Tuesday that the celebration of Radunske’s decade-long career in Korea will take place at 5 p.m. on Saturday, before their Asia League Ice Hockey (ALIH) match against the Daemyung Killer Whales at Anyang Ice Arena in Anyang, Gyeonggi.

Radunske, a 36-year-old native of Kitchener, Canada, joined the Anyang Halla for the 2008-2009 season. The skilled forward won the Asian league MVP award and the scoring title with 29 goals and 28 assists for 57 points in 35 games. He retired last year after compiling 195 goals and 290 assists in 352 career ALIH games.

In 2013, with Korea hoping to improve its men’s hockey program before hosting the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, Radunske was fast-tracked to Korean citizenship. He was the first of a handful of foreign-born athletes to be naturalized as Korean before the PyeongChang Olympics.

Yonhap