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Korean men's team nab bronze medal, women finish fourth in ice hockey at Asiad

Published: 14 Feb. 2025, 14:19

Korean players celebrate after scoring their third goal in the men's bronze medal ice hockey match against China at the Asain Winter Games in Harbin, China on Friday, Feb. 14. [YONHAP]

Korea rallied past China for the bronze medal in men's ice hockey at the Asian Winter Games in China on Friday, while the women's team settled for fourth place after a loss to Kazakhstan.

In the men's bronze medal game, Korea beat China 5-2 at Harbin Ice Hockey Arena in Harbin.

China drew first blood at 7:27 in the opening period, when Li Zhihao scored off a rebound. Korea then turned the game around with three unanswered goals in the second period.

After Oh In-gyu tied the game at 6:27 in the middle frame, Kim Sang-yeob netted the go-ahead marker at 15:30 by scoring off his own rebound in a one-on-one chance against goalie Chen Shifeng.

Then with just 14 seconds remaining in the period, Kong Yu-chan fired home a rebound following Ahn Jin-hui's shot for a 3-1 Korean lead.

Korea outshot China 16-6 in the second period.

After China got a goal back early in the third period, Lee Chong-min restored a two-goal lead for Korea at 4-2 with a one-timer set up by Lee Seung-jae at the 3:06 mark.

Lee Seung-jae got in on the scoring act with a power play goal at 8:10 with a wrister through multiple bodies.

Korea was relegated to the bronze medal contest after a 4-3 shootout loss to Japan on Thursday. Korea led 3-2 before allowing the tying goal with 75 seconds left in the third period. Then in the shootout, no Korean player scored, while Japan put two pucks into the net to crush Korea's dreams of winning its first Asiad hockey gold.

The women's ice hockey match between Korea and Japan at the Asian Winter Games in Harbin, China on Friday, Feb. 14. [YONHAP]

At Harbin Sport University Student Skating Rink, Korea fell to Kazakhstan 3-0 in the teams' final round game of the women's tournament.

Malika Aldabergenova scored the game's first goal on a power play at 5:58 in the first period, and Yuliya Butorina doubled Kazakhstan's lead at 3:23 in the third frame.

Dariya Moldabay rounded out the scoring for the winning team at 13:30 in the third.

In the women's competition, Japan and China earned the byes to the final round, while Korea and Kazakhstan joined them as the top two teams from the preliminary round. The medals will go to the top three countries after round-robin play.

Korea dropped the first two games of the final round, 2-1 to China on Wednesday and 6-0 to Japan the following day, and those results knocked Korea out of gold medal contention. Korea came into Friday's game needing to beat Kazakhstan and have China beat Japan in the final game later in the day, in which case China, Japan and Korea would take the three medals.

But Korea couldn't take care of its business, and Kazakhstan assured itself of a medal with the win.

Yonhap