High1

High1 (Korean: 하이원) was an ice hockey team based in Seoul, South Korea.

The team was formed with the intention of joining the Asia League and was expected to have an operating cost of 2 billion won.

[3] The owners also felt that the team's creation would aid in a bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

[1] The team hired former Dong-won Dreams head coach, Kim Hee-woo.

[6] Their first game was held on 5 October 2004 against Korea University as part of the 59th Korean Domestic Championship.

At that time the team also announced that it would spend 46 days in Canada training, including playing 10 games, in preparation for the season.

[11] They were swept in their regular season series against Kokudo and the Nippon Paper Cranes while only managing to win one out of nine games against fellow South Korean team, Halla.

[14] Kangwon Land failed to make the playoffs as only the top six teams advanced to the postseason.

[15] In the 2006–07 season the league reduced the number of games played to 34 with the departure of the Nordic Vikings.

They also swept their season series against Changchun Fuao and improved on the previous years performance against Halla by only losing a single game to them.

Kangwon's sweep of Halla marked the first time a non-Japanese team won a playoff series in the Asia League.

[21] Even with the early exit from the playoffs, Tim Smith managed a second-place finish in the assists category.

[22] With the two China teams merging into a single one, the league reduced the number of games to only 30 in the 2007–08 season.

[24] High1 further improved and finished the season in second place with 58 points which included a sweep of the newly formed China Sharks.

[25] Coach Kim credit the entire team for doing well but singled out their goalie, Eum Hyun-seung as really shining.

[35] With the top five teams moving on to the playoffs, High1 had to play a three-game series against the fourth-place Cranes.

[46] Ueno Also led the team in goals with 23, which secured him third place in the league rankings.

[47] High1 finished the season with 51 points and in fifth place, marking the first time that they missed the play-offs since their first year in the league.

They won their season series against the Dragon and Ice Bucks, as well as tying the Cranes, but were swept all six games by the Eagles.

[53] Prior to the 2009–10 season, High1 also played its home games at the Mokdong Ice Rink in Seoul.

Kangwon Land logo
Alex Kim discusses strategy on-ice with Jeremy van Hoof. Kim won two points titles his first year in the league.
With three new goaltenders in 2010, Mistuaki Inoue became the team's number one, playing in all 36 games.