Radunske: Olympics are South Korean main goal

23 Apr 2013 | Tomáš Salamon

Brock Radunske has been the first foreigner player in the South Korean national team ever, and without any discussion he was the main star of the team and the main reason of Korean success in Budapest. He was satisfied with the result of championship, but he told that the main South Korean goal is Olympic qualification to Pyeongchang 2018.

Brock, I guess that you have very good impressions from last week. Am I right?

Yes. For myself it has been a really great show of hockey skill from around of the world. In our second game we played for eight thousand fans and it was fantastic! We took the energy from them and it was a very good motivation for our team.

There is a possibility that the championship will take place in Seoul next year, because Korea is applying for it. Would you appreciate it?

Of course. It is great that we did not relegate this year and we have to save it next year too. The first goal is to save the division, but if we had a chance to play at home, we can take an advantage from it, because you do not have to travel and you can use your own facilities for training and so on. But it is going to be a difficult, because every team will have the same goal and you also have to be lucky. This year it was about the key game against Great Britain and it will be difficult to stay in this division next year.

What about the popularity of ice hockey in South Korea? Are the people interested in your success?

There is a big zeal because of the winter Olympics 2018. The skating sports as speed skating, figure skating and so on are very popular. So only the fact that hockey is sport on the ice, brought a lot of people and clear excitement. There are lot of players whose first sport was speed skating, so they were very good skaters before they first touched the puck. Now they are very fast and explosive in their first steps. I think that Korean people are interested in hockey and are going to support us in our fight for Olympics.

Is there anything that the team should improve for the Olympics?

Hockey is based on lots of different things, but important is to play against better teams like on this championship. There are only six teams in our league, so the guys have to take some experience from the opponents on the international ice. We have to learn the game from the different perspective of better teams. In my opinion it is the main goal.

You have been the first foreigner guy in South Korean national team ever. Do you think that you could open the door for someone else?

I think that there is a little bit more of opportunity for someone. There are not so many guys who spent as much time as me in Korea, but there are couple of players who can be usefull in national team.