South Korean Olympic hopeful gets valuable ice time at UPEI
Ye Eun Park, a rookie for UPEI and a member of the South Korean women's national team, is in P.E.I. getting game experience she wouldn't get if she stayed in Korea.
"In Korea, there is only the national women's team, so girls play with boys. They don't have their own teams," said Park, who plays defence.
"Here I got to play a lot of games with other girls and a lot of different teams in Canada and the U.S. ... I think it was really good experience for me."
South Korea is hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics, which means it automatically qualifies in men's and women's hockey.
The South Korean women's team is currently ranked 23rd in the world, so the pressure is on to quickly improve the skill level of players like Park before they face off against top hockey nations like Canada in less than like years.
'It's a higher level'
Park started playing hockey at the age of 10 at the only rink in her city.
"Ice hockey wasn't even popular," she said. "Not a lot of people were playing it."
She tried out for the national team at the age of 15, and cracked the lineup two years later.
Park admitted she'd never heard of Prince Edward Island before.
A second Olympic hopeful
Park, who is studying psychology at UPEI, is happy for the opportunity.
