Asia League Ice Hockey 2022-2023 season begins (online): LUDWIG's penalty box

The Asia League has returned to its traditional format for the first time in three years.

However, only Anyang Halla, an original member of the Asia League, has returned...

As usual, in consideration of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rankings were determined by "win rate" with the possibility of midway termination, but a playoff was also prepared in which the top four of the six participating teams could advance.

I hope that all the teams will run with their full members until the end...

The Cranes, who had a lot going on this offseason, started with only 19 Japanese players and no foreign players, but I think it was good that they were able to play the opening game in their hometown without any problems.

The results were:

●East Hokkaido Cranes 5 (0-1, 1-4, 4-3) 8 Anyang Halla ○

I think it was good that we were able to play against a high-ranked Korean team as our first opponent. When the score was 1-5 at the end of the second period, I simply thought that the difference in "national hockey strength" was evident.

Reflecting a shot from a long distance in front of the goal (changing the angle even by hitting it with his body). Mid-range shot after a face-off. Mid-range shot that cut into the left side. And conceding goals just after the start of the period and just before the end...

It just seemed like the team, including the bench, was not prepared enough in important situations and at important times that they needed to take care of, and it looked like they were underprepared.

However, it seems that the opposing team, Halla, also had a gap in the third period when they were up to five points behind, which led to a goal rush by the Cranes, but they were unable to improve their defense until the end and lost.

Well, it may have been an interesting game to watch, but the content was not something to be praised. I want them to win the battle in the slot to protect the GK, and to keep the wing defense in their own half (to prevent long shots from the opponent's DF) tight and keep the pressure on.

Also, it is said that all games will be live-streamed online from this season. Yesterday's game was free to stream, but from today it will be paid. There seemed to be a lot of negative opinions in the SNS community in general. Image quality, camera angles, whether there is live commentary, the distribution environment is weak, the pricing is challenging, etc.

For a generation that has had the Internet since birth, it is a very natural opinion that the content is important, and I think that is true. For someone like me, who tried to get ice hockey information, the moment when the results were displayed with only subtitles for about 10 seconds at the end of the sports segment on NHK's evening news is enough.

In the first place, nothing beats watching the game on the rink, so it's enough to be able to see the game in real time. It's on a different level.

If you want to improve the quality of the distribution content, why not suggest to the bookmakers how to make it better rather than tweeting on social media?

I think the content of the game itself is more important than that.

Hello.