HL Anyang

The Halla Group put its name on a hockey team in December 1994. It stayed a Seoul side for a decade, and when the Korean Ice Hockey League folded in 2003, Anyang Halla was the only outfit left standing, the one team that walked away from the wreckage and found a new home in the Asia League Ice Hockey. The move to Anyang followed in 2004, and the club has not left since.

What it built there has no equal in the league.

The rivalry with PSK Sakhalin has since taken over as the measure of where Halla stands each season, after years of duelling with High1 for domestic bragging rights.

That name change closed one chapter, but the corporate backing behind it is the same as it was on the day Halla Group decided Seoul needed a hockey team.