Kobe Stars

Yuyang Hou signed his contract in the summer of 2025. Stars Kobe Co., Ltd. had only just been cleared for entry into the Asia League Ice Hockey on 16 May that year, and it carried a name that had gone quiet three decades earlier: the original Kobe Stars, an amateur side from 1994, never recovered from the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake that struck the city months later and shut down its high-level ambitions almost as soon as they'd started. The 2025 club revived the name rather than the team itself.

What it built was the first professional ice hockey club based anywhere in western Japan, fielding Japanese, Korean and Chinese players together under head coach Kei Tonosaki. Defenceman Akihide Watanabe brought the most league experience in the room, with 140 ALIH appearances behind him, while South Korean imports Min Jae Lee, Hee Gon Jang and Hyun Seo Kim filled out a squad still finding its feet.

Finding its feet proved the operative phrase. The debut season ended with one win against thirty-five defeats and four further losses in overtime, a sixth-place finish that closed the year without a playoff game. Home matches were played in front of 3,000 seats at most, a mix of permanent and temporary seating at the Portisland Sports Center.

Kobe Stars share Japanese ice with the Nikko Ice Bucks, a club with championships in 2015, 2019, 2023 and 2024 and a lineage running back to 1925 — honours the Kobe side makes no claim to.