Analysis of the Disbandment of Elite Ice Hockey Teams in Korea and Measures for Improvement

Young Man Park ¹ Mi-ae Shin ^2* Dong Hyun Won ^1*

• ¹ Sport Safety, Korea National Sport University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
• ² Daejin University, Pocheon, Republic of Korea

(1) Background: As Korea's elite ice hockey teams continue to disband, the elite ice hockey environment continues to deteriorate. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the phenomenon, identify problems, and suggest improvement measures.(2) Methods: The Delphi technique was conducted in three rounds with the nine research participants who had experience with team dissolution.(3) Results: The detailed items were identified by the categories of coaches, players, and parents, and the coaches' detailed items were 'lack of coaches' college entrance exam solving capabilities', 'student assault incidents committed by coaches', and 'poor working conditions and treatment of coaches'. The detailed items for players were 'lack of basic knowledge of team sports', 'lack of basic manners in team sports', 'decline in teamwork due to individual egoism', and 'perception that parents' opinions are prioritized over coaches'. The detailed items for parents were 'parental involvement in training', 'parental involvement in hiring coaches', 'parental involvement in player management', 'parental involvement in school operation', and 'parental involvement in game participation'. (4) Conclusions: Based on the problems and discussions that emerged from this study, if we conclude, coaches, players, and parents should recognize that each of them has their own problems, rather than blaming each other, and in the actual field, practical efforts for improvement should be reflected at the team level. In particular, an atmosphere in which parents truly want to change should be created, and in order to improve in the long term, efforts should be made based on academic data.