On October 4th, 2025, the PPCLI and the R22eR once again donned their hockey uniforms for the annual Imjin Hockey Classic, held at the Bell Sensplex in Ottawa and hosted by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea. This has been an annual event since 2013 commemorating hockey games played by Canadian soldiers on the Imjin River in Korea during the Korean War, the championship game between the R22eR and the PPCLI. As I’ve covered this for the last 12 years, I’ll forego the history of the event as you can look that up on previous years’ posts. Instead, I’ll just show a few pictures and give a quick synopsis of the games.
To see all the pictures, CLICK HERE:
The first game saw the Ottawa Service Attachés Association Lame Ducks (OSAA – Defence Attachés from around town) against a team of politicians from the Senate/House of Commons of Canada. Now, at the outset, you would have thought the politicians were in a bad way as there were only six of them against a full complement of defence attachés. This was not to be the case however, as the politicians took an early lead ending the first period ahead 2 – 0. In the second, they stretched their lead to 6 – 1 and it was clear they were going to win. In true sportsmanship fashion, they decided to switch goalies with the Lame Ducks for the third period which help the Ducks draw closer. At the end, however, the politicians prevailed 6 – 4.
The main card game was the PPCLI vs the R22eR and it promised to be a barn burner judging by the skating and stick handling skills during the warmups. The contest started fast but the first goal wasn’t scored until around 10:22 in the first by the PPCLI. They added to that about 3:09 to end the first in the lead 2-0. The PPCLI scored their third goal at 14:19 in the second and that would be the last goal they scored ending the second period ahead 3-0. The R22eR were not out of it, however, and played hard, finally potting a goal at 4:23, which is how the game ended. The PPCLI won this year’s Imjin Hockey Classic 3-1 .
Afterwards, everyone adjourned upstairs to the Center Ice Sports Bar for pizza and drinks. Speeches from the Korean Embassy, Senator Martin, ex-CDS General (ret’d) Eyre, LGen. (ret’d) Hainse, and others took place before the food arrived culminating with a toast to the Korean War Veterans by MGen. David Abboud ( Commander Canadian Forces Intelligence Command) which was responding to by Korean War veterans Bill Black and Dennis Moore.
