Jim Paek
Jim Paek ( born Baek Ji- seon, Korean 백지 선; born April 7, 1967 in Seoul, South Korea ) is a former Canadian Korean hockey defender and currently an assistant coach with the Grand Rapids Griffins of the American Hockey League. He was the first Korean NHL player and Stanley Cup winner. Since March 2011, he also has a U.S. passport.
- 4.1 As a player
Career as a player
Jim Peak was born in South Korea. He was still a child when his parents emigrated with him to Canada. There he learned to play hockey and played in several junior leagues before he made his debut in first-class Canadian Junior Football League OHL Oshawa Generals in 1984. After his rookie season, he was elected the Pittsburgh Penguins in the ninth round of the NHL Entry Draft in 1985 at position 170, but Paek remained for the time being in general. His career in the junior went a total of three seasons and the biggest success in 1987 was winning the J. Ross Robertson Cup as champions of the OHL and the final defeat at the Memorial Cup.
In the fall of 1987, Paek eventually switched to the pros and played three years with the Muskegon Lumberjacks of the IHL second-rate. Was he rather defensively aligned with the juniors, so he fell in Muskegon also because of his offensive game and achieving in any given season, the 50-point mark. He also won the 1989 Turner Cup Lumberjacks as the winner of the IHL playoffs and they moved a year later again to the final one.
The season 1990/91 he spent mainly with the Canadian national team, but went to the end of the season as the first Koreans in NHL history in the highest North American Hockey League on the ice when he played for the Pittsburgh Penguins three games in the regular season and also in the playoffs eight times, was used on the way to the Stanley Cup victory. As the first Korean its name was thus engraved on the trophy.
1991/92 he played the entire season in Pittsburgh, but was used in only 49 games and scored in time also his first goal in the NHL. In the playoffs, but then he missed only two games, as the Penguins won their second Stanley Cup. In the following season, he finally prevailed in the root formation of the team and had his best year in the NHL with three goals and 15 assists, but was transferred to the next season after weaker services to the Los Angeles Kings. After he had played 18 games in Los Angeles, he was again part of a transfer, which sent him to the Ottawa Senators in the summer of 1994. The 1994/95 season with 29 games and two assists should ultimately have been his last in the top division.
He returned in the fall of 1995 returned to the IHL and played the beginning of the Houston Aeros and the Minnesota Moose, the relocated only a short time later and Manitoba Moose were called. Soon after the move, he moved in the fall of 1997 within the league to the Cleveland Lumberjacks. There he remained for nearly three entire seasons, but he could not go on the achievements from the beginning of his professional career. In the spring of 1999 he went back to the Houston Aeros and celebrated with them his second Turner Cup win. The 1999/2000 season, he completed then again in Cleveland, but left in the summer of 2000, North America.
In the 2000 /01 season Paek played in the British Ice Hockey Super League for the Nottingham Panthers, but came after just one season back to North America, where he is active in the Anchorage Aces of the unterklassigen WCHL for a year as a player and defensive coach had. After another season with the Nottingham Panthers he eventually ended his career in 2003.
Career as a coach
After gaining first experience as a defensive coach already at the Anchorage Aces in the 2001/ 02 season, he took over after the end of his playing career in the summer of 2003 as coach of the Orlando Seals of the World Hockey Association 2 After the League one by only game time was disbanded, he returned to Cleveland in the U.S. state of Ohio, where he was active as a player several years. There he was assistant coach of the St. Edward High School teams and coached at the same time the amateur team Cleveland Panthers. Both teams won their championships this year.
In summer 2005, Paek as assistant coach Greg Ireland in the Grand Rapids Griffins, the farm team of the Detroit Red Wings was hired from the AHL. In the first year the Griffins were the best team in the regular season and went to the Conference Finals of the playoffs one. The second season was less successful, however, and Ireland head coach had to leave the team, while Paek was allowed to continue working under new coach Mike Stothers. The season 2007/ 08 was still unsuccessful and Stothers was released after just one year.
After the season, Jim Paek made a brief detour into the NHL, as he looked after the young talents of the Griffins, who had joined for the playoffs the Detroit Red Wings, and finally won the Stanley Cup. Although Paeks name was not engraved after his two wins as a player for a third time on the trophy, but he was able to spend as each member of the championship team a day with the Stanley Cup.
For the season 2008/ 09 he returned to Grand Rapids, where he first worked in the summer of 2012 under head coach Curt Fraser to and since then assisted his successor, Jeff Blashill.
Awards and achievements
As a player
As a coach
- 2005 Master of the Eastern Elite Amateur Hockey League
- 2005 Winner of the Ohio High School Championship ( as assistant coach )
Career Stats
As a player
( Key to Career statistics: Sp or GP = Games Played, T or G = goals scored, V or A = achieved assists; Pts or Pts = scored points scorer, SM or PIM = received penalty minutes, / - = Plus / Minus balance sheet; PP = scored majority gates; SH = scored shorthanded goals, GW = achieved victory gates; Play-downs/Relegation 1 )