South Korean curling officials and coaches who abused the national women's team members for years have been slapped with lifetime bans. The Korean Curling Federation (KCF) announced Monday that its former Vice President Kim Kyung-doo, his daughter Kim Min-jung and her husband Jang Ban-seok will no longer be allowed to set foot in the sport. The Kims were once considered the royal family in South Korean curling. Kim Kyung-doo was a founding member of the KCF in 1994. Kim Min-jung was the head

As the stove league continues in the League of Legends Champions Korea offseason, roster changes and transfers are being announced in preparation for the franchise system that will start in spring. However, player salaries and transfer fees, on which everyone keeps an eye every year during the stove league, are once again kept hidden, revealed only through rumors, without any official statements. Despite the secrecy surrounding the exact price, the figures being tossed about this year are at

Two-time Olympic speed skating gold medalist Lee Seung-hoon returned to the ice on Wednesday, hoping to enjoy being on the ice again after serving his one-year suspension over allegations of physically assaulting teammates. Lee skated in the men's 5,000m race at the Korea Skating Union (KSU) President's Cup National Speed Skating Championship at Taeneung International Rink in Seoul. It was his first race since the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. He finished fourth at 6:53.28, well off his com

Unintended event during LoL stove league gets out of hand

An annual forum designed to support the growth of sports in developing countries will be held in Seoul this week, a related state-funded agency said Wednesday. The sports ministry will host the "Dream Together Seoul Forum" at SKY31 Conference Hall at Lotte World Tower in Seoul, starting at 2 p.m. Friday. The Korea Sports Promotion Foundation (KSPO) organized the event, which will be held under the theme "Sports for a Better World." KSPO said Thursday the forum will help pro

After a week of online voting, the most popular player in each of the five roles in League of Legends was selected to play in the 2020 LoL All-Star Event on Dec. 18 to 20. Unlike the previous years in which current and retired pros and influencers from all over the world gathered in one city, this year’s event will be held online. All the chosen players from Korean LoL esports league, LoL Champions Korea, will be playing at LoL Park in Jongno, Seoul. The LoL All-Star is an annual event

Busan Esports Arena will officially open Wednesday, Busan Metropolitan City and Busan IT Industry Promotion Agency announced Tuesday. The esports arena to open in Busan on the 15th and 16th floors of Samjung Tower is the first arena dedicated to esports to open outside the capital area. This is the first of the three esports arenas supported by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to open following the government decision to promote esports outside of Seoul in 2018. The other two arenas

  In the European League of Legends scene, there is an iconic esports host named Sjokz who has conducted LoL European Championships player interviews for several years. In the LoL Pro League in China, her equivalent is Candice. In the LCK, however, no esports announcer has managed to stay with the league for multiple years, as many move on after gaining popularity or quit for various reasons. While LCK fans supported the announcers as they moved on to bigger things, it always left a bitter

Riot Games finalized the 10 teams for the League of Legends Champions Korea franchise on Monday after announcing implementation of the franchise system for 2021 back in April. The 10 teams are hyFresh Blade (Brion Esports), Sandbox Gaming, Afreeca Freecs, Damwon Gaming (AD Esports), KT Rolster (KT Sports), Team Dynamics, Hanwha Life Esports (Hanwha Life Insurance), DRX, Gen.G Esports and T1 (SK Telecom CS T1). The list remains unchanged from the 10 preferred bidders Riot Games announced in Au

League of Legends Champions Korea’s Damwon Gaming hoisted the Summoner’s Cup for the first time in three years, beating China’s LoL Pro League’s Suning at the LoL World Championships Finals on Saturday at Pudong Football Stadium in Shanghai. This year’s finals marked the first such event this year with a live audience, upon the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic. The opening ceremony, featuring Riot Game’s virtual reality K-pop group K/DA and performances of

South Korea’s Damwon Gaming took down Europe’s G2 Esports in a convincing 3-1 win at the League of Legend World Championship semifinals on Saturday. This is the first time a Korean team has made the finals in three years at the biggest esports event of the year. For the past two years, Chinese teams have played against European teams at the finals, including the 2018 finals in Incheon. Damwon looked unstoppable as they finished the last game of the series against G2 in just 19 min

The first game of the semifinals for the League of Legend World Championships will feature Korean top seed Damwon Gaming against European first seed G2 Esports on Saturday at 7 p.m. The match will decide which of the two regions will be knocked out of the tournament and which will head to the finals. Damwon Gaming went undefeated in the second round robin of the LoL Champions Korea Summer, going 9-0 in match score and losing only one set against Gen.G. They’ve dropped a single game o

After European powerhouse G2 Esports swept Korean team Gen.G Esports 3-0 Sunday night, Damwon Gaming became the only Korean team left in the League of Legends World Championships, heading to the semifinals. For Korean fans, the match between G2 and Gen.G on Sunday brought back nightmares of last year’s World Championships. G2, regarded as League of Legends Champions Korea’s kryptonite, took down Damwon Gaming in the quarterfinals and Korean team T1 with superstar “Faker&rdquo

The chance of Korean teams facing each other in the finals of League of Legends World Championships went to ashes Sunday as the quarterfinals draw put all three Korean teams on the same side of the tournament bracket. The eight teams that made the quarterfinals are: Damwon Gaming, DRX and Gen.G Esports of Korea; Top Esports, JD Gaming and Suning of China; and two European teams, G2 Esports and Fnatic. Damwon Gaming, Gen.G Esports, Top Esports and Suning topped their groups in the group stages

Gen.G’s Arnold Hur predicts LCK turning to franchises will lead to improvements in esports industry