P.E.I. coach getting lots of friend requests from South Korea

Peter Gallant, the coach of ​the South Korea women's curling team, is back home on P.E.I. after a breakout Olympic performance that saw the team — and him — become stars.

​The South Korean team went 8-1 to secure a first-place finish in the round robin. They topped Japan in a thrilling semifinal before losing to the Swedes in the gold medal match.

The team, consisting of skip Kim Eun-jung ("Annie"), third Kim Kyeong-ae ("Steak"), second Kim Seon-yeong ("Sunny") and lead Kim Yeong-mi ("Pancake"), became famous in their home country for both their success and on-ice personalities.

They were referred to as the "Garlic Girls," and their skip in particular became a source of fascination. Gallant said even the skip's round glasses were sold out in optical stores across South Korea.

"The atmosphere was amazing in the arena and you can imagine 3,000 Korean people watching curling and most of them didn't understand the game and they were cheering every shot basically," he said. "But I was most impressed with how the team responded to the home crowd and they were able to handle the pressures that came with being the home team."

The South Korean team had been flying over Canadian teams to play against and decided in the lead-up to the Olympics they should get a full-time coach. They first met Gallant in Newfoundland and he started coaching them in 2016 for the next three seasons.

Gallant doesn't speak Korean and the team didn't speak much English, which led to a lot of silent dinners, he said. But communicating on the ice was easier because he could move around rocks and show them strategy, and they also had a translator.

He's been living almost full-time in a small town in South Korea for the past three years, his wife joining him for a few months a year, as well as travelling for tournaments around the world.

All that work paid off as the team blew past expectations and made clutch shots under pressure on their way to the country's first medal in curling.

Gallant himself also became known, with people recognizing him and asking for selfies. 

"I've had about 50 to 100 Facebook friend requests every day from Koreans that I've never heard before," he said.

Gallant's contract is over with the Olympics and he said it's bittersweet to have to leave the team before the world championships later this year. But the silver medal was more than anyone expected and he's proud of the team's accomplishments.

"There were tears of disappointment after the game," he said. "But they should be very proud to win a silver medal in a sport that isn't common in the country and there's been no success at all on that stage before."

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