Park, a striker, is a fulltime professional who has 197 internationals to her credit.
The 28-year-old from Seoul will be a linchpin for Korea when the Six Nations women's tournament begins on Saturday as part of the inaugural Hawke's Bay New Zealand Festival of Hockey.
Asked how many goals she has scored, Park said she had lost count in more than a decade of representing her country from the time she was an 18-year-old in her last year at high school.
The PE degree holder gravitated instantly towards the sticks-and-ball code the minute she saw it in a country where children spend six years in primary school and three each in middle and secondary schools before a four-year stint at university.
Taekwondo is the biggest sport in South Korea.
"Hockey is not popular like football [soccer], baseball, volleyball and basketball," she said, adding her initial ambitions were to become a coach at the completion of tertiary studies.
The Telecom hockey team player receives her income from the government as well as the company sponsoring the team.
"It's good money and she's very excited about playing in countries such as Holland, Australia and New Zealand which are all different," Kim explained on her behalf.
Incidentally, the reference to becoming a killer in the D and to create scoring opportunities is the edict of Kim, a former middle-school PE teacher who went on to coach South Korea international teams for 16 years - men for a dozen years - before jetting off to neighbouring China where he emulated his feat for eight years - four years for each gender.
Kim assumes the mantle of consultant with the Korean contingent but emphasised the Six Nations tourney here - like it is for Argentina, Australia, the Black Sticks and Japan - was the ideal platform for them to fine tune the Kim Jong Eun-skippered, 24-player squad that includes six "babies" for the world championship in a few weeks.
Kim coached South Korea to silver medals in 1988 Seoul and the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games before leading China women to Asian Games gold in 2010 when they beat his country of birth 5-4 in a shootout in Guangzhou.
He also took South Korea men to the podium for silver in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
He said about 4500 people played the sport at home, though the country finding itself in the financial doldrums at the turn of the century saw government funding dry up.
"The young generation is also more interested in this," a grinning Kim said, pulling out a cellphone and massaging its keys. "Life is comfortable and sport is hard."
He felt the fabric of a typical family in South Korea had also undergone a major shift.
"Parents now have just one child but government says if you have three to four children then it'll give more money to them."
He said the South Korean families now preferred to enjoy life's offerings rather than spend their lives raising children.
"They want to travel and go shopping and all those things."
A hockey player who competed at social competitive level only, Kim said there were enough turfs for people to play the sport.
The problem was children were introduced to hockey too late - not until they were 12-years-old at middle school.
"They need to start when they are seven or eight, like they do for other sports."
His elevation to successful international coach endured a similar rocky path.
His first goal was to get his foot into a middle school as PE teacher before convincing the principal to introduce the sport.
"Hockey not popular so I help build hockey team when said okay."
Kim went on to mentor the school to three national championship titles.
Not satisfied, he resigned from his school job to jet off to India where he graduated from a Punjab tertiary institution with a sports degree, specialising in hockey, in 1985-86.
"I read hockey books from Australia, Holland [The Netherlands] and England and went back to Korea where I started to coach."
Asked if he was of attacking or defending mould, Kim said balance in both facets was vital for success.
"I like total hockey, full press so fitness must be there."
He believes it's imperative for teams to generate excitement.
"People go crazy in football [soccer] World Cup. We want to be like them.
"You want to bring in more spectators so keep rules easier."
The father of two adult children, his wife, a "hockey widow", "is a very unhappy" with his choice of career.
"She say all the time you away from home so I try to go home some weekends," he said with a laugh.
"One sportsman in the family enough so children not allowed to play in my family."
