The unified Korean women’s ice hockey team met with great enthusiasm at its historic Olympic debut in Pyeongchang – despite the 8-0 defeat against Switzerland.
“Korea, we’re one”was the sound of 3600 throats through the Kwandong Hockey Centre when 70 years after the division a joint team played for the first time.
In front of South Korean President Moon Jae In, Kim Yong Nam, North Korea’s official head of state, and IOC President Thomas Bach, 23 female ice hockey players wrote sports history: 20 from the south, three from the north. With their symbolic appearance, they sent a sign of peace and reconciliation – for two countries that are still officially at war.
They had played against each other ten months ago: South Korea beat their northern neighbour 3-0 in April at the Division II A four-class-class World Cup in April and had climbed to the top. That was also a novelty.
Jong Su Hyon, Kim Un Hyang and Hwang Chung Gum had selected the Canadian coach Sarah Murray from a total of twelve players from the north – not as an underdog in the fourth row, but right in the middle of it.
Already on the eve of the opening ceremony, Jong as torchbearer together with Captain Park Jongah and Hwang as flag bearer with the South Korean bobsleigh driver Won Yun Jong had set impressive signs.
A quarter of an hour before the first bully the cheerleaders of North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un made their first big entrance. Dressed in red and strategically distributed throughout the arena, the 200 young women clapped, waved, danced and sang – and the audience cheered.
Every time a Korean player played the puck, the crowd shouted out – the cheerleaders waved flags with the symbol of unified Korea. When Han Soojin hit the bar in a counterattack, the noise level increased even further (9th). The goals scored by Alina Müller (11/12/20/22), Phoebe Staenz (23rd) and Lara Stalder (50th/52nd) for the clearly superior Olympic runners-up from Sochi did not disturb the cheerful atmosphere.
Only in January North and South Korea had agreed to form a joint ice hockey team for Pyeongchang. Twelve North Koreans joined the 23-strong South Korean team a good two weeks ago. Three of them have to use coach Murray in every game, as the agreement stipulates.
Before the first Olympic performance, the Canadian had repeatedly said to her players:”We don’t want to make a political statement, we want to win”.