Unified Korean team comes with ‘mixed feelings’ for Canadian coach
The Canadian coach of the South Korean women’s hockey team says she has “mixed feelings” about including players from North Korea on her roster.
Sarah Murray, a dual Canadian- American citizen and the daughter of former NHL coach Andy Murray, is concerned about the timing of the decision to ice a unified team.
A deal to combine North and South Korean women’s hockey players on one team was reached Wednesday, pending approval from International Olympic Committee.
During their third day of talks in about a week, senior officials also reached an agreement that would see athletes marching together under a “unification flag” depicting their peninsula during the opening ceremony, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said.
While Murray acknowledged having the two countries come together at the Olympics is “great for the politics and world relations,” she said she would have preferred “this had been done three to four years ago, when we started this journey.”
Murray was hired to lead the South Korean program in 2014.
If a joint hockey squad is realized, it would be the Ko- reas’ first unified team in an Olympics.
South and North Korea played against each other in the lower tier of the 2017 world championship. The South shut out the North 3-0.
South Korea is in a group with Switzerland, Sweden and Japan at the Olympics and opens preliminary round play on Feb. 10 against the Swiss.