There is no politics here

– Despite the freeze in ties between the United States and North Korea, a handful of skaters from both sides are breaking the Olympic ice with a budding friendship.

Tensions remain high between the North and the United States. But on the ice language is the main barrier between friends.

“We smile and hug each other every day,” said American Marissa Brandt (above), who plays for the unified Korean squad along with 22 North Koreans.

“They are very friendly and sweet,” added Brandt, who was adopted from South Korea at fourmonths-old by her American parents. Her sister is in the American hockey squad at the Olympics.

The situation came about because South Korea co-opted the Americans with Korean heritage ahead of the Games. Then the North Koreans showed up two weeks before the start on a wave of inter-Korean reconciliation.

“When we sit in the dining hall and we have conversations, it’s pretty much every day stuff like talking about food or who has a boyfriend,” said forward Randi Griffin, another American of Korean heritage.

“They are just people, they are young women, they are hockey players just like us.”

Language is an issue, with the North Koreans unfamiliar with most hockey terminology which South Korean players have adopted from English.

Still, the North Koreans remain under tight control and surveillance, always trailed by minders and kept in separate apartments and buses from their foreign teammates.

Griffin scored the lone goal for the Koreans in the 4-1 defeat to Japan on Wednesday. They lost their previous two games 8-0 each to Switzerland and Sweden. –

Gangneum