Unified hockey team step toward progress
Wearing a powder-blue logo of a map symbolizing peace between the Koreas, the most talked-about team at this year’s Olympics finally saw game action Sunday in Incheon, South Korea, in a friendly that drew thousands of spectators in a country that never previously showed much passion for ice hockey.
The North and South Korean women’s hockey players, who only began practicing together about a week ago as a combined team, showed plenty of fight in their first competitive test, crashing the boards and throwing their bodies to stop pucks and opponents, but never really threatened in a 3-1 loss to world No. 5 Sweden. The Koreans will play Sweden again Feb. 12 in the Olympic tournament.
But the outcome didn’t seem to matter to the capacity crowd of 3,000 at the Seonhak International Ice Rink. Fans waved miniature white-and-blue flags showing a unified Korean Peninsula — the same mark on the players’ uniforms — and chanted “We are one” while screaming whenever the Koreans got on the break. The arena thunderously erupted when South Korean forward Park Jong-ah cut the deficit to 2-1 in the first period.
The Korean players stood to the Korean traditional tune of “Arirang” at the start of the game, instead of their respective national anthems, and received warm applause as they left the arena after the contest.
“I think that the North Korean players played really well — this is one of the biggest crowds they played in front of,” said Sarah Murray, the joint team’s Canadian head coach. “Being added 12 days ago and not getting to practice together all that much, they played our system pretty well, so I am proud of them.”
The team’s North Korean coach, Pak Chol Ho, said the Koreas “can do anything if they do things as one.” He left the postgame news conference without taking questions.
The joint Koreas team highlights a series of conciliatory measures the war-separated rivals took for the Pyeongchang Games, which South Korea sees as an opportunity to revive meaningful communication with North Korea after an extended period of animosity and diplomatic stalemate over the North’s nuclear program.
The decision to create the joint hockey team, which wasn’t reached until January, sparked a heated debate in South Korea, where many people thought the South Korean players were being unfairly asked to sacrifice playing time to their North Korean teammates, who are seen as less skilled and experienced.
IOC critical of ruling
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach strongly criticized the midweek ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport that lifted Olympic doping bans for 28 Russian athletes, calling it “extremely disappointing and surprising.”
“The IOC, we would never have expected this,” Bach said Sunday in Pyeongchang. “We feel that this decision shows the urgent need for reforms in the internal structure of CAS.”
The CAS ruling Thursday overturned doping bans on 28 Russians, citing insufficient evidence. Russia said it wanted to send 15 of the 28 to Pyeongchang, including gold medal-winning skeleton slider Alexander Tretiakov and crosscountry skiing gold medalist Alexander Legkov. Some others, particularly Russia’s top bobsledders from the 2014 Sochi Olympics, already have retired.
Bach said an independent panel, chaired by former French sports minister Valerie Fourneyron, would review and make a recommendation on Russian doping cases. He hopes a final decision will be made “in the next couple of days.”
Delegation plans
Seoul officials said North Korea plans to send a high-level delegation led by its nominal head of state to South Korea this week.The planned visit by Kim Yong Nam, the head of the North’s parliament, comes as the two Koreas are pressing ahead with a set of reconciliation steps ahead of the upcoming Winter Olympics in South Korea. The South’s Unification Ministry said the North sent a message Sunday saying its delegation will visit South Korea Feb. 9-11.
The North dispatching a high-level delegation was part of agreements the two Koreas struck a month ago over Olympic cooperation. The North is sending 22 athletes to the Pyeongchang Olympics.