The two Koreas may unite...over
hockey.
North and South Korea want to field a joint women's hockey team at the Pyeongchang Olympics, and they have relayed their position to the International Olympic Committee, officials in Seoul said Monday. A joint team at the games in South Korea would require IOC approval. But if realized, it would be the Koreas' first unified Olympic team, leaving a major mark in their sports diplomacy that often mirrors their rocky political ties. South Korean sports ministry spokesman Hwang Seong Un said the two Koreas have been discussing the make-up of a unified women's hockey team since last year when the North's IOC representative, Chang Ung, visited South Korea along with his country's taekwondo demonstration team.
I for one hope this happens and I'd take time off work to watch a game with the Koreans in it. Hockey is huge in Canada but it's also played a significant role in shifting opinions in this country and opening our eyes towards our (then) communist enemies. The
1972 Summit Series began a long series of international matches between us and the Russians and then other communist countries over the years. The first series of 8 games was bitterly fought, and we barely won and had to come from behind in Russia to do it. Paul Henderson became a national hero and our position at the top of the hockey world was reaffirmed, but just barely. To give you an idea of how big this was in Canada, I was in grade 5 at the time and we watched the games in school!! It was the first satellite sporting broadcast in Canadian history I believe. Viewership was estimated at 16,000,000 in a nation of 22,000,000 !!! I still recall to this day the New Year's Eve game in 1975 between my beloved Montreal Canadians and the Moscow Red Army, our best club against their best club, head to head for one game. And what a game it was!! At the time I said it was the greatest game I'd ever seen and it still might be to this day. We outplayed them for three periods but they had Tretiak in goal, perhaps the greatest goalie that ever lived at that time and the best we could manage was a 3-3 tie.
By the time of that New Year's Game most of us had a begrudging respect for the Soviets and their hockey players. We no longer saw them as just mindless robots who won a bunch of medals in international hockey simply because we weren't there. They were good, very good, and our game changed and improved as a result. Hockey allowed ordinary Canadians to see that the Russians and all of the Eastern bloc nations were humans too, they weren't invincible and they could be beaten with our best. It's not a real battlefield obviously but it was highly symbolic and you could sense the change in Canadians on a one to one basis.
The Koreans will get trounced at the Olympics, probably losing games by double digits, but if they can come together over hockey, I think they'll earn the respect of their fellow hockey players Olympians in general, and the world. Hockey players are some of the nicest and most respectful athletes in the world and it's a great stage to begin the process of bring the two Koreas together again.
