Inside Korea’s unified women’s ice hockey team

CNN — On the opening night of the 2018 Winter Olympics, journalists and photographers from around the world assembled in a large cabin in the shadow of the Kwandong Hockey Centre. Woohae Cho/Getty Images AsiaPac/Getty Images The International Olympic Committee allowed the Korean federation to expand the team’s roster to 35 players, which meant 12 North Koreans could be incorporated without any South Koreans being dropped. Before the team’s opening match against Switzerland on February 10, Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, watched the match alongside South Korean president Moon Jae-in. “Overall, in terms of Korea and ice hockey, I think it was a huge stepping stone in opening people’s eyes in Korea to ice hockey.” These days, South Korea – a country with 365 registered female players among a population of 51 million – and North Korea’s women’s teams are ranked 16th and 28th in the world rankings respectively. “It did facilitate increase contacts and cooperation between the two Koreas following the Winter Olympics,” says Madden of the unified women’s team, pointing out that there were those who had wrongly predicted that the team would create a wedge between the US and South Korean diplomatic, political and military alliance.