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Sarah Murray

Sarah Murray, 30, coach of the South Korean women’s hockey team, said that the unified inter-Korean team would hit the ice starting with the warm-up match against Sweden on Feb. 4.

“We only have 16 days left until the Olympics. That’s not enough time for the unified inter-Korean team to learn how to play together. The North Korean athletes need to get here in a hurry,” Murray said during a press conference at the Jincheon National Training Center in North Chungcheong Province on Jan. 22.

“The warm-up game with Sweden at the Seonhak Ice Rink in Incheon on Feb. 4 is the final and only warm-up game before the main Olympic events. The unified inter-Korean team will compete,” Murray added.

“We’re not sure which athletes will come down yet, but the other coaches and I are getting a bearing on the North Korean athletes by watching video footage of them at the international championship in Gangneung last year. We’ve also drawn up a tentative list of names,” she said.

“I don’t intend to field the 12 athletes from North Korea on a rotating basis. I’m going to pick the good ones and play them.” The three North Korean athletes who compete in each game are likely to be in the fourth line.

“The North Korean athletes are physically tough and good at pressure. I’m working on tactical training for defense, and they’ll probably play in the fourth line,” Murray said.

Though there will be 35 players on the roster of the unified inter-Korean hockey team, only 22 of them can actually get dressed for any given game. These 22 players include two goaltenders and four lines of five players each, which are fielded in rotation. The fourth line tends to be different from the first, second and third lines, which are chosen for their speed and decision-making.

“It would have been better if the unified inter-Korean team had been discussed beforehand. But now that we’ve got a unified team, the players on the team have to communicate and work together. When the North Korean players get here, each of them is going to be given a customized playbook,” the coach said.

Murray said she had “mixed feelings” about being the coach of the unified team: “On the one hand, I’m proud to be part of the great history of building bridges, of bringing together a divided country. But there’s also an element of sacrifice for the players.” As for the mood on the team, she said she had “asked the players to concentrate on themselves and the games and not to worry about anything else.”

Murray also took issue with a Chosun Ilbo story about a picture of a wolfpack she had posted on her Kakao Talk profile. “My point was that I wanted the players to be like wolves on the hunt as they focus on the Olympics, but the article got the context wrong,” she said.

“South Korean hockey doesn’t end with the Olympics. The growth of the many fans and young athletes who watch the unified team at the Olympics will help hockey continue to develop here. I hope the Olympics motivates a lot of women to play hockey,” she said.

By Kim Chang-keum, staff photographer

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