TheColorOfHockey

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Tag Archives: 2018 Winter Olympics

Sarah Nurse seeks gold at IIHF world championship after winning Olympic silver

09 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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2018 Winter Olympics, CWHL, Darnell Nurse, Kia Nurse, Sarah Nurse, Toronto Furies

Sarah Nurse owns a Silver Medal won at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. Now she’s mining for gold.

Nurse, a forward for Toronto Furies of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, was named to Team Canada for the 2019 International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s World Championship April 4-14 in Espoo, Finland.

Sarah Nurse played for Canada at the 2018 Winter Olympics and will represent her country for the first time at the IIHF Women’s World Championship in Finland next month (Photo/Hockey Canada).

The tournament will be Nurse’s IIHF world championship debut but she’ll be in some familiar company. Fifteen other players from Canada’s 2018 Winter Olympic squad will join her in Finland.

“The players we have selected have had success at various levels of their careers, both nationally and internationally, and we’re excited to get started in Finland,” Gina Kingsbury, Hockey Canada’s director of women’s national teams, said.

Canada is seeking its 11th gold medal but its first since 2012. And Nurse has the goal-scoring skill to help them do it.

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Nurse has emerged as a star for the Furies in her CWHL rookie season. She scored 26 points (14 goals, 12 assists) in 26 regular season games. She has one post-season goal so far for the Furies.

🇨🇦 23 @HC_Women will represent Team Canada at #WomensWorlds in Finland this April. https://t.co/h6DQHeatzZ pic.twitter.com/i6QZ1EeP31

— Hockey Canada (@HockeyCanada) March 6, 2019

Nurse comes from a highly competitive sports family. Her brother, Isaac Nurse, is a forward for the Hamilton Bulldogs of the Ontario Hockey League. The siblings are cousins of Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse and New York Liberty basketball point guard  Kia Nurse, who represented Canada at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. 

The jersey that Canadian forward Sarah Nurse wore and the stick that defender Brigette Lacquette used at the 2018 Winter Olympics are in the Hockey Hall of Fame (Photo/Phil Pritchard/HHOF)

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. And download the Color of Hockey podcast from iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

 

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Jim Paek played in Pittsburgh, coached in South Korea, but calls Nottingham ‘home’

29 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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2018 Winter Olympics, Beijing, Grand Rapid Griffins, Jim Paek, Nottingham Panthers, Pittsburgh Penguins., PyeongChang

Jim Paek won two Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh, coached for his native South Korea at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, and helped develop players for the Detroit Red Wings farm team in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

But the retired National Hockey League defenseman recently called Nottingham, England, “home.”

Paek and his family spent the Christmas holiday in Nottingham, the place where he closed out his professional playing career with the Nottingham Panthers in the early 2000s.

The Panthers, now a member of the Elite Ice Hockey League, honored Paek on December 27 before its game against the Sheffield Steelers.

“We like to call this home, in Nottingham,” Paek told team General Manager Gary Moran on Panthers TV. “This is where my daughter was born. She wanted to come back and have a little feeling of Christmas, and we sure have received that here. Met a lot of great friends that we made in the past, and it’s been absolutely great.”

Paek became the NHL’s first Korean-born player when he joined the Penguins in the 1990-91 season. He helped anchor Pittsburgh’s defense during the team’s back-to-back Stanley Cup run in 1990-91 and 1991-92.

Jim Paek played defense on the Pittsburgh Penguins’ back-to-back Stanley Cup teams in the 1990s (Photo/Pittsburgh Penguins).

He appeared in 217 NHL regular season games with the Penguins, Los Angeles Kings and Ottawa Senators, tallying 5 goals and 29 assists. Paek played in 27 Stanley Cup Playoffs games, scoring a goal and 4 assists.

After bouncing around the old International Hockey League, Paek crossed the pond and joined the Panthers in 2001-01. He signed on to play for the Anchorage Aces of the defunct West Coast Hockey League the following season but returned to Nottingham after 40 games with the Alaska team.

“To be honest, it was hard, it was hard to be in Anchorage, Alaska,” Paek told Panthers TV. “I will never forget the first time coming back (to Nottingham) and stepping on the ice. What a tremendous reception I got.”

Paek played in 84 regular season games for the Panthers, scoring 4 goals and 31 assists. He had a goal and 7 assists in 29 BISL playoff contests before hanging up his skates in 2002-2003.

But his blades didn’t stay in the closet long – coaching opportunities beckoned in North America and beyond. Paek served as an assistant coach for the Grand Rapids Griffins, Detroit’s American Hockey League affiliate, from 2005-06 to 2013-14.

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In 2014, South Korea hired Paek to coach its 2018 Winter Olympic men’s hockey team and to basically build a national hockey program from scratch.

The South Korean men failed to register a win at the home-ice Winter Olympics and Paek’s squad was outscored 14 to 1 in three games. Still, he established a foundation that the country’s sports brain trust hopes will translate into wins – and medals – in the near future.

The Korea Ice Hockey Association rewarded Paek with a three-year contract extension in June. He’s on a mission now to make sure that South Korea’s men’s and women’s teams qualify for the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.

“After the Olympics, I felt I wasn’t done yet,” Paek told Panthers TV. “I needed to do more with Korean hockey and, hopefully, we can move along, progress, and develop nicely.”

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. And download the Color of Hockey podcast from iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

 

 

 

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Olympic Channel airs documentary on historic Korean women’s hockey team

14 Thursday Jun 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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2018 Winter Olympics, Olympic Channel, Randi Griffin

Randi Griffin, the  North Carolinian who scored the first goal in Korean Olympic ice hockey history, is featured in an Olympic Channel documentary that chronicles the merging of the North and South women’s hockey squads into one for the 2018 Winter Games.

Korean-American Randi Griffin scored Korea’s first-ever Olympic ice hockey goal.

“We Are One” debuted on the Olympic Channel’s website Wednesday and can be viewed online. The documentary gives a behind-the-scenes look at the unified Korean women’s team and the challenges it faced competing in PyeongChang against more talented, experienced teams.

Unlike the other teams, the Korean squad had to overcome the political pressures of the moment, language barriers (Korean is spoken differently in North and South), and the constant spotlight from international media.

The team played under the blue and white unification flag instead of the flags of North and South Korea. The South Korean roster was supplemented by 12 members of the North Korean women’s national team.

Even before the merger, the South Korean squad had an unusual collection of players. The Korean Ice Hockey Association recruited some players of Korean heritage from the United States and Canada via email, asking if they would be interested in playing in the Olympics.

Griffin, who played hockey at Harvard University, thought the email was a hoax and didn’t respond to it for months.

Lucky for Korea, she eventually responded.  Griffin made history when she scored Korea’s first-ever Olympic goal in February against arch-rival Japan.

It was a weak wrist shot that bounced and trickled five-hole – between the legs – of the Japanese goaltender.

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Griffin called it a “garbage goal.” The puck she scored with is now on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto along with other artifacts from the 2018 Winter Games.

The Korean women’s unified team was bad. It failed to win a game during the Olympic tournament and was outscored 2 to 20. But it played before huge and enthusiastic crowds.

Games had a college basketball-type atmosphere, largely thanks to an army of North Korean cheerleaders that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent to the Winter Games.

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. Download the Color of Hockey podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

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U.S. Olympian Jordan Greenway makes NHL debut with Minnesota Wild

28 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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2018 Winter Olympics, Jordan Greenway, Minnesota Wild, Nashville Predators

Jordan Greenway didn’t register a point Tuesday night, but the massive forward still managed to score a hat trick.

Making his National Hockey League debut with the Minnesota Wild against the Nashville Predators in Music City, Greenway skated for his third team on three different hockey levels in a six-week span.

He ended his collegiate career Saturday when Boston University lost to the University of Michigan 6-3 in the Northeast Regional final of the NCAA Frozen Four tournament.

Jordan Greenway, Matt Cullen, Charlie Coyle and Bruce Boudreau on Greenway’s debut, facing Nashville and more. pic.twitter.com/k5lhS9O3lP

— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) March 27, 2018

Last month, Greenway represented the United States at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, becoming the first African-American to play hockey for the U.S. in the Winter Games.

He donned a Wild jersey after he signed a three-year entry level contract Monday. The Wild took the 6-foot-6, 226-pound Greenway in the second round of the 2015 NHL Draft with the 50th overall pick.

“It’s been a quick turnaround, for sure,” the Canton, N.Y., native told reporters. “But it’s all something I’ve wanted to do. It’s something I love doing, and I’m just excited to get everything started, excited to help the team out however I can.”

The newest member of the @mnwild Jordan Greenway joins @FSNGorg after one period of play pic.twitter.com/XIvw9M90Ew

— FOX Sports North (@fsnorth) March 28, 2018

Greenway logged 10:01 minutes of ice time in Minnesota’s 2-1 overtime loss to Nashville, including 50 seconds of power play time and 12 seconds on the penalty kill. He didn’t mange a shot on goal.

He got a taste of the difference between college hockey and the NHL courtesy of a first-period hit from rugged Predators left wing Scott Hartnell.

Keep your head up out there, rook! 😉 A nice welcome to the NHL for Jordan Greenway from #Preds forward Scott Hartnell pic.twitter.com/nLTIN9j9FY

— FOX Sports Tennessee (@PredsOnFSTN) March 28, 2018

Greenway, 21, finished his three years at BU with 28 goals and 64 assists in 112 games. He had 13 goals and 22 assists in 36 games in 2017-18.

In international competition, Greenway scored one goal in five Winter Olympics games; tallied 3 goals and 5 assists on the gold medal-winning U.S. team at the 2016-17 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship in Toronto and Montreal; and notched a goal and 6 assists at the 2014-15 IIHF Under-18 World Junior Championship to help power the U.S. to gold in that tournament.

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. And download the Color of Hockey podcast from iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

 

 

 

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Sarah Nurse’s jersey, Brigette Lacquette’s stick get call from Hockey Hall of Fame

08 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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2018 Winter Olympics, Brigette Lacquette, Calgary Inferno, Canadian Women's Hockey League, National Women's Hockey League, Sarah Nurse, University of Wisconsin

Canadian women’s Olympic team hockey players Sarah Nurse and Brigette Lacquette aren’t in the Hockey Hall of Fame – but items they used at the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang are.

The Hall collected forward Nurse’s white Team Canada jersey and one of defenseman Lacquette’s Bauer sticks shortly after the Winter Games’ conclusion on Feb. 25. Both artifacts are now at the Hockey museum in Toronto.

“It’s an honor to have represented Canada on the Olympic stage and have a piece of my journey in the Hockey Hall of Fame,” Nurse told me recently. “I hope to inspire young girls of color to break barriers and play hockey, and never give up on whatever dreams they may have.”

The jersey that Canadian forward Sarah Nurse wore and the stick that defender Brigette Lacquette used at the 2018 Winter Olympics are in the Hockey Hall of Fame (Photo/Phil Pritchard/HHoF)

The items from the Silver Medal-winning Canadian players join the puck that Korean unified women’s Olympic hockey team forward Randi Griffin used to score Korea’s first-ever Olympic ice hockey goal.

Sarah Nurse’s Team Canada jersey and Brigette Lacquette’s stick have a home in the Hockey Hall of Fame (Photo/Phil Pritchard/HHoF).

The presence of Nurse’s jersey and Lacquette’s stick in the Hall are significant. Nurse is believed to be the first black woman to play for Team Canada in the Winter Olympics. Lacquette is the first First Nation woman to skate on a Canadian women’s Olympic squad. She is the daughter of a Cote First Nation mother and a Metis father.

Nurse, a former University of Wisconsin star and a 2016 second round draft pick of the Boston Pride of the National Women’s Hockey League, scored a goal in five games in PyeongChang.

Embed from Getty Images

She is the cousin of Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse and University of Connecticut women’s basketball point guard and 2016 Canadian Olympic hoopster Kia Nurse.

Lacquette, a defender for the Calgary Inferno of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League and a former University of Minnesota-Duluth standout, recorded an assist in the five Winter Olympics contests and had a plus-minus rating of plus-3.

Embed from Getty Images

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. Download the Color of Hockey podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

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Maame Biney bounces back from Olympics showing to capture a gold medal in Poland

05 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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2018 Winter Olympics, Maame Biney, PyeongChang

2018 Winter Olympics Update – For those who are fretting over U.S. short track speedskater Maame Biney’s disappointing showing in PyeongChang, South Korea, you can stop now.

The 18-year-old phenom from suburban Washington, D.C., the first black woman to make the U.S. Olympic short track speedskating team, won a gold medal in the 500-meter sSaturday at the World Junior Short Track Championships in Tomaszow Mazowieckei, Poland.

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“This is a huge boost from the Olympics since I didn’t do as well as I wanted to,” Biney said. “This means that I’m really ready for the World Cup stage and can continue to get better.”

With a time of 44:305 seconds, the Ghanaian-born Biney became only the third U.S. woman to ever medal at a junior event. Her gold medal Saturday is the first junior gold medal for Team USA since J.R. Celski won the men’s 500m in 2009.

“It feels really good,” Biney said of Saturday’s victory. “I felt like I really deserved it today and I’m really happy. I just raced my race and made sure not to overestimate anyone.”

Embed from Getty Images

Biney’s gold medal will go with a bronze medal that she won at the 2016-17 world junior championships.

She had a disappointing performance at the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, finishing fourth in a four-person quarterfinal 500-meter heat with a time of 44.77 seconds.

Maame Biney, front row left, and members of the U.S. Olympic short track speedskating team in PyeongChang (Photo/US Speedskating).

“It’s okay. I’ll be fine,” a tearful Biney said at the time. “I just have to wait four more year to be able to get back into this big stage. I can’t wait till those four years.”

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. And download the Color of Hockey podcast from iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

 

 

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From first place to last, black athletes were a presence at Winter Olympics

26 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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2018 Winter Olympics, Jamaica Bobsled Team, Nigerian bobsled team

PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA – The most diverse Winter Olympics in history ended with black athletes on the medal stand and at the bottom of standings of their particular sport here in PyeongChang.

The cliche that “a picture is worth a thousand words” was apropos following the women’s two-person bobsled competition Wednesday night when four black women from three countries posed on the medal stand with Olympic gold, silver, and bronze around their necks.

The German team of pilot Mariama Jamanka, the daughter of a Gambian father, and brakeman Lisa Buckwitz won the gold medal; U.S. pilot Elana Meyers Taylor and brakeman Lauren Gibbs captured the silver medal; and the Canadian duo of  Kaillie Humphries and Phylicia George, who ran the 100-meter hurdles at the 2012 Olympics in London and the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, captured the bronze.

Mariama Jamanka, right, and Lisa Buckwitz, won the gold medal in the women’s two-person bobsled event at the 2018 Winter Olympics (Photo/IBSF / Eugen Eslage).

The U.S. bobsled with pilot Elana Meyers Taylor, left, and brakeman Lauren Gibbs captured the silver medal (Photo/IBSF / Eugen Eslage).

Canada’s bobsled with brakewoman Phylicia George, right, and Kaillie Humphries took home a bronze medal (Photo/IBSF / Eugen Eslage)

Meyers Taylor, who won her third Olympic medal in two Winter Games, took note of the moment.

“It shows the growth of our sport. The more eyeballs there are on the sport, it will get more diverse,” said said. “I want to represent my color and ethnicity. To be proud of our heritage is really cool. I’m proud of changing the landscape in our sport.”

Much was made these games about the presence of the first women’s bobsled teams from Jamaica and Nigeria, along with the first-time skeleton athletes from those countries and Ghana.

Lamin Dean was one of six black bobsledders on Great Britain’s team.

They didn’t fare well in competition. The Jamaican team of pilot  Jazmine Fenlator- Victorian and brakeman Carrie Russell finished 18th in the two-person bobsled event and Nigerian pilot Andigun Seun and brakeman Ngozi Onwumere finished 19th.

Nigerian skeleton athlete Simidele Adeagbo finished 20th – last – in the women’s event. On the men’s side, Anthony Watson of Jamaica was 29th and Ghana’s Akwasi Frimpong finished dead last in 30th place.

Jamaica and Nigeria being at the 2018 Winter Games generated a lot of press. But it also obscured the fact that even so-called traditional winter sports countries had a significant black presence on their teams.

The U.S. men’s hockey team failed to make it to the medal round and the Canadian women’s hockey team won a disappointing silver medal.

But U.S. forward Jordan Greenway, a Boston University junior forward and the first African-American to play for a U.S. Olympic hockey team, received good reviews for his play in PyeongChang. He scored a goal in five games.

Team Canada’s Sarah Nurse also had a goal in five Winter Olympic contests. The Hockey Hall of Fame requested and received the former University of Wisconsin forward’s white Team Canada jersey to put on display at the Toronto hockey museum.

Embed from Getty Images

Half of Great Britain’s 12-person bobsled team in PyeongChang was black. France had two black brakemen –  Vincent Castell and Dorian Hauterville –  on its five-man bobsled team.

French figure skater Mae-Berenice Meite competed in her second Winter Games – 2014 in Sochi, Russia was her first – finishing 19th in the ladies’ single free skate program. Still, she dazzled the crowd in PyeongChang with a costume change in the middle of one of her routines.

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The parade of warm weather countries at the 2018 Winter Games included Sabrina Simader, a Kenyan Alpine skier who finished 38th in her event; Mathilde-Amivi Petitjean, a Togolese cross country skier who finished 83rd in the women’s 10-kilometer free ski competition.

Then there were the boys from Brazil -bobsledders Edson Bindilatte, Edson Ricardo Martins,, Rafael da Silva Souza, and Ordilei Pessoni. They finished 27th in the four-man event.

All this infusion of color at Winter Games prompted the BBC to write a story asking if black athletes from African countries were competing for the love of the sport or for their 15 minutes of fame, noting that several of the athletes don’t live or weren’t born in the countries they represented here.

“Africans live elsewhere in the world, not only in Africa, and they have the right to represent their country even if they don’t live in their mother country,” said Pettjean, who was born in Togo but raised in the French Alps, where she learned to ski.

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Nigeria’s Seun, who lives in Houston, Texas, said participating in the Winter Olympics is all about growing her sport, not about seeking personal glory.

“We already have things in place now to get people interested in the process,” she said. “So we are excited to see how the sport of bobsled comes around in the continent of African.”

Germany’s Jamanka said she’s “proud that Africans start here for the African nations” but added that she won’t be switching over to the Gambian bobsled team, if they ever get one.

“I’m feeling German, and that’s why I will start for Germany for as long as possible,” she said.

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. And download the Color of Hockey podcast from iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

 

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Griffin’s Korea ‘garbage goal’ Olympic puck enters Hockey Hall of Fame

23 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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2018 Winter Olympics, Harvard University, Hockey Hall of Fame, Korean unified team, Phil Pritchard, Randi Griffin

PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA – Randi Griffin still can’t believe that someone picked up her “garbage.”

That’s what she calls the goal she scored for the unified Korean women’s hockey team against Japan at the 2018 Winter Olympics. The shot was a weak wrister that bounced on the ice and managed to dribble five-hole past the Japanese goaltender.

Korean-American Randi Griffin scored Korea’s first-ever Olympic ice hockey goal.

“It was a pretty crappy shot that took a couple of bounces and happened to go into the net,” the forward said after the game. “I got lucky.”

But Griffin quickly learned that one person’s garbage goal is another person’s history. Her goal was the first-ever Korean tally in Winter Olympics history, and someone had the smarts to quickly retrieve the puck from the ice.

It’s now in Toronto getting prepped to be showcased at the Hockey Hall of Fame.

“I still can’t believe my name will appear in the Hockey Hall of Fame because of a garbage goal, but it’s pretty cool,” she told me. “I also still can’t believe I just played hockey in the Olympics, so I guess it’s the perfect crazy unexpected ending to a crazy unexpected experience.”

The puck that forward Randi Griffin shot into the net for Korea’s first-ever Olympic ice hockey goal (Photo/Phil Pritchard/Hockey Hall of Fame).

Korea unified women’s Olympic hockey team forward Randi Griffin said her goal against Japan wasn’t much of a shot. The Hockey Hall of Fame disagrees (Photo/Phil Pritchard/Hockey Hall of Fame).

Phil Pritchard,  the Hall’s curator, and keeper of the Stanley Cup, told me that the puck will be featured in the shrine’s World of Hockey display then take up permanent residence in the Olympic history display.

“Got the puck here…it is taped details of the goal etc. It’s not signed,” Pritchard told me in an email. “Once I get the artifacts back to the Hockey Hall of Fame, we will preserve, conserve and write up the proper paperwork and get captions made up.”

Embed from Getty Images

Griffin, a North Carolinian and former Harvard University player, is still pinching herself.

“I was honestly really surprised,” she told me.

The daughter of a South Korean mother and white father, Griffin was initially recruited by the Korea Ice Hockey Association in 2014 via an email asking if she’d be interested in joining its Olympic effort.

Griffin, who hadn’t played serious hockey since her senior season at Harvard in 2009-10, thought the email was a hoax and didn’t respond for months.

Once she determined it was real, she flew to South Korea for a mini-camp then joined the country’s national women’s team that would play at the Winter Games in PyeongChang.

Her crazy journey got even crazier when it was announced that 12 players from North Korea’s women’s hockey team would be added to the South Korean roster, creating a unified team.

It was the first time that players from the North and South Korean athletes played together on a single in the Winter Olympics. Initially, there was concern about how the players would bond given the tense political relationship between the two countries.

But the players apparently managed to form some bonds, despite the North Korean skaters sleeping in separate quarters and riding separate buses from the South Korean teammates.

Embed from Getty Images

Griffin, 29, recalled that she spotted some of the North Korean players getting McDonald’s Oreo McFlurries for breakfast in the dining hall at the Olympic Village.

“We all laughed about that and had McFlurries together for breakfast,” Griffin told reporters earlier this week.

The unified team struggled mightily on the ice, getting blown out by Switzerland and Sweden by 8-0 scores. They didn’t win any of its Olympic tournament games and they were outscored by opponents 2 goals to 20.

So when Griffin scored her seeing-eye goal, she knew it was Korea’s first Olympic goal, but she didn’t fully grasp what a big deal it was.

“I knew the goal would mean a lot to Korean supporters who wanted something to cheer for since we were losing games, and it certainly meant a lot to our team, but I didn’t thing anyone outside Korea would care.”

Griffin had designs for the puck – as a keepsake.

“I wanted the puck as a souvenir,” she said. “But obviously now that I know why they took it, I’m happy to let them have it.”

The Korean unified team member expects to have a reunion with the vulcanized rubber biscuit that made Olympic history when she returns to North America.

“I definitely will visit it!” Griffin said.

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. And download the Color of Hockey podcast from iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Randi Griffin scores Korea’s first-ever Winter Olympics ice hockey goal

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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2018 Winter Olympics, Harvard Uniersity, Randi Griffin

GANGNEUNG, SOUTH KOREA Randi Griffin, a North Carolinian, scored the first Korean ice hockey goal in Winter Olympics history Wednesday.

Randi Griffin of Korea’s unified women’s Olympic hockey tea (Photo/Korean Ice Hockey Association).

Griffin, a forward for the Korean women’s unified hockey team scored in the second period, but it wasn’t enough as Japan defeated its Asian arch-rival 4-1 in a preliminary round match at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

“I’m definitely not a hero. It was a pretty crappy shot that took a couple of bounces and happened to go into the net,” Griffin told reporters after the game. “I got lucky.”

That said, Griffin added that the goal was a relief for a unified team that lost its first two games to Switzerland and Sweden by identical 8-0 scores.

“We don’t want to leave the Olympics not having scored a goal,”she said. “It feels great to have one under our belt.”

Embed from Getty Images

The daughter of a Korean mother and white father, Griffin was recruited by the Korea Ice Hockey Association shortly after the country was awarded the Winter Games.

Not an international hockey power, South Korea scoured U.S. and Canadian college rosters looking for players with Korean names to help build its roster.

Griffin played for Harvard University from 2006-07 to 2009-10. She tallied 21 goals and 18 assists in 124 games.

Ironically, Korean officials initially didn’t know about Griffin because of her last name. They learned about her from the parent of a Korean-Canadian player they were scouting.

Once they found about Griffin, 29, they immediately sent her an email inviting her to join their Olympic effort. But she thought the email was a scam and didn’t respond for months.

It wasn’t until KIHA officials contacted Griffin’s father, Thomas Griffin, that she responded. Both Griffin and the KIHA association are now glad that she did.

Randi Griffin was measuring monkey skulls for a doctorate at Duke in 2014 when she received an oddly-worded email from S. Korea’s Ice Hockey Association: Would she be interested in lacing up again? In ten minutes, she takes the ice to take on Japan.@hj257 https://t.co/Oial0l4nKX

— Jonathan Cheng (@JChengWSJ) February 14, 2018

She’s become a key part of a team made of 23 South Korean and 12 North Korean players – the first time athletes from the two countries have played on the same team in the Winter Games.

The merger was done only weeks before the Feb. 9-25 Winter Games in hopes of fostering unification talks between the two Koreas, or at least de-escalate tensions heightened by North Korea Leader Kim Jong-uns pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Griffin, a Duke University anthropology department graduate student, said Wednesday’s game was perhaps the most meaningful to the unified team.

“I would say the games against Japan more than anything else have been something that have brought North and South Koreans together because everyone is saying, ‘We really need to win this game,'” she said.

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. Download the Color of Hockey podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

 

 

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Historic Korea-Swiss Olympic hockey game a family affair for Randi Griffin

10 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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2018 Winter Olympics, North Korea, Randi Griffin, South Korea

Randi Griffin of Korea’s unified women’s Olympic hockey tea (Photo/Korean Ice Hockey Association).

PYEONGCHANG – Presidents don’t usually pay visits to losing teams.

But there was South Korean President Moon Jae-in meeting with the players and coaches of the Korean unified hockey team at their bench after they got routed 8-0 by Switzerland in their opening game at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Moon, accompanied by Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un, and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, chatted and posed for pictures with the team.

Despite the final score, the game was historic – the first time athletes from North and South Korea played on a single team at the Winter Olympics.

The game symbolized the aspirations of many for one Korea – or at least a peaceful coexistence between the North and South.

Thomas Griffin, right, his wife, Elizabeth, and her parents journeyed to Pyeongchang to root for Korean unified women’s team forward Randi Griffin (Photo/Samara Fox).

Randi Griffin bought her family hockey jerseys with her number to wear at the historic game between the Korean unified women’s Olympic hockey team and Switzerland (Photo/Samara Fox).

 

The game was meaningful for the parents of unified team forward Randi Griffin. Thomas and Elizabeth Griffin made the journey from Apex, North Carolina, to watch her play for her mother’s home country.

So did Griffin’s elderly grandparents, who made the trek from Chicago.

Griffin, who played four years at NCAA Division I Harvard University, was recruited by South Korea to play shortly after the country was awarded the 2018 Winter Games.

Embed from Getty Images

South Korean hockey officials sent her an email in 2014 asking if she’d be interested in playing for their Olympic hockey team. She ignored the email for three months, thinking it was a hoax.

Other than their daughter, the Griffins had little to cheer about Saturday night. Swiss forward Alina Muller was a one-woman wrecking crew against the unified squad, scoring four goals.

But that didn’t seem to matter to the partisan crowd of more than 3,000 inside Kwandong Hockey Centre.

Embed from Getty Images

They cheered almost every time the unified team handled or shot the puck.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s hand-picked cheerleaders kept things lively with chants and dances throughout the game.

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