Olympic Hockey 2018 Schedule, Live Stream for Saturday's Women Games
The opening of the Olympic women's hockey tournament on Saturday is about more than just the game itself.
Host South Korea is fielding a joint team with North Korea, and the team's first contest comes against 2014 bronze medalist Switzerland.
A dozen North Koreans will be on the unified Korean team, including Hwang Chang-gum, who will be one of two Korean flag-bearers at the opening ceremony, per USA Today's Aamer Madhani.
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
Before the much-anticipated appearance of the host nation at the Kwandong Hockey Center, Sweden faces Japan in the opening game of the tournament.
Saturday's hockey participants are jockeying for two positions in the knockout round, while the loaded Group A with the United States, Canada, Olympic Athletes of Russia and Finland are guaranteed four spots in the six-team elimination bracket that occurs after round-robin play.
Saturday Olympic Hockey Schedule
All games can be live-streamed on NBCOlympics.com
Women's Group B: Sweden vs. Japan (2:40 a.m. ET)
Women's Group B: Switzerland vs. Korea (7:10 a.m. ET)
Sweden Looking to Get Back into Medal Positions
After earning bronze in 2002 and silver in 2006, Sweden has come up just short in the medal round in each of the last two Olympics with a pair of fourth-place finishes.
Sweden's quest to get back on to the medal podium starts against Japan in the Group B opener in the wee hours of Saturday morning on the east coast.
Defender and captain Emilia Remboldt and forward Pernilla Winberg lead the back-to-back fourth-place finisher in the women's ice hockey tournament.
Winberg, who is competing in her fourth Olympics, has the experience required to get Sweden back to the medal round, as she scored the game-winning goal in 2006 Olympic semifinal win over the United States, a victory that propelled Sweden to its best finish in the tournament.
Japan is participating in the Olympic tournament for the third time in its history. It was part of the competition in 1998 as host, and it qualified for the 2014 tournament and finished seventh.
This will be the second consecutive time Sweden and Japan are squaring off in their first game of Olympic pool play.
Sweden came away with a 1-0 victory in Sochi by way of a first-period goal from Jenni Asserholt.
Switzerland Trying to Capture Attention Away From Korea
Entering Saturday's second contest at Kwandong Hockey Center, all of the attention is on the unified Korea team, which will dress three of the North Korean players for each game.
While most of the eyes will be on Korea, and rightfully so, Switzerland has its own intriguing storyline.
The Swiss earned their first Olympic women's hockey medal in 2014, as they came out of the stacked Group A and knocked off Sweden in the third-place game to claim bronze.
Switzerland's squad boasts a mix of experience and youth, and it contains a few players who played college hockey in the United States, including captain Livia Altmann, who scored two goals and recorded four assists in 26 games this season for Colgate.
Forward Lara Stalder is the player to watch for the defending bronze medalist. The 23-year-old was a First-Team All-American at Minnesota-Duluth and a finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Award, which is the women's college hockey equivalent to the Heisman Trophy, in her senior season before she joined Linkoping in Sweden.
In addition to having three North Koreans dress for each game, South Korea boasts a roster with a few North Americans with Korean heritage, including Caroline Park, who will return to medical school at Columbia after the Olympics.
Park talked to ESPN's Emily Kaplan about representing South Korea in Pyeongchang.
"I didn't really have any ties there until I played hockey," Park said. "Being part of their first Olympic team, I have a lot of pride for what I'm part of now, and where my parents are from."
Switzerland is expected to win the game with relative ease, but by the end of Saturday, that won't be a topic as important as the appearance of the unified Korean team.
Follow Joe on Twitter, @JTansey90.
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
