Winter Olympics 2018: North Korea media spin hockey loss into win

The unified Korean women’s ice-hockey team was given a drubbing by Switzerland but you wouldn’t know it by reading the North Korean media.

For its historic Olympic debut on the weekend, the unified Korean women’s ice-hockey team was given a 8-0 drubbing by its much stronger Swiss opponents.

But you wouldn’t know it by reading the North Korean press’ take on the game, which portrayed the match as a shining example of what the two Koreas can accomplish when they are united in ethnic fraternity, and urged on by the co-ordinated applause of cheerleaders.

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“The cheering group of the north and the south and South Koreans burst into warm applause and cheers while waving flags of the Korean Peninsula to inspire the players of the unified team skilfully driving the puck, calling each other by the same language and pooling efforts,” read the report, which appeared in the North’s official Korean Central News Agency and on the front page of the Rodong Sinmun, the ruling party’s main newspaper.

The unified Korean team gathers in a group before the women's preliminary round ice hockey match with Switzerland.

The score? Those details didn’t bear mentioning. The report also wisely overlooked the fact that a handful of the team’s players, Americans and Canadians who became naturalised as South Korean citizens in the run-up to the Games, don’t actually speak Korean.

Minutes before the opening puck drop, two North Korean reporters were ushered to a desk reserved just for them in the press section overlooking the rink, displacing two reporters from an American newspaper.

Even as the Swiss racked up one goal after another, the North Korean reporters remained quietly hunched over their desk, crafting their piece in longhand.

“The appearance of the players and the impressive picture of the cheering groups once again made the spectators feel keenly that the Korean nation is a homogeneous nation which can’t live separated from each other,” they wrote.

South Koran President Moon Jae-in talks with Kim Yo Jong, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's sister, on the weekend.

The North regularly puts its own spin on news events. A separate article that also appeared on the front of Sunday’s Rodong Sinmun portrayed South Korean President Moon Jae-in as something as a supplicant before Kim Jong-un during his meeting with the visiting North Korean political delegation in Seoul.

“President Moon Jae In expressed deep thanks to Chairman Kim Jong-un for taking a special step of making the high-level delegation of the north side participate in the Olympics and sending his personal letter and verbal greetings, and asked for certainly conveying his gratitude to Chairman Kim Jong Un,” the report read.

The Wall Street Journal