Today, we are off to a women's ice hockey game. Since these tickets were purchased more than a year ago, we had no idea who would be playing. But today is our lucky day because the game is USA versus Finland, two of the top three teams in the world. The game doesn't start until around 5 PM so we sleep in, then spend some time blogging before heading out.
It is Sunday and, based on the sign at the bus stop, there are no buses coming anytime soon. So we have another long, cold walk to Gangneung train station. Since the food was so good yesterday, we again stop into Taste Local Food Court. This time we have a nice big bowl of udon (thick noodles) soup and steamed buns filled with red bean paste. As we are leaving, it looks like another performance is getting ready to start across the street at the train station:
At first, I thought that these might have been the North Korean cheering squad, but these women are much too old and don't have the security detail with them. They go out one side of the station to perform and we head the other way, back up the hill to the Olympic Park.
After passing through security, we still have plenty of time so we visit Korea House, where there are some culture games for kids and information on tourism, but not much else. Then we go next door to Tokyo 2020 House. This is mostly a site for the various members of the Tokyo 2020 team observing the Olympics to meet and talk, but there is also information about the proposed venue layout and a short video with a guy in Noh theater makeup talking about the themes for these Olympics. I have to say that we didn't pay too much attention because we've already made up our minds that we will attend.
These two visits took much less time than expected so we next go to the Samsung pavilion which is right next door to the hockey venue. I know that they have pins to give away, but like Rio, the catch is that you have to take a selfie of yourself and the various staff members who are talking about different Samsung products like OLED flat screen TVs, smart home products and, of course, cell phones. Then you take the selfies back to the entry area and download them in exchange for pins. Sorry, we decide that this is too much work and head for the door.
Outside, we notice that the gates to the hockey venue are not open even though we are now less than 90 minutes from the start of the game. Beth goes over to a volunteer (non-English speaking as it turned out) and points at her ticket. The volunteer looks, then gets a kind of shocked look on her face, shakes her head and points toward the exit. At that point, I guessed what the problem was - there are two hockey venues and we are at the wrong one. Beth thinks that it is only a matter of going to the other venue in the Olympic Park. I explain to her that the other hockey arena is on the opposite side of Gangneung.
We hustle back to the spectator loading area and after asking 2 or 3 volunteers how to get to the Kwandong Hockey Centre, we know what bus line we need to take and where that bus picks passengers up. It appears that not too many spectators are expected to go this way because this bus isn't running very often. We spend about 40 minutes waiting and talking to a couple from Texas in front of us who also are at the wrong venue and are trying to get to the North Gangneung transit hub (which our bus also stops at) to get to their event. Finally, the bus arrives and, thankfully, it is going to Kwandong before the transit hub.
Kwandong Hockey Centre is on the campus of the Catholic Kwandong University, which is where Sunny's husband teaches Anatomy. We hurry across campus to the venue and get to our seats about 5 minutes before the puck drops to start the game. Whew! There are a lot of Americans here to see Team USA play.
As we are settling down, we hear a familiar voice on the public address system. It turns out that Danny Miller, who is the public address announcer for the San Jose Sharks hockey team and the San Jose Earthquakes soccer team has been selected as the English-speaking game host for the Olympic hockey. He has also worked the Summer Olympics as an announcer for field hockey.
Even though the Finnish team is ranked 3rd in the world, there is a long distance between the 2nd ranked Canadians and the Finns. This means that the Finns have to play a very deliberate style in order to stay in the Game. Here are some pictures:
Notice that in all of the pictures, the Finns outnumber the attacking Americans. So, despite a huge territorial advantage, the Americans can't find a way to score, or even get shots on net. It stays that way until Venla Hovi steals the puck in the US end and sneaks the puck past US goaltender Maddie Rooney with 6 seconds left in the first period. This is the perfect situation for Finland where they can sit back on defense, make the US attack and just wait for a mistake to counter-attack.
In the second period, the US comes out firing:
Their pressure is rewarded when Monique Lamoureux-Morando scores unassisted 8 minutes into the period. The American crowd, who seems to be mostly made up of the families of team members go wild:
The relentless US pressure is starting to wear down the Finns and they begin to take penalties to keep the Americans from scoring. This leads to a US power play goal by Kendall Coyne 11:29 into the 2nd period. We find out later from Sunny that Kendall's family is staying at another of the properties that she rents out on Airbnb. Now the US has the Finns right where they want them because now it is the Finns who have to attack and take the chance of making a mistake. But for now, the Finns defense holds and the score remains 2-1 after two periods despite the US having a 34-14 shot advantage.
The 3rd period had much more back and forth action as the Finns try to mount some offense. But both defenses are equal to the task and there is no scoring until Dani Cameranesi puts the puck into an empty net:
with 13 seconds left in the game. Final score: USA 3, Finland 1.
As the US players celebrate on the ice and look to share the moment with their families, we head for the bus queue. The volunteers at this venue do a good job of getting us to the correct line. There is even a little art along the way:
It is these small touches that really make the Olympics memorable.
This spectator loading zone has a covered, but unheated, waiting area. They appear to have utilized the same queue system that Disney World uses because you actually have to go quite far along in the queue before you see exactly how long the queue is. Worse, it appears that they've misjudged the number of spectators that want to go back to the train station compared to the number that need to go to one of the bus transit hubs. As a result, it takes us nearly an hour to get through the queue and onto a bus. Along the way, we discover that a large number of people in the queue are Americans who are staying in Seoul and spending about 2 hours on the train in the morning and again in the evening. This is a result of the very tight housing market for these Olympics. There apparently were a few local hotels that were available, but were not accessible on the major travel apps and whose managers were trying to rent rooms in large blocks to the Olympic family instead of to individual spectators. This reminds us of Lillehammer when many of the Americans stayed in Oslo rather than staying with families like we did.
We get back to the train station, get into the taxi queue and after about another 30 minutes, arrive at Sunny's home. The transportation system does seem to be working, but it is surely taking a lot of time to get from one place to another.
Steps for the day: 13,406
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