WOMEN

1) Two elite women’s goalies will battle for sole possession of the career Olympic games record in Korea. With 14 games apiece, Finland’s Noora Raty and Switzerland’s Florence Schelling are currently tied with Russia’s Irina Gashennikova, no longer active at age 42. The all-time wins record, held by Canada’s Kim St-Pierre (eight), is up for grabs too: Raty enters with seven, while Schelling and two-time Canadian Olympic champion Shannon Szabados both have six.

2) In Sochi, the growing parity in women’s hockey was illustrated when no team scored in double digits in one game. (The most lopsided 2014 result was a 9-0 U.S. win over the Swiss.) The unified Korean team will have to work hard to keep that trend going in 2018. The South Koreans, who last year earned promotion to the 2018 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship Division I Group B, are 22nd in the IIHF Women’s World Ranking. The North Koreans, who have 12 players on the expanded 35-woman roster, are 25th. This makes COR the lowest-ranked squad to compete in Olympic women’s history.

3) The youngest female player at these Games is Hee Won Kim, who is 16 (born 1 August 2001). The forward scored twice when host Korea got promoted to Division I in the six-nation showdown in Gangneung last April.

4) The top-five active Olympic points leaders are Canada’s Meghan Agosta (23), Finland’s Riikka Valila (20), Sweden’s Pernilla Winberg (16), the USA’s Hilary Knight (14), and the USA’s Monique Lamoureux (14). In Korea, no one will catch the all-time leader, Canada’s Hayley Wickenheiser (51).

5) Will anybody surpass Italian defender Linda de Rocco’s all-time Winter Games PIM mark of 34 from 2006? It’s possible, but unlikely. In 2010, Sweden’s Katarina Timglas led the sin bin parade (12 PIM), while Switzerland’s Evelina Raselli was tops in 2014 (25 PIM). Russian forward Yelena Dergyachyova was most-penalized at the 2017 Women’s Worlds (20 PIM). We should point out that there’s nothing wrong with emulating the 17 February 1998 bronze medal game between Finland and China, in which the Finns earned a record zero (0) penalty minutes in a 4-1 win.

MEN

1) When Slovenia stunned the pundits by finishing seventh at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, they had just 148 registered male players. Four years later, they’re back again – with 136. (The next-lowest is host Korea, with 171.)

2) The OAR roster features 15 players from head coach Oleg Znarok’s KHL club, SKA St. Petersburg, and eight from CSKA Moscow. The last time two clubs contributed so disproportionately to a Russian Olympic roster was also the last time they did not wear their national colours. Dynamo Moscow and CSKA Moscow had eight players apiece on the 1992 CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) team that won gold after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

3) The tallest 2018 Olympic player is Finnish forward Markko Anttila, who stands 203 cm and 104 kg (6-8 and 229 pounds). The 32-year-old Jokerit veteran, who represented Finland at the 2013 Worlds, is making his Winter Games debut.

4) Only one player on this year’s Team USA was alive during the “Miracle on Ice.” Captain Brian Gionta, 39, had just turned one year old when coach Herb Brooks and his American college players upset the mighty Soviets 4-3 in Lake Placid on 22 February 1980. The future 1,006-game NHL star was born in a different place in New York State: Rochester.

5) Two 2018 Olympic men’s head coaches were not born in the countries they’re leading: Slovakia’s Craig Ramsay (Canada) and Slovenia’s Kari Savolainen (Finland).