North Korean ice hockey players are set to arrive in South Korea on Thursday to form an inter-Korean women’s hockey team for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, a week earlier than anticipated. 

After crossing the border into the South by land, they are expected to head to Jincheon, 90 kilometers south of Seoul, where the South Korean training base is located.

In a message sent to Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon on Tuesday, North Korea said it would send a 15-member ice hockey team -- 12 athletes, a head coach and two support staffers -- to South Korea on Thursday. The North’s advance team will also arrive on that day for a three-day trip to inspect accommodation, stadiums and facilities for their joint events, the message said.

South and North Korea agreed to field a joint women’s ice hockey team for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics during the first cross-border high-level talks held in two years earlier this month. The International Olympic Committee on Saturday approved the two Koreas’ plan to integrate their teams.

The North Korean players’ earlier-than-scheduled arrival came as Seoul proposed that a unified women’s hockey team hold training as soon as possible to start practicing together and build teamwork in preparation for the Feb. 9-25 Winter Olympics.

Sarah Murray, head coach of the joint Korean women’s hockey team at the Winter Olympics, will have to work with 12 North Koreans added to the 23-strong South Korean squad. In each game, at least three of the 22 players must be North Koreans under the terms approved by IOC.

The joint team will play against Sweden on Feb. 4, which will be the only chance for players from both Koreas to play in a real game before the Olympics begin. The team’s first Group B match is scheduled for Feb. 10 against Switzerland.

“Right now, our plan is, we’re going to pick the best players. We’re trying to win at the Olympics,” Murray said during a press conference. “So we’re not going to make a line of North Korean players just so they can get ice time.”

The IOC confirmed that the North will send 22 athletes to the PyeongChang Games in three sports -- skating, skiing and ice hockey. The remaining players and coaching staff are expected to arrive in Korea as scheduled on Feb. 1.

South and North Korea have sent joint teams to major international sports events twice: the world table tennis championships in Japan and the world soccer youth championship in Portugal, which were both held in 1991.

Since the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics, athletes from the two Koreas have marched together during the opening and closing ceremonies of 11 international sporting events.

Criticism persists in South Korea over the joint ice hockey team, with critics saying that the South Korean government is sacrificing its own players’ opportunities to compete at the Winter Games for a political cause.

In a survey conducted by TV broadcaster SBS, 72.8 percent of the respondents said that “there was no need to push too hard to create a joint team.” Among those in their 20s and 30s, 82 percent were against forming the joint team.

(laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)