They were not in the rafters or on the benches or jerseys, but Olympic relics surfaced during a women’s hockey game on Saturday night: Russian flags.
The tricolor banners, again divorced from Russian teams because of past doping infractions, stretched across seats when the Russian Olympic Committee met the United States in women’s hockey.
The game ended how most everyone figured it would: with a 5-0 victory by the Americans, who are looking to repeat as Olympic champions. But the Russians were the conspicuous favorite of the curated crowd. which was among the most audible and engaged of any audience so far at these Olympics, in a rare splash of partisanship at a Games almost entirely devoid of foreign spectators. (Chinese officials have tightly controlled ticketing, citing the coronavirus pandemic)
The men and women clapped as the Russian team returned to the ice and greeted the Americans with silence. Some Russian scoring efforts prompted a rare smattering of cheers that quickly turned to muffled groans. A woman waved a flag — banned from team use, along with the Russian national anthem and the country’s name — early in the third period.
There is, of course, only so much fervor that a crowd can muster. What it did, though, was far from surprising. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, met with his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir V. Putin, before the opening ceremony of the Games and declared that their bond had “no limits.”
Although the spectators witnessed a slow start by the American offense, the United States ultimately turned its third Olympic meeting against the Russians into an offensive clinic. Savannah Harmon notched a power-play goal in the first period, while Hilary Knight added a score of her own in the second. In the third period, Grace Zumwinkle and Jesse Compher pulled off their inaugural Olympic goals. Alex Carpenter, who made this year’s Olympic roster after competing for the United States in 2014 and missing the cut in 2018, also added to the tally in the third.
Tensions occasionally surfaced, with some pushing, shoving and crosschecking.
“Obviously, there’s times as the game goes that emotions run high, but I thought both teams did a good job of getting right up to that line and not crossing it,” said Joel Johnson, the U.S. coach. “I thought it was a really well-played game. You know, they’ve got a style of play that they feel like they’re confident in to try to get a chance to win, and we’ve got our style that we feel confident in.”
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