Randi Heesoo Griffin ( ko, 랜디 희수 그리핀; born September 2, 1988) is an

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

player who competed in the

2018 Winter Olympics , nations = 93 , athletes = 2,922 (1,680 men and 1,242 women) , events = 102 in 7 sports (15 disciplines) , opening = , closing = , opened_by = President Moon Jae-in , cauldron = Kim Yun-a , stadium = Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium , winte ...

as part of the Unified Korea women's national team, scoring its first goal on February 14. In 2018, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women.

Background

Griffin was born in the United States to Tom and Liz Griffin. Her mother, Liz, is Korean. Griffin is a native of

Apex, North Carolina Apex () is a town in Wake County, North Carolina, United States. At its southern border, Apex encompasses the community of Friendship. In 1994, the downtown area was designated a historic district, and the Apex train depot, built in 1867, is desig ...

. Griffin aspired to compete at the Winter Olympics after she watched women's hockey make a debut at the

1998 Winter Olympics The 1998 Winter Olympics, officially known as the and commonly known as Nagano 1998 ( ja, 長野1998), was a winter multi-sport event held from 7 to 22 February 1998, mainly in Nagano, Japan, with some events taking place in the ...

Nagano Nagano may refer to: Places * Nagano Prefecture, a prefecture in Japan ** Nagano (city), the capital city of the same prefecture *** Nagano 1998, the 1998 Winter Olympics *** Nagano Olympic Stadium, a baseball stadium in Nagano *** Nagano Universi ...

, Japan. Her parents decided to let her play ice hockey in

Cary, North Carolina Cary is a town in Wake and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina and is part of the Raleigh–Cary, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area. According to the 2020 Census, its population was 174,721, making it the seventh largest muni ...

and bought her first set of hockey gear.

Playing career

NCAA

She attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and played for the university's women's hockey team. She is a

letter Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...

winner from 2006 to 2010. Griffin played in 125 career games for Harvard and scored 21 goals and made 18 assists for 39 points. After graduating from Harvard, she became a youth ice hockey coach mentoring boys and girls ages 12 to 19. In 2013, she began pursuing a PhD degree in

evolutionary anthropology Evolutionary anthropology, the interdisciplinary study of the evolution of human physiology and human behaviour and of the relation between hominids and non-hominid primates, builds on natural science and on social science. Various fields and ...

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

Korean national team

She was contacted by the

Korea Ice Hockey Association The Korea Ice Hockey Association ( ko, 대한아이스하키협회) is the governing body and member of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) that oversees ice hockey in South Korea. XXIII Olympic Winter Games The Korean Ice Hockey Asso ...

in 2014. The association was looking for players with Korean heritage which could represent South Korea in the

. She played in exhibition games against Kazakhstan for South Korea in 2015. In the Olympic tournament, Griffin scored the first of two goals in the entire tournament by the unified Korean team, in the 4–1 defeat to

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

at the group stage (the other being scored by

Han Soo-jin Han Soo-jin ( ko, 한수진; born 22 September 1987) is a South Korean ice hockey player currently playing in the Korean Women's Hockey League with the Suwon City Hall women's ice hockey team. She competed for the Unified Korea women's national t ...

in the seventh place match against

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

Professional

On July 11, 2018 Griffin signed her first professional contract, agreeing to join the NWHL's Connecticut Whale.

References

1988 births Living people American people of South Korean descent American sportspeople of Korean descent South Korean people of American descent Duke University alumni Harvard University alumni Ice hockey players at the 2018 Winter Olympics People from Apex, North Carolina Sportspeople from Wake County, North Carolina South Korean women's ice hockey forwards Winter Olympics competitors for Korea Harvard Crimson women's ice hockey players Ice hockey people from North Carolina American women's ice hockey forwards Connecticut Whale (PHF) players {{SouthKorea-icehockey-bio-stub