A Team of Their Own

One of ESPN’s 25 Can’t Miss Books of 2019

“A feel-good story.”—New York Times Book Review

“This isn’t simply a sports book. Rather, it’s a book about inspiring and courageous women who just happened to be hockey players.”—Korea Times

The inspiring, unlikely story of the American, Canadian, South Korean and even North Korean women who joined together to form Korea’s first Olympic ice hockey team.

Two weeks before the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics, South Korea’s women’s hockey team was forced into a predicament that no president, ambassador or general had been able to resolve in the sixty-five years since the end of the Korean War. Against all odds, the group of young women were able to bring North and South Korea closer than ever before.

The team was built for this moment. They had been brought together from across the globe and from a wide variety of backgrounds—concert pianist, actress, high school student, convenience store worker—to make history. Now the special kinship they had developed would guide them through the biggest challenge of their careers. Suddenly thrust into an international spotlight, they showed the powerful meaning of what a unified Korea could resemble.

In A Team of Their Own, Seth Berkman goes behind the scenes to tell the story of these young women as they became a team amid immense political pressure and personal turmoil, and ultimately gained worldwide acceptance on a journey that encapsulates the truest meanings of sport and family.

"Berkman, a New York Times contributor who was born in Seoul and raised in New Jersey, does a fantastic job of providing historical context and capturing the tremendous sacrifices made by the players as well as the passion they shared for the sport. Readers will find themselves cheering for a team who began as political pawns but who ultimately showed the world the Olympic spirit in action."

—Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

“Seth Berkman’s A Team of Their Own is a lively, crisply written rollercoaster of a book that tells the story of the women of South Korea’s hockey team in the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.”

—Michael Breen, author of The New Koreans

"“Yes, the sport is often compared broadly to war. But what, specifically, does it have to do with geopolitics, grandstanding politicians, nuclear weapons, Kim Jong-un and three-quarters of a century of national division? To find out, read this impressively detailed account of the unified Korean women’s ice hockey team and its starring role at the 2018 Winter Olympics.”

—Bradley K. Martin, prizewinning author of Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty