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By HELENE ELLIOTT

Feb. 8, 1998 12 AM PT

Japan’s men’s hockey team, appearing in its first Olympics since 1980, lost its opening game to Germany on Saturday, 3-1. However, it was far from a total loss.

Hockey ranks low among the interest of Japanese sports fans, but the game drew 9,861 fans at Big Hat. The crowd was so enthusiastic, fans were cheering when the Japanese players dumped the puck into the German offensive zone.

“The team lost a game, but I hope Japan ice hockey won,” Coach Bjoern Kinding said. “I hope the impression of Japan’s hockey over the world and over Japan [is] that this team and these players are very capable of playing good hockey.”

Olympics

Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

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