Posted on 02/23/2006 6:25:28 AM PST by Hat-Trick
Modano goal: whine, not win
TURIN - Old. Slow. Small. Team USA was all of that, even before it took the ice against Finland. Then as Peter Laviolette watched his once-great generation of American hockey players go about its sad business of losing an Olympic hockey quarterfinal, 4-3, the coach came up with his own adjective: Disinterested.
This was something he hadn't counted on, so Laviolette called timeout midway through the first period and screamed at his players that if they didn't find a modicum of passion out there, "We're done."
His face was flushed. His tongue was sharp. But on the anniversary of the Miracle on Ice, this was as close to Herb Brooks as Laviolette would get. His players didn't really pay much attention, until there were 12 minutes left in the game and the cause was fairly hopeless.
Laviolette tried a bunch of different players, benched some of the guys who pass as stars, and watched it all go down the drain. The Americans peppered the net in those final moments, and as usual couldn't score.
Then it was done, left to the participants to justify how it was possible for such a large nation with vast regions of frigid winters and fresh water lakes could go 1-4-1 in an Olympic tournament, beating only Kazakhstan and drawing with Latvia along the way.
It turns out, fortunately, that the Americans are very good at explaining failure, far better than they are at playing hockey. Laviolette persisted that the team didn't try hard enough all tournament long.
"We were standing instead of skating," he said. "We were on our heels and they were on their toes."
Mike Modano, assistant captain, said it was because the team didn't have a charter flight and the players' wives weren't taken care of properly. Believe it or not, he seemed to really mean it.
Then, as a final dart aimed at the coach who had just benched him, Modano suggested the Americans may have lost because Laviolette called his inspirational timeout.
"We could have used (the timeout) at the end of the game, give the guys some rest," Modano said. "A little composure, a little less panic. There was 50 minutes left in the game."
It wouldn't be Team USA if the Americans didn't exit with a complete absence of grace, and so Modano filled a very real need as team knucklehead. He said USA Hockey required change, top to bottom, that it was the bureaucrats' fault, and that the players had not really lost this tournament.
"I don't think we're far off at all," said Modano, who had a total of two goals and no assists in the tournament, with a minus-one rating. "The talent is there, the personality is there. The hockey part was OK. We played pretty good hockey."
This sort of self-delusion was just the ticket out of Turin, so that the Americans can now return to the NHL believing they were brilliant and merely sabotaged by travel agents and stand-on-your-head goaltenders.
If only everybody was honest about his own shortcomings, it would become difficult to assign such specific blame to an effort so terribly doomed from the start.
These Winter Games are a 'tweener. This generation of American players is too old now, too resentful. The next generation of juniors is too young.
If you are looking for historical precedent, then consider the U.S. national soccer team's World Cup disaster of 1998 in France, also pockmarked by bad performances and dissension from players who had seen their best days. Four years later, with the right coach and a new group of players, the U.S. made a serious World Cup run in Korea.
The same probably will happen for Team USA, which will surely be revived by Vancouver 2010. For hockey nations not quite as deep as Canada or Russia, down cycles are inevitable.
This was nobody's fault, really. Don Waddell, the general manager, didn't exactly have his pick of Peter Forsberg or Jaromir Jagr. Laviolette is the victim here, the guy who comes off unfairly as a failure.
The only real shame is that U.S. hockey players never know how to leave the building without sacking the joint, figuratively or literally. Modano went after U.S. Hockey yesterday, blamed officials for forcing him to buy his own airline tickets. Then he went after Laviolette, because the coach didn't play him down the stretch.
The players here became so fed up with losing, they forgot to try to win.
Batten down the dorm furniture. We'll always have Kazakhstan.
Originally published on February 23, 2006
Nevermind. Kristy Swanson was Simone; Mia Sara was Sloane.
MOdano is a stand up guy. He was a stand out goal scorer early in his career. Then he adjusted his game to help his team win the Stanley Cup. He is generally recognized as one of the best in the game.
let the college kids play for Team USA.
It depends on the game. Both teams were running hot and cold especially between the pipes (there were some seriously not Roy and not Brodeur nights), Colorado ran hot 4 out of 7 times and won the series. Psychology probably is over stated, but most the games they lost (especially game 7) Marty seriously played out of character. Of course then sometimes maybe psychology is under credited, one of my biggest memories of Roy is how he seemed to always get a shutout on his birthday, those always stick out because Roy usually started seasons kind of cold and his birthday is early in the season, always seemed like the only game before Thanksgiving where he really played like Roy was that one.
The best American Goaltender was left behind. Ryan Miller from the Buffalo Sabres has about a .925 save percentage.
Blaim the pathethic performance on the brass who selected an old and slow team. Too old and MUCH too slow for the larger European size ice surface.
Derian Hatcher is unquestionably one of the 10 best defensemen in the National Hockey League. Very few blueliners are having a better year.
It was Hatcher who told/showed Crosby to grow up back in the fall when the boy thought this league was going to be easy. Broke a couple of teeth for him when he got tired of the whining to the refs.
That Devils team -- especially the defensemen -- simply ran out of gas.
Hatcher may have been among the ten best defensemen in the NHL at the peak of his career, but not any more. He might still be, if only the NHL played on an ice surface the size of my bedroom.
I love "Big Daddy." I watched Hatcher here in Dallas for 10 years. Is he one of the top 10 NHL defensemen? Maybe.
Listen, AB-C, I know what I'm talking about. I'm seeing Hatcher locally and, most surprisingly to me too, he's the big lug that I thought wouldn't adapt that actually has. He's crashing the net on offense, knocking guys flying, cutting angles and is doing without a lot of penalties lately.
I thought he was doomed but he's highly effective.
Didn't you see him go 10 feet in the air at the Olympics to grab a puck, hold the blue line and send a dart in on net? That was a great play.
The Devils are 16-9-2 since Lamoriello went behind the bench. There's going to be a three-team race in the Atlantic at the end.
As much as I hate to say it, the 'Canes still scare me. I think the Devs are 1-3 against them so far this year (might be 1-2, not sure). And they only seem to get better every game.
When it comes to my Devs, I'm not all that confident that way down the stretch you can make it out of your conference with only three really decent D-man (White, Rafalski, Martin). After that, the talent level drops off considerably (Matvichuk, Hale, Albelin -- although I'd take Tommy in a playoff situation 9 out of 10 times, but not for 20 minutes a night).
Let's see if the Olympic break slowed them (the 'Canes) down some.
What internal problems? The Devils go through this EVERY year or so; coaching issues, no sniper, no 40-goal scorer, 3 or maybe 4 legitimate horses on defense. Result: 3 Cups in 10 years.
Dream on about your Flyers, pal. My guess is they lose to Tampa Bay or Carolina (I'd laugh if they lost to the Rangers, btw)long before they get a whiff of the conference finals. Not many rookie goaltenders (even as good as Nittymaki) take their teams that far in the playoffs.
If Fosberg can get by one week without a paper cut that requires major surgery and a transfusion, maybe.
When Simone Gagne shakes off that vicious Kasparaitis hit he took the other day, maybe, but that looked like it's gonna bother him for some time. It was obvious they shot him full of something, braced him up and sent him back on the ice after that hit.
When Keith Primeau shakes off enough cobwebs to remember how to write his own name, maybe.
If Dejardins can keep his shoulder sewed on long enough to actually play three games in a row, maybe.
Otherwise, the Flyers don't scare me.
If we send pro players from the NHL again I want to see USA players who have no Olympic experience and a handful of our top college players. No more prima donnas like Modano, who was an excellent Olympic hockey player in prior games.
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