Posted on 02/23/2006 6:25:28 AM PST by Hat-Trick
When you get as many short handed goals scored against you as Team USA did, it's time to start reevaluating your program.
Not that it makes it any better, but I'd really be upset if I was a Canadian hockey fan. What happened there?
Sending NHL'ers to the Olympics is ridiculous. The schedule, right in the middle of the NHL season, does not allow a team to coalesce, and for the pros it must seem like just anouther couple of games. Go back to the college kids - at least they really really wanted to play, and they have the time to make it a full-time dedication for a year prior to the Games. Sure they'll get their butts kicked more often than not, but occasionaly they'll win too.
I could see Sweden sending the majority of Team MoDo and being competitive.
Most of the great players in history never won junior titles. And to play in a World Championship tournament, a player basically has to play for an NHL team that either doesn't make the playoffs or gets knocked out in the first round (the World Championships are held in April every year, right around the time the NHL playoffs start).
I'll give you a hint, though . . . it's none of the players you mentioned, but I'm pretty sure this guy did win the sixth of these six tropies/awards at Salt Lake City in 2002.
Shoulda just sent the Gophers over there, again.
Time to take pro players out fo the Olympics and put the college kids and amateurs back in.
Hard to get into an Olympic mindset when you have a multi-million salary waiting for you back home.
It's ridiculous for the NHL to play a condensed schedule so that they can take a two-week break in the middle of the season to play for something that most Americans don't care about. The Olympics used to be about competition and the Cold War.
Without either, we have no interest. And NBC is just finding this out.
As for Canada? My GOD! How can you send that kind of killer lineup , with the best goalie on the planet (Brodeur), with the icon of all hockey icons presiding, and throw three stinkers in a row? How many penalties can Todd Bertuzzi and Chris Pronger take in one game?
For all of you who still think Sydney Crosby is half as good as Alexander Ovechkin; get yourself a prescription for prozac -- you're halucinating. Perhaps if Crosby had played for Team Canada he might have made a diference; one fewer shutout, maybe. Ovechkin even made Alexei Yashin look good.
The Finns and Swedes have been great to watch, even better than the Czechs (best part of the Czech's tournament? Watching Jagr bleed.), and is it just me, or is Daniel Alfredsson not the most complete hockey player you've ever seen? The man does it all.
For all the love I have for Scott Gomez (I'm a rabid Devil's fan), he's not a great center, at any level. Brian Gionta is close to God. Amazing what he does at that size. As for Brian Rafalski, I think the US could have left him home and taken Brian Leetch (as much as it hurts to say that).
Hasek?
Amateurs only? In the olden days, we were the only country that did that.
I wasn't paying close attention in 1980 to remember how the players playing on TeamUSA impacted their college teams. Had most of The Miracle team already graduated or used their college eligibility? Most college teams during this year's Olympics are playing their last 2-3 regular season series, and losing some of the top players to TeamUSA would really impact the conference standings and post-season conference and NCAA tournaments.
Canada's other problem is that they selected their Olympic roster months ago, which meant that fine young rookies like Sidney Crosby, Eric Staal and Dion Phaneuf didn't really have a chance to make the team.
It has more to do with unreasonable expectations than lack of performance. If anyone had been following these sports during the year, one wouldn't be surprised at the results. For example, I have a hard time understanding why Bode Miller has become a target of criticism. He has performed well, but there are others who performed just a little better, just as they have during the world cup events leading up to the Olympics. The US will probably win its second highest total of medals in the Winter Olympics.
You can't expect professionals to take time out of their season, come together, and play like squads which have been practicing together for months.
exactly.
we should abandon the nhl players and go back to amateurs...or revamp the entire way the USA hockey team is chosen and practices for the Olympics...or both
I think most of the players from the 1980 team had already completed their college eligibility.
Regardless, college players would start training the summer before the games, after their college season is well over.
Funny you should mention that. I was talking about this with a Canadian friend of mine last week, and he reminded me that "Team Canada" is a fairly new entity. For the first few decades of Olympic competition and World Championship tournaments, Canada simply sent the men's amateur championship team to represent the country.
So who is it - I've got to know!
Not a bad guess (that guy seems to have won everything else), but you're really focusing on Canadians here -- since Europeans really only started playing in Canadian junior leagues (see Memorial Cup) fairly recently.
I don't think it was the cost that he was complaining about . . . it was the chaotic, disorganized nature of the whole thing that forced the players to scramble at the last minute to make travel arrangements.
Olli Jokenon, a Fin player, had this to say about the travel arrangements:
"About six months ago," he said, "my wife went online and took care of all that."
'Nuff said......
The suspense is killing us.
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