Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 exptools 1/6/84; site ihuxx.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!ihnp4!ihuxx!fargo From: fargo@ihuxx.UUCP (Matt Noah) Newsgroups: net.sport.hockey Subject: Re: Olympic Hockey Message-ID: <661@ihuxx.UUCP> Date: Wed, 8-Feb-84 20:32:39 EST Article-I.D.: ihuxx.661 Posted: Wed Feb 8 20:32:39 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 10-Feb-84 03:04:26 EST References: <222@houem.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL Lines: 29 I refuse to criticise any team - good luck to Canada - I hope the US and Canada both advance to the medal round. There is no sense in comparing this US team with the 1980 team; "refuse to lose"? - hockey is too unpredictable a game that one team can "refuse to lose". What happens when two teams which "refuse to lose" play each other? In my opinion, the 1980 team was the finest group of US amateurs ever assembled for Olympic competition - both in ability and character (nebulous, I know). They were also the first group assembled that actually played a reasonably long time together before the Games. Prior hockey Olympians assembled as a team a short while before the Games. The only way the 1984 team could have surpassed the 1980 team was to annihilate every team they played enroute to another Gold. Even then, could they really have induced as much pride and joy and excitement as the 1980 team gave us? The circumstances are too different in my opinion. Notice who scored from Canada? Not names but where they played previously? Cary Wilson spent two years at Dartmouth. Flatley played last season at Wisconsin. Tippet, the Canadian captain who "shadowed" LaFontaine played at the University of North Dakota where defensive hockey is king. Troy Murray has a similar job for the Chicago BlackHawks whenever The Great One is town. Murray's roots? - UND. I, too was upset with the Richard Nixon version of the US-Canada game that ABC gave us. Whos cares that Harrisburg, PA is anything like Sarajevo? I loved the figure skating spills, though.