Canadian Men's Hockey Team Represented the Spirit of the Olympics
Sure, they didn't win Gold or Silver, or even Bronze. But I was proud of
the Canadian Men's Hockey Team.
They stayed in the Olympic Village with the other competitors, even the
ones who didn't make six figure salaries.
They played selflessly, with
heart and determination, and they played well. They simply got beat by teams that
were a tiny bit better than they were.
They made no excuses, and blamed no one but themselves for those heart-breaking defeats..
They showed up at other Olympic events to cheer on other Canadian athletes.
They played good, clean, skate-pass-shoot hockey: showing the sport at its best.
Why didn't they win? It's hard to fault Clarke, Gainey, or Crawford.
They chose solid, two-way players, and those players generally performed up to
expectations. The one deficiency in this line-up was players with a deft touch
around the net... like Kariya and Sakic(!). Gretzky played well, but he's not 25
anymore. Lindros also played well, but he's not a finesse player. Once they
knew Kariya was in doubt, I wonder if they shouldn't have added Vincent Damphousse or
someone else with a deft touch around the net. But, again, I'm not quibbling.
The team was well-chosen. Unfortunately, I think Canadians simply have to face the
fact that the rest of the world has caught up to us and we are no longer the dominant
hockey power. We were close-- the games were thrilling-- but we're going to have to
work hard and develop new talent if we hope to ever reclaim the World Championship or the
Olympic Gold Medal.
1998-02-21
Other Olympic Notes
Catriona LeMay Doan won the gold medal for Canada in the women's 500 meters. She
discussed her faith with a CBC interviewer, with slight defensiveness. She obviously
didn't want to be confused with other Christian athletes who believe that God awards the
gold medals. Sports Illustrated picked her to win the 500 and to place 3rd in the
1000.
The Canadian Women's Hockey team is very poorly
coached. On February 14, they were leading the U.S. 4-1. The U.S. team scored
a goal, which rattled the Canadians, who responded with a foolish penalty. Another
quick goal, and the Canadians were really rattled, disorganized, and confused. Coach
Shannon Miller merely kept pacing behind the bench, while the Americans kept scoring. They lost the lead.
She didn't call a time out, she didn't speak to her players, she didn't change goalies... nothing.
This was a golden
opportunity for the Canadians to take the high road, play clean, determined, defense, and
show the U.S. how unflappable they were. Instead, they fell apart. With more than a
minute left in the game, Miller pulled the goalie without securing possession of the puck
or a face-off in the U.S. zone. The Canadians lost 7-4. This is merely the
most recent in a long series of negative indicators-- Miller cancelled the team Christmas
party after a poor game against the U.S., and imposed a gag order on star player
Haley Wickenheiser. There was also some controversy about the selection process for
the team.
Brian Stemmle has CLASS. His terrific run at the
downhill, in which he was leading 3/4 of the way through the race before hitting a fluke
rut, was electrifying. In an interview afterwards, he blamed no one but himself,
even though a lot of us were tempted to think the hill should have been better maintained.
At the 1994 Olympics in Spain, the U.S. basketball team
stayed in private villas and hotels and refused to mix with the mortal athletes in the
Olympic Village. The NHL players deserve high praise for choosing to live in the
Olympic village with the rest of the athletes. Class again.
CBC coverage is the worst I have ever seen. Brian
Williams is boring. Most of the "features" are poorly conceived and weakly
presented (read "cheap"). There is very little insight into either the
competition or the character of the athletes.
There was a time when the viewers were informed when what
they were watching had been taped earlier. It is a kind of fraud to present 12 hour
old events as if they were just happening. And when it really is happening, you
don't know.
Please please please get rid of those drab middle-aged men
who present the medals. Who are they? What are they doing there? How did
they get those jobs?!. They are the self-serving crony-apparatchiks of the IOC.
Wouldn't it have been great to have Eric Heiden, for instance, present the gold
medal for speed skating, or Peggy Fleming present the medal for figure skating, or Nancy
Greene for skiing? Come on, wouldn't it? The Olympics remind me of war when I
see those men: wasted, hollow old functionaries without courage, grace, or skill,
controlling the destinies of the young and innocent.
.Let's see... Elvis Stojko skates a 3 1/2 minute routine
including several triple-triple and triple-double jumps, makes all of them perfectly...
but he can't skate from the centre of the ice to the boards without practically collapsing
in pain? Why did this remind me so much of the Keri Strug farce at the summer
Olympics? My guess is that Elvis was really in some pain-- every athlete at
this level of competition always is--and probably had a bit of the flu. My guess is
also that, knowing he couldn't win on merit alone because he didn't include a quad in his
program, he made a play for audience sympathy. Stojko's not stupid: he knows when
the camera is on close-up. He wanted us to be impressed with his courage and
determination. He wanted the judges to know that he could have done better if he
hadn't been injured. Maybe he really hoped it might win him a mark or two.
Whatever the reason, I thought it was coy, and I wished he'd shown a little more
class. And I'll bet you most of his competitors think so too.
I hope the people who arrange housing in the Olympic
village had the genius to put the curling teams into the same dorms as the snowboarders.
But then, marijuana probably is a performance enhancing drug for
curlers....
This is about the fifth Olympics in a row for which it was
predicted that Canada would take a "record haul" of medals. Who is
responsible for these predictions? Whoever it is should be sacked.
According
to Avery Brundidge, the Olympics "embraces the highest moral laws. NO
philosophy, no religion preaches loftier sentiments."
Well,
if the highest moral law is "he who has the gold, makes the rules", then he's
right.
For all
the hype, the Olympics is nothing more than a two-week long commercial with
athletes. During the first few days of competition, I would estimate that there was
about three minutes of competition to about three hours of meaningless chatter about
scandals and politics and about twelve hours of commercials. Someone with more
patience should sit down with a stop-watch and get the actual figures.
During
an important curling match, the CBC actually cut away for commercials while rocks were
being thrown in the late ends of an extremely close semi-final match between Britain and
Canada. It's almost as bad as ABC News Nightline. Could anything have
made it more clear what the Olympics are really all about?
There
will be some great competitions, no doubt, and men's hockey is shaping up to be one of the
best. On the larger ice surface, we might actually get to see some skating, passing,
and stick-handling. Why did the NHL agree to this? Don't they realize that
viewers will be appalled when they are forced to watch the ridiculous thuggery of the NHL
again after this treat? Maybe that's why they announced there will be a crack-down
on clutch-and-grab tactics after the Olympics.
As for
figure skating and ice dancing, if everyone knows that the judging is decided on the basis
of back-room politicking, why can't anybody seem to do anything about it?
The
reason why is simple: the International Olympic Committee is the personal fiefdom of Juan
Antonio Samaranch, the former youth fascist, who runs the organization with an iron fist
behind walls of secrecy. He appoints new members to the committee. He controls
the purse strings. And he is accountable to no one.
This
kind of structure should not be able to survive the modern era. Most large
corporations have begun to realize that without clear lines of accountability, they cannot
be competitive. Everyone is too busy covering their own rear end to serve the
genuine interests of the company.
When
Ross Rebagliati tested positive for marijuana at these Olympics, someone should have
looked at the receipts for the Atlanta games. As Dan Morgenson pointed out in the
Kitchener-Waterloo Record, 9,000 cases of beer, 1,800 cases of wine, and 600 cases of
liquor, were delivered to Hyatt Regency hotel for the benefit of the 106 members of the
International Olympic Committee. Hypocrisy run amok!
All of
the world's national Olympic Committees should meet together this year and announce that a
new structure must be created by a committee elected from the National Olympic
bodies. The first task of this committee will be to create a code of conduct which
all of the national bodies must subscribe to or suffer ineligibility. This code of
conduct must stipulate that the committees are accountable to the athletes they serve and
to the supporting community. This code should set a fixed ratio of
"officials" to athletes to attend each sporting event. All officials must
be legitimate representatives of their sports-- not sycophants of some politician
or general.
The
second task will be to set up a new International Olympic Organization with a board that
is democratically elected from among all the member national bodies. No nation will be
allowed to nominate from their own country. At least 50% of the board members should
be elected directly by the athletes.
The
third task will be to impose stringent limits on the amount of Olympic dollars that are
allocated for administration and promotion. Nobody knows what the exact numbers
are, but nobody doubts that a huge proportion of Olympic spending is devoted to the
comfort and pleasure of the same idiot officials and appointees who decided that Ross
Rebagliati should lose his gold medal because of trace amounts of THC in his blood.
Finally,
the baloney should be removed from the selection process for hosts for the Olympic
games. Once again, everybody knows that the process is incredibly corrupt--
officials are almost handed suitcases of cash by representatives of contending cities--
but nobody seems to have the guts or the means to stop it.
We have
seen the U.S. press become hysterically obsessed with the salacious but insignificant
scandal of Bill Clinton's undisciplined sexual urges. Millions of words and
thousands of hours of television program have been devoted to this non-news story.
Compared to the Monica
Lewinsky story, the way the International Olympic Committee operates is a major
scandal of outrageous proportions. The only way it will ever get on the front page,
however, will be if Samaranch hires himself a lovely little intern...