lake@alberta.UUCP (Robert Lake) (02/15/84)
Matt, First off, I hold no personal ill will to any of the players on either the Canadian or American team. Team USA's showing must have been very disappointing to the players on the team, especially after the amount of time spent practicing. For the players sake, I had hoped Team USA would have made the medal round. What I DO object to though was the amount of hype and the false expectations built up around the team, mostly by the media. I agree the US was within its right to protest the "professional" players present on the other teams. However, I believe the protest was more motivated towards improving their chances to reach the medal round than purifying the teams from professionals. I have followed Olympic hockey TOO long to not appreciate the "real" meaning of "amateur", whether Eastern block or North American. I find there is a hypocrisy present with the Olympics regarding amateurs vs. professional players. I think it is doublethink to call the Russian hockey players "amateurs" in the common meaning of the word even if that is what the Russian officials define as amateur. Pros play sports for economic gain. In the case of the USSR, the players are all in the army, and they get an army wage for playing hockey. Essentially they have a sponser who gives them great economic gain for playing hockey. US/Canadian players who get "scholarships" for playing a sport or who get living expenses for playing junior hockey are also playing for economic gain. How does this *really* differ from players with some NHL experience? I think if the amateur rule applied to Jim Thorpe in the early part of this century was used on the participants in today's olympics, nobody would go home with a medal. Robert Lake (alberta!lake) University of Alberta