agd@houem.UUCP (A.DEACON) (02/08/84)
I thought this new group would liven up
with the Olympics starting.
I'll listing the scores of the games and
then some of my observations about the
US-Canada game.
Results of first round game:
Canada 4 USA 2
Czech 10 Norway 4
Finns 4 Austria 3
Swedes 11 Italy 3
USSR 12 Poles 1
About the US game:
1. This team doesn't have the spark or the desire
to win that the 80 team had. The 80 edition
refused to lose while the 84 guys looked as
though they were all waiting for someone else
on the team to come through.
2. The Canadians made the US play the Canadian
game instead of the US game. The bigger,
stronger Canadians outmuscled the US team
and took away the skating game of the US.
3. Perhaps after thrashing the Canadians in their
last two meetings and noticing that the Canadians
had won only 2 of their last 19 or so games, the US
thought it couldn't lose.
4. The US power play, after having looked strong
in the pre-Olympic games, was anemic. The
shadowing of LaFontaine had a lot to do with that.
5. The US didn't play well it its own zone and had
a considerable amount of trouble getting the puck
out of their own zone.
6. The conditioning that let the 80 team wear down the
competition in the third period did not seem to be
there last night.
7. The goal at 27 seconds of the first period by Canada
deflated the US and they were never able to recover.
8. With another loss to the Czechs on Thursday, the US
is essentially eliminated from the medal round.
Other items for some thought include:
- the way ABC showed only about 40% of the game
was very frustrating,
- seeing John Denver at all is ridiculous,
- there was very little insight provided by
the commentators, instead they relied on
cutesy stuff,
- the coverage given to the hockey eligibility
controversy was microscopic.
Anyone else care to join in?
Art Deacon
AT&T Bell Labsfargo@ihuxx.UUCP (Matt Noah) (02/09/84)
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.