A game for amateurs no more
I always had this Olympics wish when it came to professionals being part of the competition: When the Dream Team rolled into and through Barcelona in 1992, when it won eight basketball games by an average score of 117-74, when those poor saps from Angola were through posing for pictures and asking for autographs from the players who had just pasted them 116-48, it would have been the opportune time for America to expand its chest and return the moment to its amateurs.
The point would have been proven: America at any time could send its best players and dominate the world, but felt it best to again allow non-NBA types the opportunity to compete.
It would have been our arrogant way of rejecting the notion that all America cares about is winning – insert laughter here.
(It also would have allowed the U.S to avoid feeling the sting of those basketball finishes of sixth at the 2002 worlds and third at the 2004 Summer Games, which rank alongside William Hung’s millionaire status as among our nation’s most embarrassing moments.)
Hockey is a different case, but not when it comes to who should be playing for the U.S.
It’s obvious the Winter Olympics are important to many, proven by the early off-the-charts TV ratings. Mother Nature might be making Cypress Mountain into its own slushy mess, but there is enough drama out of Vancouver to make millions pull up a chair and watch, numbers that will assuredly rise when Shaun White attacks a snowboard halfpipe, or if Johnny Weir chooses at some point to skate with a live arctic fox atop his head.
They say the hockey talent could be the best in Olympics history, that having Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin continue their rivalry on an international stage will only intensify the drama.
Yes. That’s me yawning.
I’m sure the play will be excellent. The games will be exciting. The skill will be second-to-none. I even have to admit secretly rooting for Canada, not because I have any allegiance to the second-largest country in the world, but I’m fairly certain anything less than gold would cause each citizen to stab themselves with those Aboriginal spears while draped in nothing but maple leaves, which would really put a damper on the whole Alberta beef thing.
Canada has won Olympic gold in hockey just once since 1952, and you just know its people would pay equal or more to our health care costs for another.
The Americans are again being painted as underdogs in hockey, and that’s fine. They should be. They opened with a 3-1 victory against Switzerland on Tuesday, but it really doesn’t matter, because nothing under the current system could equal what happened at Lake Placid in 1980.
NHL players and hot women mix.
NHL players and miracles … not so much.
It is a feeling you might get as a sports fan a handful of times in life. Not the kind when your favorite baseball team wins a World Series or your football team hoists a Super Bowl trophy. Those don’t compare. Those come and go.
There has never been a better example of teamwork than USA 4, USSR 3, no Olympic moment that touched our country more from a nationalistic sense. Times were tough. Inflation was high. Hostages were being held in Iran. The president was bailing out Chrysler.
(And you would think things might have changed a bit since then.)
But the U.S. could win the next five Olympic gold medals in hockey and it wouldn’t come close to equaling that emotion from that one Friday afternoon, not if professionals continue to comprise the American team. I understand why they do, that pros in certain sports usually mean greater TV ratings, which means more revenue, and that it’s important for many countries to send their finest athletes in each event.
But every time a Winter Olympics happens by and the hockey portion of it begins, I think about what the Games were originally intended for – presenting amateur athletes a global stage on which to perform. Even more so in hockey than basketball, all because of that one magical afternoon.
It’s true athletes from many countries haven’t held amateur status for decades. They have been paid and doped with the best of them. There might also never again be a team as talented as that Russian side the U.S. shocked in 1980. None will likely present such a level of fear and dominance.
But just on the off chance another miracle could be performed, I’m hoping the NHL continues to rethink its position on sending players to the Games.
Maybe a moment like that never comes again.
But the way things are structured now, it’s guaranteed not to.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618.