You're from Canada? Do you play... hockey?
by Jon Worley

Alright, the American men's hockey team stunk up the joint at the Olympics. While some folks point to excessive partying or arrogance as the reason, those folks miss the point. The U.S. team went 1-3 in Nagano (that's na-GA-no, by the way) because its goalies are both mired in serious slumps. Mike Richter hasn't been the same since the Rangers won the Stanley Cup (though he did acquit himself well enough at last year's hockey World Cup, which the U.S. won), and ditto for Richter's backup, John Vanbiesbrouck, who lost his form after the Florida Panthers lost the Cup in four straight games to the Colorado Avalanche a couple years ago.

For some reason, the powers that be felt that any team with Bobby Hull's son couldn't go wrong. Firepower would tell the story. Get Brett Hull and John LeClair on the ice at the same time, and sparks would fly.

If you need to be reminded, the firepower theory went 1-3, with a couple trashed Olympic Village rooms on the side. Such stories of teams suffering from a variety of weak links litter the culverts along the road of sports history.

In an exciting revival of the underdog theory, the eventual gold medal team didn't even have a full complement of NHL stars. Okay, so the Czechs did have Dominik Hasek, last year's NHL MVP and probably the best goalie in the world. On the slapshot side, they've got Jaromir Jagr, who for the moment has the richest contract in the league. Guess what? That was enough.

I don't even feel bad about the U.S. punting. We're still World Cup Champions, and anyway, hockey isn't our national sport. No, that humiliation comes every Summer Games, when our baseball team gets roundly pounded. In this tale of woe, the truly pathetic bastards are the Canadians, who couldn't scrape a medal. A friend of mine from Toronto left a primal scream wail on my answering machine early Saturday morning after the loss to the Czechs in the semifinals. The Canadian dream team lost. While hockey isn't quite comparable to basketball, it is a fact that the Canadian men's hockey team was the most decorated and the most talented in Olympic history. But after losing that match with the Czechs in a shootout, the men from the great white north crashed off the medal podium altogether, losing to Finland 3-2 in the consolation.

The Czech Republic and Finland fielded fine teams. They, along with Sweden, Russia, the U.S. and Canada make up the mythical "big 6" of hockey. But no one could have imagined that the Canadian big boys would drop consecutive matches when it mattered.

As Chris Berman likes to say, "That's why they play the game". It's about how the puck bounces, it's about heart, it's about character, it's about all those stupid cliches Eppie Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh learned in the back of the bus. And it's funny, when those cliches come to life everyone acts surprised. The U.S. beats Brazil in a soccer match, and the world (outside the U.S, of course) goes loony. Princeton backdoors UCLA to death in the NCAA basketball tourney and Pete Carrill is declared the genius of the week. The Denver Broncos beat up the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl and a populace is stunned.

These are the reasons televised sports is the most popular form of entertainment going. Yeah, most of the time I prefer books, music and Civilization II, but I have my soft points. Those first two days of the NCAA basketball tourney are sacred to me. A Thursday and Friday when anything can happen. I get up at noon, alternate Mountain Dews and beers to find that proper edge, and watch the carnage. Unless I actually have a job or something, in which case I tape the stuff and watch it into the night in a slightly compressed format. You know the formula: A high seed always kicks the bucket, and a Coppin State or (a personal agony here) Northern Iowa can whack down some "power conference" behemoth. Remember the year UCLA won it all? It took a brilliant dribbling and shooting exhibition in the final 4.6 seconds from Tyus Edney to secure a 1-point win over Missouri in the second round. An agonizing defeat for my team, but a wonderful moment. In sports and in any other context.

Politics is a messy game, and anyway, excessive polling has rendered elections mostly anti-climactic. Books and records and movies are cool, but with few exceptions they follow well-worn paths. Some of the more innovative CD-ROMs are pushing the envelope, but still, for pure, on-the-fly spontaneous tension, nothing beats sports.

You want sheer drama? Try the first Canada/U.S. women's hockey match last Saturday. Tied 1-1 going into the final period. Canada scored three quick goals and thought it had won the game. The Canadian coach even taunted the American bench, mouthing "losers" through the glass, not unlike Kelly Preston in the luxury box scene in Jerry McGuire. What happened? The U.S. team scored six straight goals to win 7-4. Nine goals in a period? You bet. High drama and extreme heroics. And who knew two weeks ago that come the end of the Games, we'd be cheering Cammi Granato instead of Chris Chelios? Well, okay then.

Jon Worley didn't watch much of the Olympics because CBS didn't show a minute of curling action, a decision he finds morally reprehensible.

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