At this time I would like to voice my opinion on the results and the performance of the United States Men’s Olympic Hockey team. As a long time follower and player of the game I can remember back to the Miracle on Ice that took place at Lake Placid in 1980. There was a almost type of magic about when my whole family, myself included, sat around the television and watched as team USA beat the Soviet Red Army team 4-3 as I recall. I still to this day get goose bumps when I remember Al Michaels exclaim Do you believe in miracles!

Well that brings me to the reason for this letter. What the American public witnessed at Nagano was an embarrassment. As I recall the Olympic used to be just about amateur competition among the nations of the world. Now of days it seems just about who can acquire the biggest team of ringers, and in doing so, that has taken the thrill out of the game. I much more enjoyed watching the women’s team play for the fact that there was much more emotion behind their play. They’ve worked hard as a team and fought to bring the gold medal back to the United States.

Those women aren’t coming home and going back to a job where they get paid an incredible amount of money for playing a game, unlike the men’s team. But there are two things that the women are coming home with that the men are not, and that is pride and a gold medal!

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You see, all through out history the story is the same. It’s not incentive of monetary gain that drives people to be the best, but pride in knowing you are the best. In 1980, much like now with the women, those players weren’t household names, but just another American going to do their best for their country. A lot of college players dream of one day making the Olympic team and in doing so may help springboard them into the pros.

Now in order to make the team you have to be a NHL player, and a star at that. When we sent this team to Japan we expected them to come home with nothing less than gold, especially with the caliber of players they had on the team. Well, after two poorly played loses to Sweden and Canada, we finally got our first win against Belarus. Seeing how most people probably don’t even know where Belarus is located, let alone heard of, that should have been a given. Then late Tuesday night we watched a dismally played game against the Czech Republic. For some reason though I don’t think they are all that heart broken, at least not as sad as if they had played their last game as an amateur. Now that this little inconvenience is out of their way, they can go on to worry about what they really care about, winning Lord Stanley’s Cup, and rightly so. That’s what they are getting paid to do.

I would like to add that my bitterness is not so much directed at the players, a number of them even voiced their disappointment in going. My bitterness is directed at those who want to change the Olympics into some sort of a circus or something. If we didn’t send our version of the NHL American all-star team over there I believe that we wouldn’t be so distraught about the outcome, since we probably wouldn’t have expected so much of them, at least not as much as our dream team.

Now as for those lovely ladies of the ice, they will most likely do pretty well with endorsements when they get home. Proof again that bringing home the gold also helps bring home the green. They do deserve everything they get since they are not only heroes to us, but they also will go down in history as the first women’s gold medalists in ice hockey. I guess great things can happen if you believe in miracles!