Double gold
Celebrating hockey gold
Dear Team AIH
I happened to hear some comments on your talk back line this morning about the appropriate way of celebrating the double Canadian ice hockey gold in Salt Lake olympics. (It is early morning in this part of the World when you go on the air.) It seems that the Canadians appreciate this great acchievment and why not. Winning the olympic ice hockey tournamnet once is great, winning it twice at the same games is superior.
May I nevertheless remind you that the Canadian public did not appreciate the olympic hockey tournament that much for four years ago in Nagano when Finland beat team Canada in the bronze game. The local hotel employees in Nagano remember very well how the Canadian players showed their appriciation towards the then fourth place in the tournament by smashing the entire hotel interior decorations. With this I want to say that olympic succes is something to come and go but hockey is always a great sport. And the Canadians deserve indeed to celebrate their most reacent succes.
One of your listeners made a suggestion to bring the olympic heros back to Canada from the United States by establishing new NHL teams in the north. I find this to be an exellent idea and a step in the right direction. Another and perhaps even more essential step would be to make it possible for the very best players in all national teams to participate in the World Championship tournament each year.
Salt Lake was the second olympic tournament where the NHL players in all teams could participate. Hence the succesful teams in both Nagano and Salt Lake City can appreciate their acchievements and consider them more valuable than ever before. Unfortunately the International Ice Hockey Federation and the NHL have so far failed to agree on similar arrangements for the annual World Championship.
The basic problem seams to be that the national leagues in Europe are finished earlier in the spring than the NHL. This problem could be sorted out in the fair spirit of little give and take. The NHL could finish a little bit earlier and the Europeans could stretch their season a little bit longer. In the long run everybody would gain from such an arrangement. And the ultimate winners would be the best players in the World and the appreciative hockey fans all over the Globe.
I repeat once more that the double olympic gold for both Canadian teams is something to celebrate and be proud of. Please accept my humble congratulations. May I however remind that there will be another olympic hockey tournament in 2006 in Turin Italy. And there will be a number of other pretenders to the hockey trophy by that time.
Wishing you all the best
posted by Larko at 08:44
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