Lots to cheer for without NHLers
Dear editor: We hear stories about low interest in Olympic hockey due to lack of NHL participation. If so, the people showing lack of interest must be no more than age 25 or 30, otherwise they would have seen nothing but non-NHL players in the Winter Olympics before 1998. And you'd have to be over the age of 50 to remember when, in the early 1960s, they scrapped sending the Allan Cup champions to international games in favour of developing a national amateur hockey team coached by Fr. David Bauer, who we grateful taxpayers billeted in a barn on the UBC campus.
But you don't have to be that old to know the unhappy results of that endeavor as we vented perennial spleen over the "amateur" members of the Red Army hockey team; socalled army officers who never saw a parade square and only rarely donned ill-fitting offthe-rack uniforms for photo ops.
The team we have today is comprised of an assortment of players from a variety of sources: ex-NHLers who, although their wind and legs aren't what they used to be, contribute a wealth of advice and wisdom in order to settle the younger players down when they need settling down.
We also have a good assortment of young players drafted by NHL teams who've been sent to the minors for seasoning or European league and KHL players who toil in leagues only slightly below NHL standards.
These Europeans aren't the inept, overcautious players of three generations ago, but men who've learned, adapted, and improved the Canadian system, sometimes much to our sorrow.
The Swiss are a good example. As ever in Switzerland, they did things with class and produced a well-trained and well-disciplined hockey team that is a world contender.
Yet, Canada defeated them 5 - 1 (4 - 1 if we discount the empty netter).
So let's scrap the "no interest" story and all settle down with something cold, amber and frothy to enjoy the rest of what looks to be a great series for both our Canadian women and men.
And while I'm on my feet, if I was King of the World I would have a special gold – no, platinum – medal of perseverence for Korea's coach Sarah Murray.
This classy Canadian lady has overcome political silliness with the resulting heartbreak and hard feelings to cobble together a team of adversaries into a credible, albeit inexperienced and incompetent, hockey team that, if she stays with them, has a promising future and maybe even less world tension. Roderick MacIntosh Peachland