Updated: February 21, 1998

Canadian Men's Hockey Team Represented the Spirit of the Olympics

Sure, they didn't win Gold or Silver, or even Bronze.  But I was proud of the Canadian Men's Hockey Team. 

1.  They stayed in the Olympic Village with the other competitors, even the ones who didn't make six figure salaries.  2.  They played selflessly, with heart and determination, and they played well.  They simply got beat by teams that were a tiny bit better than they were.  3.  They made no excuses, and blamed no one but themselves for those heart-breaking defeats..  4.  They showed up at other Olympic events to cheer on other Canadian athletes.  5.  They played good, clean hockey, without the chippiness you see so much of in the NHL.

Why didn't they win?  It's hard to fault Clarke, Gainey, or Crawford.   They chose solid, two-way players, and those players generally performed up to expectations.  The one deficiency in this line-up was players with a deft touch around the net... like Kariya and Sakic(!).  Gretzky played well, but he's not 25 anymore.  Lindros also played well, but he's not a finesse player.  Once they knew Kariya was in doubt, I wonder if they shouldn't have added Vincent Damphousse or someone else with a deft touch around the net.  But, again, I'm not quibbling.  The team was well-chosen.   Unfortunately, I think Canadians simply have to face the fact that the rest of the world has caught up to us and we are no longer the dominant hockey power.  We were close-- the games were thrilling-- but we're going to have to work hard and develop new talent if we hope to ever reclaim the World Championship or the Olympic Gold Medal.

OLYMPIC RIP OFF

According to Avery Brundidge, the Olympics "embraces the highest moral laws.  NO philosophy, no religion preaches loftier sentiments."

Well, if the highest moral law is "he who has the gold, makes the rules", then he's right.

For all the hype, the Olympics is nothing more than a two-week long commercial with athletes.  During the first few days of competition, I would estimate that there was about three minutes of competition to about three hours of meaningless chatter about scandals and politics and about twelve hours of commercials.   Someone with more patience should sit down with a stop-watch and get the actual figures.

During an important curling match, the CBC actually cut away for commercials while rocks were being thrown in the late ends of an extremely close semi-final match between Britain and Canada.  It's almost as bad as ABC News Nightline.   Could anything have made it more clear what the Olympics are really all about?

There will be some great competitions, no doubt, and men's hockey is shaping up to be one of the best.  On the larger ice surface, we might actually get to see some skating, passing, and stick-handling.  Why did the NHL agree to this?  Don't they realize that viewers will be appalled when they are forced to watch the ridiculous thuggery of the NHL again after this treat?  Maybe that's why they announced there will be a crack-down on clutch-and-grab tactics after the Olympics.

As for figure skating and ice dancing, if everyone knows that the judging is decided on the basis of back-room politicking, why can't anybody seem to do anything about it? 

The reason why is simple: the International Olympic Committee is the personal fiefdom of Juan Antonio Samaranch, the former youth fascist, who runs the organization with an iron fist behind walls of secrecy.  He appoints new members to the committee.  He controls the purse strings.  And he is accountable to no one.

This kind of structure should not be able to survive the modern era.  Most large corporations have begun to realize that without clear lines of accountability, they cannot be competitive.  Everyone is too busy covering their own rear end to serve the genuine interests of the company. 

When Ross Rebagliati tested positive for marijuana at these Olympics, someone should have looked at the receipts for the Atlanta games.  As Dan Morgenson pointed out in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, 9,000 cases of beer, 1,800 cases of wine, and 600 cases of liquor, were delivered to Hyatt Regency hotel for the benefit of the 106 members of the International Olympic Committee.  Hypocrisy run amok!

All of the world's national Olympic Committees should meet together this year and announce that a new structure must be created by a committee elected from the National Olympic bodies.  The first task of this committee will be to create a code of conduct which all of the national bodies must subscribe to or suffer ineligibility.  This code of conduct must stipulate that the committees are accountable to the athletes they serve and to the supporting community.  This code should set a fixed ratio of "officials" to athletes to attend each sporting event.  All officials must be legitimate representatives of their sports-- not  sycophants of some politician or general. 

The second task will be to set up a new International Olympic Organization with a board that is democratically elected from among all the member national bodies. No nation will be allowed to nominate from their own country.  At least 50% of the board members should be elected directly by the athletes.

The third task will be to impose stringent limits on the amount of Olympic dollars that are allocated for administration and promotion.   Nobody knows what the exact numbers are, but nobody doubts that a huge proportion of Olympic spending is devoted to the comfort and pleasure of the same idiot officials and appointees who decided that Ross Rebagliati should lose his gold medal because of trace amounts of THC in his blood.

Finally, the baloney should be removed from the selection process for hosts for the Olympic games.  Once again, everybody knows that the process is incredibly corrupt-- officials are almost handed suitcases of cash by representatives of contending cities-- but nobody seems to have the guts or the means to stop it.

We have seen the U.S. press become hysterically obsessed with the salacious but insignificant scandal of Bill Clinton's undisciplined sexual urges.  Millions of words and thousands of hours of television program have been devoted to this non-news story.   Compared to the Monica Lewinsky story, the way the International Olympic Committee operates is a major scandal of outrageous proportions.  The only way it will ever get on the front page, however, will be if Samaranch hires himself a lovely little intern...

.© Copyright 1998 Bill Van Dyk

Catriona LeMay Doan won the gold medal for Canada in the women's 500 meters.  She discussed her faith with a CBC interviewer, with slight defensiveness.  She obviously didn't want to be confused with other Christian athletes who believe that God awards the gold medals.  Sports Illustrated picked her to win the 500 and to place 3rd in the 1000. 

The Canadian Women's Hockey team is very poorly coached.  On February 14, they were leading the U.S. 4-1.   The U.S. team scored a goal, which rattled the Canadians, who responded with a foolish penalty.  Another quick goal, and the Canadians were really rattled, disorganized, and confused.  Coach Shannon Miller merely kept pacing behind the bench. She didn't call a time out, she didn't speak to her players, she didn't change goalies... nothing.  This was a golden opportunity for the Canadians to take the high road, play clean, determined, defense, and show the U.S. how unflappable they were.  Instead, they fell apart. With more than a minute left in the game, Miller pulled the goalie without securing possession of the puck or a face-off in the U.S. zone.  The Canadians lost 7-4.  This is merely the most recent in a long series of negative indicators-- Miller cancelled the team Christmas party after a poor game against the U.S., and  imposed a gag order on star player Haley Wickenheiser.  There was also some controversy about the selection process for the team.

Brian Stemmle has CLASS.  His terrific run at the downhill, in which he was leading 3/4 of the way through the race before hitting a fluke rut, was electrifying.  In an interview afterwards, he blamed no one but himself, even though a lot of us were tempted to think the hill should have been better maintained.

At the 1994 Olympics in Spain, the U.S. basketball team stayed in private villas and hotels and refused to mix with the mortal athletes in the Olympic Village.  The NHL players deserve high praise for choosing to live in the Olympic village with the rest of the athletes.  Class again.

CBC coverage is the worst I have ever seen.  Brian Williams is boring.  Most of the "features" are poorly conceived and weakly presented (read "cheap").  There is very little insight into either the competition or the character of the athletes.

There was a time when the viewers were informed when what they were watching had been taped earlier.  It is a kind of fraud to present 12 hour old events as if they were just happening.  And when it really is happening, you don't know.

Please please please get rid of those drab middle-aged men who present the medals.  Who are they?  What are they doing there?  How did they get those jobs?!.  They are the self-serving crony-apparatchiks of the IOC.   Wouldn't it have been great to have Eric Heiden, for instance, present the gold medal for speed skating, or Peggy Fleming present the medal for figure skating, or Nancy Greene for skiing?  Come on, wouldn't it?  The Olympics remind me of war when I see those men: wasted, hollow old functionaries without courage, grace, or skill, controlling the destinies of the young and innocent.

.Let's see... Elvis Stojko skates a 3 1/2 minute routine including several triple-triple and triple-double jumps, makes all of them perfectly... but he can't skate from the centre of the ice to the boards without practically collapsing in pain?  Why did this remind me so much of the Keri Strug farce at the summer Olympics?   My guess is that Elvis was really in some pain-- every athlete at this level of competition always is--and probably had a bit of the flu.  My guess is also that, knowing he couldn't win on merit alone because he didn't include a quad in his program, he made a play for audience sympathy.  Stojko's not stupid: he knows when the camera is on close-up.  He wanted us to be impressed with his courage and determination.  He wanted the judges to know that he could have done better if he hadn't been injured.  Maybe he really hoped it might win him a mark or two.   Whatever the reason, I thought it was coy, and I wished he'd shown a little more class.  And I'll bet you most of his competitors think so too.

I hope the people who arrange housing in the Olympic village had the genius to put the curling teams into the same dorms as the snowboarders.   But then, marijuana probably is a performance enhancing drug for curlers....

This is about the fifth Olympics in a row for which it was predicted that Canada would take a "record haul" of medals.  Who is responsible for these predictions?  Whoever it is should be sacked.