OK, some thoughts have been bouncing around in my head for a while, and I
figured it was about time to free them from that large, empty space...
On "the Golden Brett": I did not see the Bobby Hull article in _The Hockey
News_ that Mike Machnik referred to some time ago, but I did manage to dig
out the _Sports Illustrated_ article that he mentioned, in the 1985 year-end
double issue. Brett did credit his father with teaching him a few things
("Dad told me, 'Lean on your stick, keep your weight over the puck and shoot
off the outside foot.'"), but he also said he "felt a little rejected" after
his parents' divorce, when there was practically no contact between himself
and Bobby. While Brett was tearing up the WCHA as a freshman in 1984-85,
the elder Hull did not attend a game at UMD until the NCAA quarterfinal
series with Harvard that year. (Bobby was living in Chicago, which isn't
*that* far away...) Despite all that, it did not appear from the article
that Brett was actively disassociating himself from Bobby, except perhaps
for trying to avoid any added pressure brought on by the inevitable
comparisons between father and son. I've gotten the impression from sub-
sequent articles in SI, _Maclean's_, and _People_ that the relationship
between Brett and Bobby has warmed up quite a bit, although Brett is not too
happy that his parents hardly speak to each other.
Again, I did not see the THN article -- but if Bobby is trying to claim that
he was a mentor to Brett, he might do well to remember what he said in the
1985 SI article, when he was discussing the rift with his son after the
divorce: "You don't need day-to-day contact, month-to-month contact or even
year-to-year contact. I believe in genetics. Brett knew I was always
behind him."
On the Olympics: Well, I'm certainly not going to try to pick a team or a
group of starters, since there are a number of players trying out that I
don't know much about. I would be interested to see Scott Fusco make it to
his third Olympic squad, but I'm wondering if he might be a bit long in the
tooth relative to the other potential players. We'll have to see how the
new eligibility for professional players affects this, but it seems that the
US Olympic hockey teams usually are heavy with college- or just-out-of-
college age players. If Fusco can still play the way he did back when he
won the Hobey, then he may well deserve a spot on the team. Ditto for Lane
MacDonald, assuming his headache/concussion/whatever problem doesn't bother
him.
On booster clubs: Dan Albers wrote about the Omaha Lancers booster club and
was wondering if other teams had such clubs. I know Cornell has a hockey
booster association which does various things in support of the team, and I
believe RPI does as well. I suspect a number of the hockey-playing colleges
have them. More news, anyone?
On Hockeyfest '92: My first reaction on reading Mike's note about Hockey-
fest moving to a Thursday-Saturday schedule was "BLEAH!" but it might make
some sense. Although last year's championship matches at the Gah-den were
pretty well attended, the organizers might feel that they could get even
better crowds by moving the final games to Saturday, rather than Sunday.
Maybe the Gah-den folks prefer a Thursday-Saturday schedule as well, since
there always seems to be something going on that Sunday afternoon -- usually
a Celtics-Sixers game. And besides, everybody knows the weekend starts on
Thursday afternoon anyway, right?
--
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86
LET'S GO RED!!
Why garage sales continue to exist:
A Philadelphia man went to one recently and bought a picture for four
dollars because he wanted to use the frame. When he later tried to take the
picture out of the frame, the frame split. In looking to see if he could
repair it, he noticed a folded piece of paper between the picture and the
backing. The paper turned out to be an original copy of the Declaration of
Independence -- which he auctioned off for 2.42 million dollars!
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