Re NHL players in the Olympics:
 
Just to chime in with my two cents' worth, I agree with Mike M.  Why
not have the best hockey players from the U.S. and Canada represent
their countries?  Most every other country's do/does.  I suspect the
Eastern bloc countries got quite a charge out of old Avery Brundage's
snobbish insistence on "pure amateurism" all those years the West
in general and the U.S. in particular were putting their third-
echelon athletes up against the Warsaw Pact powerhouse products.
And, as several on the list have noted, unlike the NBA (which still
obviously has seized on the Olympics as a great opportunity),  the
NHL would REALLY benefit from the exposure.
 
Baseball and hockey may be the only events left in which some countries
are not sending their best due to the "amateur" idea.  And guess which
countries those are?
 
The way I see it, this year's Olympic basketball competition is boring,
all right, because the Dream Team is so much more talented than the
others (even though, BTW, several of the other teams also have NBA
players this time).  But that's OK--it's like the Chinese domination
over us in table tennis.  We aren't holding back our best potential
participants, we simply haven't chosen to develop talent in that sport.
As it is, we know it's a miracle when the U.S. wins a medal in hockey
because we're deliberately sending our less-qualified athletes against
most other countries' best.  I mean, Americans love an underdog, but
really . . .
 
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