I fully intend that any further discussion of this between me and Art be
carried on in private email, but I did want to excerpt part of my repsonse
to Art for the benefit of the list before all this gets blown out of
proportion.
 
Art Wrote:
>>On Tue, 16 Jul 1996, Pam Sweeney wrote:
>
>> I think there are a couple other factors to consider:
>>    1)  At the risk of being maligned as a Canadian-basher, let me point out
>> that this is the "US Hockey Hall of Fame Game".  If you were to set up a
>> college hockey game celebrating US hockey, I suspect Minnesota and BU would
>> be the first two teams you would pick, since both teams consist primarily
>> of US-born players.  (Yes, there are others, including St. Cloud, but these
>> are arguably the two most prominent...)
>>
>Actually, it sounds like uninformed Canadian bashing to me.  Although BU
>may have a majority of American players I don't think there is any
>principle involved there as there is at Minnesota and has been at BC
>until they couldn't find an American goaltender (I presume).
 
My comments above are in light of the fact that it is a game to benefit the
*US* Hockey Hall of Fame.  The best way to promote that Hall is by
showcasing *US* players.  I don't mean to have any quotas "only teams with
50% US-born players can play in this game" or any of that crap.  I just
mean that if you were a US Hockey Hall of Fame official and were able to
put together your DREAM college game, it would probably be these two teams.
Two established programs that have developed a lot of top American
players.  (Note added in posting this to the list:  If people don't agree
with that logic, I would be very interested to hear which two teams others
would pick, and why.)
 
I will grant you that there's a certain amount of chauvinism in that, but
that's inherent in having a US Hockey Hall of Fame in the first place.
Let's face it, there's no "US Football Hall of Fame", just a "Football Hall
of Fame",  and I believe there is a "Canadian Football Hall of Fame".  If
you were to put together a game to promote Canadian football, would you
prefer two teams where all the stars were US imports?  Or would you prefer
two teams who had Canadian players among their stars?  (I don't know much
about the success of Canadian players in the CFL, so maybe I'm stretching
my analogy a bit.)  If *I'm* setting up the promotion for the Canadian
Football Hall of Fame, all other things being equal, I'm picking the teams
with the Canadian stars.
 
{end excerpts}
I think that also answers Mike M.'s response:
>I don't know, I would be surprised to learn that this was a factor in
>deciding the matchup.  It's apparently never been a factor before, and last
>year Maine and Michigan both had a significant number of non-US players if
>not more than 50% each.
>
>Also, if this was to suddenly be a factor, it would greatly cut down on the
>number of schools who would be "eligible", especially when you consider all
>of the criteria that would probably have to be met by other schools that
>would be likely to be potential participants (more below).
 
Obviously, it's no REQUIREMENT or anything, (I mean, I doubt next year's
game is going to be Army vs. Air Force) but it's got to be a nice plus for
the *US* Hockey Hall of Fame, especially when they're getting ambitious and
moving the game to big arenas.  That was my only point.
 
Pam Sweeney
Go Gophers!!!
Ski-U-Mah!!!
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.