On Fri, 11 Apr 1997, John T. Whelan wrote:
 
>
>         Contrary to what people here were saying, the announcers at
> least expected Canada to win easily, partly because they had greater
> preparation.  I think that restricting the NCAA to American-born
> players, while allowing the CIAU team to use non-seniors and players
> with professional experience (which the NCAA team *can't* use) makes
> the game not really comparison of NCAA vs CIAU, but it does provide
> for a competative US-Canada game, which is what sells tickets.
>
What is "professional" is a matter of definition.  The NC$$ does not allow
players who appear (more than briefly) with tier one juniors to be
eligible.  This is *not* a rule in the CIAU.  To imply that one set of
rules gets to define professional is out of bounds.  Any association can
set up what rules it wants.  It would probably be off topic for this list
to get into detail on this but I think the restriction is absurd.  At any
rate, the exhibition suggested later in the post between the CIAU and NC$$
champs would virtually certainly include some former juniors on the CIAU
team.
 
It should also be clearly pointed out that it was the NC$$ which
restricted the participation on the American team to seniors.
 
It is also interesting that the US announcers, according to the above
impression, thought the Canadians would win.  This confidence was not
reflected in the TSN broadcasters who seemed surprised the Canadians more
than held their own.  It is fair to say that the game meant more to the
CIAU players as they were trying to get some respect in Canada, never mind
the US.
 
 Arthur Berman [log in to unmask]
 
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