On Fri, 11 Apr 1997, John T. Whelan wrote:
 
>         The announcers said that there were also CIAU players with
> ECHL and I think AHL experience.
 
That said, there was an age limit on the CIAU team. No one could be older
than 25. That is consistent with a player coming right out of Junior and
playing his five years. (CIAU athletes in all sports get five years of
eligibility.)
 
> players to be Canadians.  Since they were putting an additional
> restriction in place than affected the USA more than Canada, why not
> add others that made the rules the same for both sides?  (Rhetorically
> speaking, of course; I'd rather see both sides use players regardless
> of nationality.)
 
Well, there was the age limit. Offhand I don't know how many players that
would have affected overall. (CIAU hockey is the one level I have tended
to neglect.)
 
That said, the nationality rule has to be there in order to make it a
Canada-USA game. The reason it has to be a Canada-USA game is money. No
one would care about a CIAU-NC$$ game, I don't think. (Well, I might,
but I'm a Hockey Get-a-Lifer) I am fairly sure TSN would not have shown it.
Nationalism sells.
 
>         I guess that what struck me about this game was that it was
> less a game between NCAA and CIAU representatives than another
> US-Canada game in the same series that includes World Cup and World
> Junior matchups, but with a different set of restrictions on the pools
> of players.  (I mean heck, they even wore the same uniforms.)
 
And that's exactly how it was played on TSN here. They called it "the
rubber match" between Canada and the US. That struck me as bunk. To me
the rubber match was the Women's World Final. The only way the University
game counts as a rubber match is if they gave out condoms on the way in.
 
As for the CIAU not getting respect, I am as guilty of that as anyone
else. Even when I lived two blocks from Ottawa U's rink, and was in that
same rink myself at least once a week, I rarely went. With all levels of
Junior hockey around and filling up my weeks, the CIAU get lost.
 
The Canadians seemed to talk of getting more looks from pro scouts, but I
really don't see that happening. There will always be the occasional late
bloomer (Steve Rucchin, Mike Ridley) but, for the most part, by the time
a player gets to the CIAU he's 20 years old, has been looked at and has
been passed over.
 
See you later,
John
 
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John Edwards, BA                  Minister of Chasing Wild Geese (DNRC)  O-
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