>
>"Everybody else is from the ECAC and HEA"
>
>This strikes me a bad omen.  In the last Olympics I thought a big part
>of the problem was that the USA sent Team Massachusetts instead of Team USA.
>
>Is the USA Select team a predictor of future Olympic teams?
>
>I like eastern hockey but such provincialism in selecting a "national" team
>in not prudent.  Does anyone know why there is such an eastern overload?
>
>--Steve Rockey
>
I don't know.  Some of us in Minnesota were VERY surprised that Gopher
frosh Brian Bonin wasn't invited.
 
Could be that the East is producing better players these days.  Minnesota
did win the Chicago tourney for high school all-star teams last year, though,
if that means anything.
 
It's also no secret that there's some bad feeling between
USA Hockey and Minnesota hockey (in general, no capital "h") after last year's
Olympic selections; Darby Hendrickson and Craig Johnson declining invitations
to play with last year's team  may have been both a symptom and a cause of
further bad blood.  USA Hockey people are supposedly quite upset at Gopher
coach Doug Woog (a 1984 US Olympic assistant coach, by the way)
for not encouraging them more strongly to go.  (Woog has said he left the
decision to the players, who did not want to miss WCHA games.)  I'd
also heard it implied somewhere that former Gopher and '80, '84, and '88
Team USA conditioning coach Jack Blatherwick's resignation from last year's
team last fall was related to disagreements over the team selection process.
(That's completely unsubstantiated, however.)
 
What has become of the Michigan contingent I wouldn't know.
Pam Sweeney
Go Gophers!!!