Mike writes: > > Tom writes: > >His apology, as quoted in the Globe, was specifically to any Americans he might > >have offended by his comments. I have seen no indication that he has expressed > >any regrets to the Swedes. > > Well, we do not know if he said anything to Swedish writers for printing > in their papers or if he contacted S.E. Sold directly to apologize, so it > is useless speculating. I have to add that Donatelli was not asked about > this. He raised the issue *himself* on Saturday, indicating to me that he > was sincere about his apology and had been thinking about it. > Well, I haven't seen anything in the Swedish papers about an apology from Donatelli, so I think that Donatelli is still not very highly respected among the Swedish people that watched the Olympics. But I also have to say that we (the Swedes) had the same feelings about Theo Fleury in the '87 (I think) World Championships where Theo seemed to be an angry, fast-talking brat. However, my opinion about Theo has changed since then after seeing his play in NHL. > > > I think Team USA's behaviour in this tournament > >was an embarassment to this country, and personally I was more disappointed > >with the team than I would have been had they failed to win a game. > > I completely disagree. The only incident on which I found fault with them was > their criticism of Sold after they lost to EUN, and as I said I didn't put > much weight on it because it was clearly an emotional rather than a > rational response, and also Donatelli apologized for it the next day. (I I'll have to agree with Mike, I think you should be proud of the US team's performance in the Olympics. Of course, the critisism of Sold was uncalled for but it was simply an act of frustration for losing to a better EUN team. I'm impressed by the US team's "fighting spirit" in this Olympics, and also they managed to play disciplined (maybe with the exception of Donatelli). We here in Sweden had high expectations on the Swedish team, gold was the goal. We thought we had great players on our team (almost all of them playing in the Swedish elite league) but then we almost lost to USA that in our eyes didn't have as good players. How wrong we were. For example, Guy Gosselin plays (played?) for Skelleftea in division 1 (which is a step under the elite league) in Sweden. If he could make the team then it couldn't be that great of a team, at least I thought. (BTW isn't Guy a UMD player originally?) But the US team surprised us, beating the Finns and tying the Swedes and that on "our own" rink size, namely international sized rinks! Not a bad accomplishment, I'd say. While I'm at it and posting an article to hockey-l I also have another question. I was yesterday at a game (Sodertalje-Leksand) and in Sodertalje plays a guy called Scott "Skeeter" Moore. He is listed in the program coming from Minnesota-Duluth. Does anyone know if he played for UMD? There is also a guy called Rick Erdall playing for Malmo in the Swedish elite league. Has anyone heard of him? Any kind of information about these players would be appreciated. Thanks Staffan > > > - mike > -- _ ( \ /\ [log in to unmask] \ /--\ r.s.h. net contact for the Swedish hockey league (__/taffan / \xelsson Farjestad! SM-guld 91-92