Apart from having a soft spot for the San Diego Gulls because my brother-in-law and I had a great time at one of their games a few years ago, I'm not much of a hockey fan. I remember the 1980 Miracle on Ice and loved the movie based on that epic win, but can't talk intelligently about the sport because I like the game but do not seek it out.
That said, I think Johnette Howard is right to blast the National Hockey League commissioner for having second thoughts about cooperating with the International Olympic Committee. Here's part of the setup for her argument:
The Winter Olympics have been rightly called the best hockey tournament in the world since NHL players began participating in 1998. Thuggery isn’t tolerated, which only helps highlight the thrilling skating and speed, stunning playmaking and breathless end-to-end rushes. And all of it plays out only every four years against a backdrop of nationalistic fervor, with players who are NHL teammates going at each other like blood rivals on Olympic ice.
In other words, you can’t beat it.
Yet Bettman arrived at the Vancouver Winter Olympics last week saying the NHL hadn’t quite decided whether to continue participating in the Games when they move to Sochi, Russia in 2014.
Nor did Bettman change his position after one of his sport’s most thrilling days of competition in years — Sunday’s terrific Olympic showdowns between natural rivals Russia and the Czech Republic, Sweden and its neighbor Finland, and Team USA in its 5-3 upset of gold-medal hopeful Canada — were still making headlines around the world.
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