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Stop Bashing America at the Olympics

Justin Mazzarese

Sports Editor

It started when I went online and saw the headline �Debacle on Ice,� after U.S.A. lost to Finland, who I might add was the eventual gold winner. Then it continued when I went on another website and saw a headline that said �They choke, we lose. Why we are behind in the medals at the Olympics�uhh, go Germany.� You can not choke when you lose a race by one thousandth of a second or when a judge does not give you that one-hundredth of a point.

At the time when I saw the second headline I looked up the Olympic medal chart and we were only one behind Germany in the medals, just one so we still had a chance to win in medals. I know that we Americans like to win and the bar was set high but that was not the athletes fault, it was the media that portrayed this team as the �Best Winter Team ever,� and now the media is turning their backs on our athletes.

The sadder part is that people are listening to the media and not thinking for themselves, I guess Jim Morrison was right �Who ever controls the media controls the mind.� People need to stop watching American Idol and realize how hard these athletes train to compete at the level of the Olympics. While everyone is sending in text messages for their favorite Idol, Sarah Cohen was practicing her routine by herself in an empty rink or Jeremy Bloom was on a mountain somewhere dreaming of Olympic glory. It seems far too easy to bash someone for not medaling, for coming up one-thousandth of a second off and now the media is portraying this team as �debacles,� and �chokers.�

For instance our performance in hockey was good, not great, but no debacle. All the games we lost were by one goal. That tells me we were competitive and that is all you can ask for has American in Hockey. Face it, we are not the player producing mill that Russia and Finland is because half of our country has not even seen an ice rink or even a frozen pond for the matter. In other countries, they play hockey year round while we enjoy the four seasons.

I was not expecting us to place this year because we did not possess the team we once had. Our roster possessed players passed their time and were lead a 44 year old Chris Chelios, a legend in his own right. In watching other games, I found that I knew more NHL stars on Sweden and Finland that I did for America. Also, in the Olympics, or Stanley Cup playoffs, it comes down to hot goal tending, What ever happened to Jean-Sebastian Gegire?

Our goalie, Rick DiPietro, played good but people do not realize the fact that most of the game he was facing an attacking power play; he caught a couple of bad breaks too. In the game against Finland, the puck found its way through a two inch space under his arm and America lost the game by one; these things happen. I guess what people need to realize is that Finland is an absolute power house, a force to be reckoned with. America hung with them we should be proud of that fact rather than turn the other cheek.

Going into the game versus America, Finland goaltending only allowed one goal in four games. What made this an even bigger feat was that Finland used two goalies; a strategy not commonly used but when you got the talent, why not uses it. The game saw America down by two goals early. They could have just called it a day because their fate was sealed, but they came back and ended up scoring three goals against Finland. They eventually lost 4-3 but they competed and almost tied the game in the end and that is all you can ask for.

This is more than the heavily favored Russians and Canadians can say because they both got shut out by the Fins. When the Russians played Finland they only got two shots off in the third period, two shots! So America�s performance on ice was far from a debacle and people need to realize that.

Now that the Olympics have come to an end you can go back to your phone and start text messaging for your favorite Idol, but remember that American Idol will always be their tomorrow and the year after that where as the Winter Olympics will not be back for another four years.

Copyright 2006 Justin Mazzarese. All Rights Reserved. All photos herein are the exclusive property of Albert G. Bruhn. Reprint without permission is prohibited.

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