USA Loses, Hockey Wins

Good morning Fackers. Well that was one hell of a heartbreaking loss yesterday no? Team USA looked like destiny's darlings when they tied it up with just 24 seconds to go, but Sidney Crosby's goal in OT gave the gold to the Canadians. Congratulations to Canada. They had an incredibly deep team and were under a tremendous amount of pressure to take gold on their home soil. Even in the disappointment of defeat, it was quite something to hear the entire arena sing O Canada as the Maple Leaf was raised over Canada Hockey Place.

As for the U.S., as tough as it is to come so close and take home silver, they should be very proud of what they did. Coming into the tournament they were considered a long shot to even reach the gold medal game. Instead, they rolled along and never even trailed at any point until Canada took a 1-0 lead yesterday afternoon. They were the youngest squad in the tournament, and it looks like this new batch of players will be worthy heirs to the Leetch-Richter-Chelios-Modano-Tkachuk-LeClair-Hull-et. al. group that set the bar so high through the 1996 World Cup and 2002 Olympics. That is of course unless the NHL pulls the plug on player participation in 2014 Games.

Even in defeat, Team USA earned honors. Goalie Ryan Miller was named Tournament MVP; Brian Rafalski earned top defenseman honors, and forward Zach Parise joined them on the all-tournament team.

Beyond that, we were treated to an outstanding two weeks of hockey that I hope will have impact that lasts beyond the heightened interest of the past several days. For all those who have made comments to the effect of "now I can stop caring about hockey for another four years", please realize that what we've witnessed over the past two weeks is not unique to the Olympics. The level of intensity shown throughout the Olympics is no different that what's on display for two full months each year during the NHL playoffs. The advent of widescreen televisions and HDTV has made hockey on television better than ever but it's no comparison to hockey in person. For my money, no sport is so markedly better in person than on TV than hockey. Do yourselves a favor and find out for yourselves.

And with that, I'll stop talking about hockey again and we'll get back to baseball. Spring Training games start Wednesday. Soon we'll have something resembling real baseball to talk about.

Photo credit: USA Today

Going For The Gold

The outstanding Men's Ice Hockey tournament will wrap up this afternoon with the Gold Medal Game between the U.S. and Canada. These two squads met last Sunday, with the U.S. taking a 5-3 victory to finish group play undefeated.

Since then, the U.S. beat Switzerland in the quarterfinals Wednesday and trounced Finland in the semis on Friday, scoring six goals in the game's first fourteen minutes. Team USA continues to get superb goaltending from Ryan Miller, who bettered Switzerland's Jonas Hiller and Finland's Mikka Kiprusoff, the only other goalies in the tournament who have come close to Miller's level of play.

As for the Canadians, their loss to the U.S. and the point lost via a shootout victory over the Swiss in group play left them with the sixth seed. With Roberto Luongo replacing Martin Brodeur between the pipes, they beat up on Germany 8-2 on Tuesday, and then faced Russia on Wednesday. What many predicted to be the eventual Gold Medal Game entering the tournament was reduced to a quarterfinal game, and the expected heavyweight match between the two deepest teams in the tournament was a laugher, with Canada winning 7-3. In the semis on Friday, Canada jumped out to an early 2-0 lead over Slovakia, then withstood a late rally to take a 3-2 victory.

Last week's match up came one day short of the thirtieth anniversary of the Miracle on Ice; today's game comes on the fiftieth anniversary of the U.S. winning gold at the 1960 Games. This is also a rematch of the 2002 Gold Medal Game, when the Canadians took gold on American soil. The U.S. looks to return the favor today.

It's tough enough to defeat a team like Canada once in this tournament, let alone twice. It's even tougher to do it when the gold medal is on the line and the entirety of the arena is behind the Canadians. But this U.S. team is talented, has had an outstanding run through this tournament, and has the best player at the most important position. That'll go a long way towards evening the odds, and anything can happen in a single game. Puck drops at 3:15 EST. Let's go USA!

It Was Thirty Years Ago Today

Good morning Fackers. Believe or not, I was planning on running this post this morning even before last night's Team USA win over Team Canada in Vancouver. Last night's game was certainly an upset. But personally, I don't believe it's as big of an upset as many are making it out to be. Either way, it's certainly not half the upset as the one that took place in Lake Placid, NY thirty years ago today.

This is the fourth Winter Olympics featuring NHL players, and the fifth featuring professional players. Hockey wise, we're so far removed from the 1980 Miracle on Ice, that it's easy to lose sight of just how massive an upset that game was.

The Soviet team was easily the greatest assemblage of hockey talent on the face of the planet in February of 1980. With the Iron Curtain still firmly in place, the NHL was still nearly a decade away from importing its first Russian talents. The Soviet National Team featured the best players of - at worst - the second most hockey-crazed nation on the face of the planet. They trained and played with, literally, military precision. They had gone 3-4-1 against the NHL's best Canadians in the 1972 Summit Series, dominated lesser WHA talent 4-1-3 in the '74 Summit Series, and more recently had gone 2-1 with a +5 goal differential against a squad of NHL All-Stars in the 1979 Challenge Cup. For all intents and purposes, the Soviets were a professional All-Star team competing in an amateur tournament.

On the flip side, Team USA was an assemblage of American collegiate talent led by University of Minnesota head coach Herb Brooks. Brooks was the final player cut from the 1960 US squad, a team that went on to win gold in Squaw Valley. Heading into the 1980 Games, that was the final time the Soviet didn't win men's Olympic gold. Brooks' captain was former BU Terrier Mike Eruzione, the team's oldest player at 25, who was three years removed from his collegiate days and toiling in the minors at the IHL level before joining the Olympic squad. Less than two weeks prior to the Miracle on Ice, the Soviets had crushed Team USA 10-3 in the final pre-Olympic warm up.

Something similar was expected on the evening of February 22, 1980, part of the round robin medal round. Instead, on the strength of a goal from Eruzione that proved to be the game winner, the US beat the Russians 4-3. A win against Finland in their next game clinched the gold.

As I compose this post, the post game coverage on MSNBC is declaring last night's game the biggest upset since the Miracle on Ice. It's not even close. It's not even in the neighborhood. The forty skaters to take the ice last night are all high caliber NHL players. Not all are superstars, but all are professionals playing in the best league in the world. Yes, the Canadian roster is absolutely stacked. Yes, perhaps maybe just three or four of the US players could crack the Canadian line up. But in a short tournament - hell even on any given night in the NHL - anything can happen. For a pumped up Team USA to come out and beat Team Canada last night is an upset, and is impressive. But, without even considering the socio-political climate of 1980, last night's game is worlds away from the Miracle on Ice.

That said, yesterday was a great day for hockey. The Big Six all paired up in a trio of good match ups: Eastern European powers Russian and the Czech Republic in the afternoon, the Battle of North America in the evening, and Sweden and Finland in a Scandinavian Showdown for the night cap. We'll see all of them again in the medal round.

As nice as it was to see the US win last night, I was hopeful they would save their upset for the medal round. Canada and Russia are loaded, and with both teams being upset this week, I don't know how good the chances are that they both lose again before it's all said and done. As exciting as it was to see the Swiss push Canada in to the brink in a shootout loss on Thursday, part of me was relieved that Canada pulled it out, postponing their upset for another day.

Still, who knows what will happen over the remainder of the tournament. Perhaps the US can recapture a bit of the Miracle from 30 years ago. Their roster features two defensemen with ties to the 1980 team. Ryan Suter is the son of 1980's defenseman Bob Suter, and my former classmate at Boston College, Brooks Orpik, is named after the coach of the '80 team. Come this time next week we'll know if this is their time. I'm going to enjoy watching it all unfold.

One More Hockey Post

Tuesday we ran a post congratulating Yankee fan and former first pitch tosser Brian Leetch on his being voted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. In my haste to make sure that Leetch was one of the four members that the Hall allows to be inducted anually, I overlooked the inductee in the Builders Category - a man who has a more concrete connection to the Yankees than Leetch. So indulge the puck head in me one more hockey post this week (unless something really interesting happens in the draft tonight) .

New Jersey Devils CEO/President/General Manager Lou Lamoriello will be inducted this fall in the Builders Category. Lamoriello is one of the more fascinating sportsmen of recent years. He's most well known in the metro-NYC area as the strong-willed President and GM of the Devils for the past twentytwo years and the architect of three Stanley Cup Champion teams. But Lamoriello has a host of other accomplishments in the sports world beyond his career with the Devils.

While a student at Providence College, Lamoriello was the captain of both the baseball and ice hockey teams. During his collegiate summers, he played in the Cape Cod Baseball League, the most prestigious wooden bat amateur league in the country. In the days before baseball had an amateur draft, Lamoriello was offered a contract by the San Francisco Giants, but elected to pursue a career in coaching. At age 21 he became player-manager of his Cape League team, managing three summers there and winning the 1965 title. One of his Cape League players was Bobby Valentine. Lamoriello was named to the Cape League Hall of Fame earlier this month.

At the conclusion of his collegiate career, he became an assistant hockey and baseball coach at Providence, then became the head hockey coach in 1968. He held the head coach position for 15 seasons, making 11 postseason tournaments, four NCAA tournaments, and reaching the Frozen Four in his final season. He remains the all-time wins leader at Providence and is a member of the Providence Hall of Fame.

For the final season of his coaching career and four years thereafter, he served as the Athletic Director at Providence. In that position, he hired Rick Pitino to coach the Friars' basketball team. He was also instrumental in forming Hockey East, arguably college hockey's most powerful conference. He served as Hockey East Commissioner for four years and the conference championship trophy bears his name.

In April 1987, Dr. John McMullen, owner of both the Houston Astros and the New Jersey Devils, as well as a former limited partner of George Steinbrenner, hired Lamoriello as President of the Devils. By the time training camp opened in September he was also the G.M., a post he holds to this day, making him the longest tenured G.M. in the NHL.

In 1989, Lamoriello brought defensemen Slava Fetisov and Alexei Kasatonov to the Devils from the USSR. They were the the first crop of NHLers to come from behind the Iron Curtain and opened the floodgates for the Eastern Europeans that proliferate the game today.

He was awarded the Lester Patrick Trophy, given for dedication to hockey in the United States, in 1992. On the international stage, Lamoriello served as the General Manager of championship 1996 World Cup of Hockey and 1998 Winter Olympic teams. Leetch played for both teams and won the Lester Patrick Trophy as well in 2007.

By 2000 Lamoriello also owned a small stake in the Devils. The short-lived YankeeNets conglomerate purchased the Devils from McMullen in April that year. After the acquisition, Lamoriello was named CEO of the Nets as well.

YankeeNets fell apart in 2004 and sold off the Devils. A new company, Yankees Global Enterprises, was created to serve as the holding company for both the Yankees ballclub and the YES Network. Lamoriello has served on the Board of Directors for Yankees Global Enterprises since its inception and has been on the Board of Directors for the Yogi Berra Museum since 2006. He's also been a frequent guest of George Steinbrenner at Yankee Stadium through the years.

So that's my Lamoriello biography. He's had an extremely interesting sporting life, with some loose connections to the Yankee front office over the past several years. He's certainly deserving of this most recent honor bestowed upon him.

Congratulations Brian Leetch

We're going a bit off the baseball beat with this one, but congratulations to former New York Rangers defenseman Brian Leetch, who was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame this afternoon, along with Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull, and Luc Robitaille. Arguably the greatest American born hockey player ever, Leetch was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame last fall.

Despite making his retirement home in Boston, Leetch is an avowed Yankee fan, having grown up in Cheshire, CT, about 20 minutes from where I live. Leetch starred in both hockey and baseball in high school, first at Cheshire High (my high school hockey rival), then at Avon Old Farms prep school. As a high school pitcher he was clocked in the 90s and pitched Cheshire to a state championship as a sophomore.

Leetch went on to my alma mater, Boston College, where he led the Eagles to the 1986-87 Hockey East title, winning Hockey East Rookie of the Year, Hockey East Player of the Year, and the Hockey East Tournament MVP award. He was also named an All-American.

He left BC after his freshman year to join the U.S. National team, and played for the U.S. at 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, the first of three Olympic teams for which he would play. He won a silver medal in Salt Lake City in 2002, and also captained the U.S. team that won the innaugural World Cup of Hockey in 1996.

Following the 1988 Olympics, he joined the Rangers, and won the NHL's Calder Trophy as Rookie of the Year for the 1988-1989 season. He was also a two time Norris Trophy winner (91-92 and 96-97) as the NHL's top defenseman, and was the first American to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as the postseason MVP, as he led the Rangers to the Stanley Cup in 1994.

After the Cup victory, the Yankees honored the Rangers at a game, and Leetch, Mark Messier, and Nick Kypreos threw out the first pitches. I'm sure Leetch could bring the heat better than either Canuck.