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Brooks appointment is master stroke
My first reaction upon hearing that Herb Brooks had been named coach of the 2002 U.S. Olympic hockey team in Salt Lake City was shock. Say it ain't so, Joe! With the whole blooming country to choose from, why would USA Hockey turn back to the future by hiring the 63-year-old Brooks, the man who orchestrated 1980's Miracle on Ice? No one holds that accomplishment in higher regard than I. It remains the greatest upset in American sports history, and without Brooks' brilliant leadership it wouldn't have happened. But that was 20 years ago. The world has changed; hockey has changed. You can't recycle legends. If there's one thing I've learned from a career of covering sports, it's that nostalgia and winning don't mix. It's time for USA Hockey to leave the past behind and move into the 21st century. That was my first reaction. Then I tried to put together a list of candidates more suited for the job than Brooks. I couldn't come up with one. No one knows better than Brooks that hockey has changed. He took over the Pittsburgh Penguins last season after they got off to a poor start and led them to the playoffs, along the way getting a bellyful of the clutch-and-grabathon the NHL has become. Brooks knows Olympic rosters are now filled by multi-millionaires, not college kids. He knows his mind games that worked so well in 1980 won't stand a chance today. He knows the team will have to come together in a few days of practice instead of a few months. "It's apples and oranges," Brooks said when asked about the prospect of another Miracle on Ice. "That was then, this is now. This team, if it wins, it won't be a miracle. I don't think it will even be an upset." Conventional wisdom says the U.S. professionals are as talented as any team from any country. So why haven't the Yanks won a single medal in hockey since the heroics of 1980? Whether it be the result of bad luck, bad coaching, bad goaltending, bad karma, or all of the above, the bottom line is the spectacular success of Brooks' squad has been followed by a long string of failures. Which is why Brooks is precisely the right man for the job. In one master stroke, 20 years of underachievement have been eradicated. Never mind that Jeremy Roenick, Keith Tkachuk, Brett Hull and the rest of the players who will make up the U.S. team have never won an Olympic medal. Brooks, as a U.S. coach, is undefeated. He may not have been able to win Stanley Cups in the NHL, but in Olympic-sized arenas against international competition, Herbie's a certifiable genius. He knows the wide-open, uptempo European game. Give him horses, and he knows how to turn them loose. And -- most important -- he still has the fire in his belly, because Brooks wouldn't dare risk his reputation at this point in his career if he didn't believe the U.S. could do it again. If he didn't believe it were important to do it again -- for both him and American hockey. And you know what? It will be important to the players, too. More important than they now can imagine, because the veterans remember the Miracle on Ice. They remember what those glorious two weeks meant to them as young American kids and as hockey players. They remember what it meant to their parents and teachers, the crazy joy, the nationwide exultation that a simple hockey game brought forth. Just seeing Herb Brooks behind the bench in Salt Lake City should make them feel the eyes of the country are on them as they've never been before. It should make them feel they're better than they are -- a link in the chain of U.S. hockey history that's greater than themselves. It should make them feel as I do: that somehow, some way, they will win. Sports Illustrated senior writer E.M. Swift will contribute regular Viewpoints to CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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