Letters

If more people could have Gordon Gund's inner drive to succeed in life, regardless of the odds, this world would be a better place.
—JOEL FREIMARK, Beachwood, Ohio

Gordon Gund
I am fascinated and inspired by stories such as that of Gordon Gund, the blind co-owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers (Second Sight, Jan. 12), in which an ordinary person becomes extraordinary by excelling at life under difficult circumstances. Some of today's troubled athletes should read this article and reexamine their supposed hardships.
CURT EISENHOWER, Ashburn, Va.

Princeton Basketball
I have been a basketball coach at every level from elementary school to college for 20 years, and Alexander Wolff's article on Princeton basketball (Back Door Men, Jan. 12) is unquestionably one of the finest documents ever written about the sport. It covers the subject from Basketball 101 through the doctoral degree level. It should be required reading for fans, coaches and players.
MARK SMALLWOOD, Greenwich, Conn.

Internment
It was with special interest that I read Two Different Worlds (Jan. 26), which told how the family of NHL star Paul Kariya's father was interned by the Canadian government in Greenwood, B.C., during World War II. I am a member of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, a Catholic fraternity of brothers and priests. In 1942 I was 27 years old and working in our mission to Vancouver's Japanese-Canadian community. Our companion order, the Sisters of the Atonement, staffed the school there. When the orders came to intern the Japanese-Canadians, two of our friars asked Bishop Johnson of Nelson, B.C., if there was some place in his diocese where we could keep the families together. He suggested Greenwood. I remember that several of the sisters left for Greenwood a day early so that when the internees arrived by train they would see familiar faces. My job was to drive the truck with the internees' furniture to Greenwood. The friars and sisters remained in Greenwood for the duration of the internment.

I was pleased to read that the Kariya family, like so many of the families we were privileged to know, harbors no bitterness toward the Canadian government.
BR. GEORGE CLAY Garrison, N.Y.

Most Americans are still unaware that, in addition to 120,000 Japanese-Americans, more then 10,000 Italian-Americans were interned on the West Coast during World War II. Even the parents of baseball great Joe DiMaggio were subject to curfew and travel restrictions.
BILL DAL GERRO, Chicago

Hockey Rules
Regarding your ideas for increasing scoring in hockey (INSIDE THE NHL, Jan. 26), the problem is not making new rules but calling the existing ones. If holding, grabbing and interference were called, the ice would open up and allow the players to move with the puck and set up scoring chances.
STEVE JOHNSTON, Riverside, Ill.

I played goalie from age 13 through 26, and at 42 I am in my 24th season as a referee. You would think that I would pull for goalies' getting every edge possible, but I suggest cutting down on the dimensions of the goalies' equipment.
SCOTT NORIS, Farmers Branch, Texas

The NHL should do away with the two-line offside rule. If the guys who run the NHL are serious about playing the world's fastest game the way it was meant to be played, then simply open it up. How? Eliminate one of the dumbest rules in sports.
S. BURT, Toronto

Gilbert Brown
You refer to Green Bay's Gilbert Brown (left) as a "nosetackle without peer" (What's Eating Gilbert Brown?, Jan. 26). Maybe in the stomach area, but on the field he doesn't compare with Buffalo's Ted Washington. In Washington's seven years in the league, he has had 459 tackles and 18 sacks, compared with Brown's 92 tackles and seven sacks in five years. In 1996 Washington piled up an amazing 130 tackles, 105 of which were solo.
ROB HALEY, Buffalo