From andria Thu Feb 5 17:08:24 1998 To: dlrimmer@worldnet.att.net Subject: Team Canada, Olympics, etc >Andria -- thanks for the quick reply to my earlier message.....look, if you >get thisasap and you have a minute...could you PLEASE take some time to >answer some quick questions for me re: canada's olympic hockey gold >chances...ie: >will canada win gold? (hope so, I'm pulling for canada but feel the u.s. >team is coming on strong and finland looks good, too I think we'd be kidding ourselves if we thought that Canada is going to walk away with the gold medal easily. That may have been relatively true a few years ago, but the gap is definitely closing. Based on the results of the exhibition series between USA and Canada, it could go either way at the Olympics. It will depend on which country comes to play, on a given day. The American college program has really developed over the past decade, resulting in a broader talent pool from which to draw players. In addition, the fact that the Americans, like Canada, have full time salaried coaches, and the opportunity for the players to train full-time before the Olympics, has really helped both programs. >how did you get your hockey start I started skating when I was 4 on our pond on our farm just east of Peterborough, Ontario. I took figure skating for 3 years, starting when I was 5 years old. During my last year of figure skating, when they used to make us do those figure 8's, I used to come over to the boards and say to my mom, "can I play hockey next year?" I think it was the excitement of the sport that intrigued me to want to play. I'm not really sure exactly why I first decided I wanted to play. I enjoyed tossing hockey cards at recess, and I had played some street hockey, but there wasn't any one person or incident that made me decide to play. Fortunately my parents agreed to let me play, and I started playing on a boys' house league team when I was 8 years old because the only girls' team in the league that year had already been filled (that was the 1976-1977 season). Starting the next year, I was always able to find a girls' team on which to play because fortunately hockey was really popular in Peterborough. A summary of my hockey career is on my web pages. You can start at this page: http://www.cs.utoronto.ca/~andria/Hockey_stuff.html >canadian players to watch I think you can expect things from Jayna Hefford and Hayley Wickenheiser on forward. The French connection of Danielle Goyette and Nancy Drolet have also produced in the past. Geraldine Heaney is strong on defense and offensively. Both goalies, Lesley Reddon and Manon Rheaume, are very strong too. >tell us about France the senior member of the team As some people have said, France is really the "heart and soul" of the Canadian women's team. This was true when I was on the team, and after watching the National Film Board's "The Game of Her Life" on CBC, I'd say it's still true. She epitomizes determination, work ethic, and leadership. She is an inspiration to the rest of the players. >your favorite team/player growing up My favourite male player was Wayne Gretzky, and since the Leafs' games were always on TV, they were my favourite team. I also liked Montreal and Edmonton. My favourite female player was Angela James. You can imagine my excitement when I got to play on the same line as her during the 1992 Gold medal final game! >what do you like about "womens hockey" >what's the best thing about the game as played by women I like the fact that women's hockey doesn't have any intentional body checking. I think that adds to the game in terms of the skill level and finesse. There isn't so much clutching and grabbing, which in my opinion often slows down the game. I also like the fact that all of the players are most definitely playing solely because of their love of the game. Women's hockey definitely doesn't have the big money contracts of the NHL; in fact, usually the women must pay to play! >how best to watch it on tv --ie: what to watch for, differences from mens >game, etc I don't think the way the game should be watched is any different than how you would watch an NHL game. The biggest difference between the NHL game and the women's hockey is that there is no intentional body checking. That doesn't really change the way you watch the game, in my opinion. >how cum you're not on the team I haven't tried out for the team since playing in the World Championship in 1994. Unfortunately I've had a groin/hip injury that just won't go away. It first started at the tryout camps in 1992, and in 1994 it was really very bad, forcing me to take a lot of time off hockey after the World Championship. I actually had to sit out one of the '94 World Championship games because it was bad. It has been pretty much up and down, ever since, and the more I play, the worse it gets, so I wouldn't be able to play at the national team level again. This doesn't disappoint me because I'm really glad that I had the chance, and I'm happy that others will have the opportunity. I'm really glad that it has finally become an Olympic sport! >more info about your web site and injury, etc and what you're doing now I started the web site in the fall of '94. Being in computer science, I thought it would be fun to make myself a homepage. After I had completed the home page, I started to look for women's hockey web pages on the Internet, and to my surprise, there was almost nothing out there! I took it upon myself to create a centralized index for women's hockey information, and the rest is history!! Here are pages that have some info about me and the web pages: http://www.inlinehockeycentral.com/hunter.htm http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~andria/women_hockey_vol2.html >where will you be watching games? (if you will, and I'm sure you are) and I You bet! Most definitely. I'll probably be watching them with my roommates (they both play hockey for the University of Toronto women's team), and with my boyfriend (he's a huge women's hockey fan too). I think we'll probably watch them at our apartment, or tape them if they are shown too early in the morning. >have a team canada jersey I wear all the time so I'll be pulling for the >maple leaf (as always) to do well in the games but do we canadians put TOO >MUCH pressure on athletes to win medals, or -- not enuff???? From what I have heard, it seems that perhaps we don't put as much pressure on our athletes as the U.S. does. I don't think it's a good thing to put that "win at all costs" pressure on your athletes. If anything, that forces them to tense up and to not be relaxed, making it harder to play up to their potential. >Dennis the old guy in Bellingham, WA..where the alaska ferry >now is -- we can see it from our deck! You can see the ferry! Cool!! My best friend (who lives in Fairbanks Alaska - she played on the US National team in '90) was doing an internship in Albuquerque, NM, and she had to get her car back to Alaska, so we had a fun "Thelma and Louise" trek across the U.S. in the summer of '93. The ferry ride from Bellingham up to Haines, AK was the best part. We saw lots of sea life and had magnificent weather and such nice scenery. We brought our sleeping bags and camped out on the deck. That was so much fun!! >Thanks You're welcome. Please send me a copy of your article, if you don't mind. Take care, Andria