Toronto Star Sports =================== Canadian women begin quest for Olympic gold By Damian Cox October 15, 1996 URL: http://www.thestar.com/thestar/editorial/sports/961015SPB5_SP-COX15.html OTTAWA - THERE WILL be two hockey teams representing Canada at the next Winter Olympics and the squad favored to win gold won't have Eric Lindros or Paul Kariya. While the men's side will be trying to regain lost prestige, the national women's team will be looking to maintain world supremacy. Losing only one game in six years, after all, tends to give a team the reputation of odds-on favorite. As 33 women gathered at the Orleans Sportsplex just outside the nation's capital last night to begin preparations for an important three-team tournament, it was with one collective eye on the Nagano Olympics in 1998 when shinny gold will be up for grabs among women for the first time ever. They're coached by 32-year-old Shannon Miller, on leave from her beat as a Calgary cop. She's an intriguing character with the eye of a tiger and the deft touch of a diplomat, carefully tap dancing between the roles of being an articulate advocate for women's hockey and simply a coach trying to win games. _________________________________________________________________ Coach has eye of the tiger and deft touch of a diplomat _________________________________________________________________ As the head of a high-performance women's hockey centre in Calgary, she's an expert in the field who learned a lesson or two from Team Canada's recent loss to the U.S. at the World Cup of Hockey. ``I learned you have to balance playing and rest with control and discipline in order to get people from A to B,'' she says. ``Yes, you may have some old, experienced veterans, but they still only know what's best for them. The coach knows what's best for the whole team.'' Of the players who arrived yesterday, Miller will keep 24 or 26 to compete in the Three Nations Cup, which pits Canada against teams from the U.S. and Finland in Ottawa next week. Looking further ahead, how much the Olympics will really help women's hockey is unclear. ``Many insiders expect that the women's hockey debut will be swept aside by the promotional whirlwind that will surround the men's `dream teams,' '' write authors Elizabeth Etue and Megan Williams, who recently collaborated to produce On The Edge, a comprehensive look at the past and future of women's hockey. It's a heavily researched, sweeping effort and a heavily politicized one that, for example, questions why the men's national team receives an estimated five times more funding than the women's program. ``If you dwell on it, it can be frustrating,'' says 31-year-old forward Stacy Wilson, who is getting by on $810 a month in Sport Canada funding to train full-time in Calgary while on leave from her teaching post in Salisbury, N.B. ``But all I have to do is go back to before 1990 to realize I would never have had the opportunity I have now back then.'' Outside the debate, this national team is filled with wonderful characters and stories. There's 37-year-old Frances St. Louis fighting to retain her spot against younger women. There's Manon Rheaume, still playing the men's pro game in Sacramento, Calif., but battling youngster Danielle Dube for the No. 1 job on Team Canada. _________________________________________________________________ Men's team receives an estimated five times more funding _________________________________________________________________ Hayley Wickenheiser, powerful at 5-foot-9, 170 pounds and possibly the star of the next generation, is only 18. Scarborough's Vicki Sunohara, on the 1990 world championship team but away from the program since, is back to revive her career. In Canada, hockey remains a bastion of male pride. But perhaps it's time to celebrate excellence at our national pastime, regardless of the gender of the athletes. After all, there's only one brand of gold available in Nagano. _________________________________________________________________ Damien Cox's hockey column usually appears four times a week. Contents copyright © 1996, The Toronto Star. User interface, selection and arrangement copyright © 1996 Torstar Electronic Publishing Ltd. To provide feedback or commentary on this site, please write to Webmaster@thestar.com