Scene in the E Center parking lot following Team USA's come-from-behind 8-1 hockey win Monday over Belarus:
U.S. hockey fan (waving flag, jumping up and down): "USA Number 1!" (Repeated several times).
Passing band of Russian fans (heading to arena for Russia-Finland game): "Go home!"
U.S. fan (after pause): "I am home. You go home!"
Don't you love hockey?
Don't you especially love Olympic hockey? Big ice, no-fighting-or-you're-out, give your all for flag and country hockey?
Especially now that all the best players in the world are free to take part?
There are those who whine about the "professionalization" of Olympic hockey. Mike Eruzione, to name one. To anyone who asks, or doesn't ask, the captain of the college-fueled 1980 U.S. hockey team that shocked the world and, not incidentally, lit the flame to start Salt Lake's Olympics, repeats his feelings that Olympic hockey was a better game in the good old days before pros of all descriptions, most notably those with NHL contracts, were allowed into the tournament.
This amateur-only school of thought goes back, of course, to Olympic founder Pierre de Coubertin, who went to his grave clinging to the notion that the Olympics should be a bastion of pure amateur sport, unfettered by coaches and players who do it for pay.
That would be fine if, for starters, Brett Hull, John LeClair, Scott Young, Adam Deadmarsh and Bill Guerin hadn't already signed National Hockey League contracts.
Those are the U.S. players who scored goals against Belarus yesterday. Trust me, without them it could have been a much longer day. As anyone knows who was there ? and this includes Team USA ? Belarus was no slouch. The first period ended with Belarus ahead 1-0, and with just over 15 minutes to play, the U.S. was ahead by only 3-1.
It was only those last five U.S. goals in the final minutes that gave Belarus a headache and jumpstarted U.S. fans to the exits with heightened heartrates ? but still chanting "We're Numero Uno."
The Belarus lineup was not loaded with NHL stars like Team USA, but there wasn't a Belarussian on the ice without a club and league affiliation that involves regular play and regular pay. Some play in the Russian League, others in Germany, still others in the European League, but all pay the mortgage and car payments with hockey money.
The point is, there are no amateurs in Olympic hockey anyway, and now that the NHL ? for the second straight Games ? has adjourned for the Olympics, it has leveled the playing ice for everyone.
What's left is not just hockey at its highest level ? and plenty of international trash-talking in the parking lot ? but a no-alibi tournament. Gone are excuses that the best country didn't win because it didn't have access to its best players.
They're all here ? or the vast majority at any rate, providing your name isn't Roy.
They're here wearing their national colors, lining up according to where they're from, not where they get paid. Players who just a week ago were teammates in the NHL or Europe or the Russian league are now on opposite sides of center ice, trying to stare each other down.
It makes for a different, nationalistic sort of hockey, the kind that sent the Czechs to gold four years ago in Japan even though, on paper, the Czechs shouldn't have won.
And the kind that fueled Belarus to its 1-0 lead yesterday that had every American in the arena sitting up straight, using plenty of body English, and unwittingly thinking back to 1980 when the underdog Americans pulled off just this kind of upset over the Soviet Union, of which Belarus was then a part.
When the U.S. finally answered back ? with second-period goals from Hull and LeClair ? it wasn't for a big bonus or pay check at the end of the week. It was, just like Eruzione and those boys of 1980, for their sport and their country.
And isn't that exactly what Pierre had in mind?
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.