Syndicated columnist Debbie Schlussel has a problem with the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City -- they're not the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid. That was the year, you may recall, when the scrappy U.S. men's hockey team shocked the world by defeating the vastly superior Soviet team and went on to beat Finland for the gold. Back then, Schlussel writes nostalgically, the Games stood for more than pro athletes with failed drug tests and million dollar salaries. The 1980 Olympics were about unabashed patriotism and old-fashioned American grit.
Unfortunately, the Soviets are long gone (and Iraq isn't lining up for another Cold War showdown on the ice). But Schlussel has found a newer, craftier enemy: the U.S. women's Olympic hockey team.
Seems the organizers of the Salt Lake City Olympics have drawn parallels between this year's women's team and the hockey legends of 1980, and Schlussel is not about to let them get away with it. "It's like comparing the 1980 U.S. Men's Hockey Team to a troupe of Ice Capades figure skaters," she fumes. "[The men] were tough and gritty. Without endorsements, they barely subsisted to practice and train."
And in an inspired bit of self-inflicted misogyny, she adds this gem:
No-one says, "I remember the 1998 PMS Miracle on Ice." Women's Hockey -- who cares? The girls won the gold in 1998, too, but no-one noticed. They barely got any endorsements, and couldn't start a pro women's hockey league. There's no market for their "product." Yet, unlike [the] sponsorless, struggling 1980 team, the women are among the most subsidized athletes, a la the WNBA -- another affirmative action version of sports. Still, no one cares.
By "no one," Schlussel presumably means the pros, the endorsers, and the billion-dollar sports market in general. Or, as she so loudly complains, everything that's wrong with the Olympics today.
See "What's So Great about the Olympics? Nothing. Part 1" in Townhall.com
