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Hockey programwill continueLAKE PLACID, N.Y. (CP) - Medal hopes for Canada’s Olympic hockey team are dead but the program lives on.Lou Lefaive, president of Hockey Canada, confirmed Thursday that when the 1980 Winter Games conclude Sunday, it will not mean the end to the country’s national hockey program.“We have agreed to continue the program, not necessarily the current team, but the program. It will take a number of forms and we’ll work on several fronts.”Lefaive said one element that will gain a lot of attention will be university hockey, with the hope of establishing a national intercollegiate league. Another will be to keep the nucleus of the current team together “and it would play in the various international tournaments that require Canada’s presence, such as the Rude Pravo tournament in Czechoslovakia and the Izvestia tournament in Moscow, if it continues.”Lefaive said if the international political situation spells an end to Izvestia, “we would put together an international tournament in Calgary at Christmas time.”“It would all culminate in this team representing us in the world tournament in the spring when the NHL is in the middle of the Stanley Cup.”He said there are obstacles to overcome but that they are not insurmountable.“Some of the kids will be returning to university and we’re going to have to free them up for certain points during the year, for two or three weeks, but that’s something I think we can deal with,” Lefaive said.He said there is almost a 100-per-cent commitment from the current team members to take part in a tournament in Finland in April and, provided a viable program continues to exist, most of the players have expressed an interest in staying with it.Popular estimates place the price tag on this year’s Olympic hockey product at close to $750,000, one half of which the federal government is reported to have provided.Lefaive said the decision to endorse the program came at a meeting of Hockey Canada’s board of governors Wednesday night, but that the idea “had been brewing for some time.”.“We agreed at that meeting that if our results here were respectable — and we think the result of last night’s (Wednesday night’s) game was indeed respectable — that we just have to continue.The Canadians put on a strong performance in the final game of the preliminary tournament but lost 6-4 to the Soviet Union.Lefaive and Rev. David Bauer, managing director of the Olympic team, both emphasized that the Canada Cup in the fall — provided it is still held — will remain professional and divorced from the national team program.fi
Newspaper Details
Medicine Hat News
Medicine Hat, Alberta, CA
Fri, Feb 22, 1980
Page 14
Full Page
Clipped by
Jason P.
USA 02 Dec 2018
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