Re: DU vs UM 2/12-2/13 at Magness
Maybe if Denver didn't insist on every player being an older ex-professional, Minnesota would have felt they were an actual college team, and played them. and, since Denver players were all professionals, Denver never had to worry about any players leaving for the Olympics like Minnesota. We got memories like both Olympic gold medals, and you got to know that your players retired, and went back to Canada.
Here we go again:
1) By the NCAA definition at the time, major junior players were not pros and were 100% eligible and legal players until 1980 when the rules were changed. DU was a 100% college team and the NCAA banners they won were won fair and square under the rules of the day. Had Denver recruited only 18 years olds, they would've been slaughtered, as there was no local pool of players to draw from. The DU program would never have made it without Canadian players. Had they been forced to recruit 18 year old Americans, DU would have had to take second tier players for other hotbeds, and would never have been competitive, let alone successful in a place like Denver, where no hockey culture existed.
2) Denver has had plenty of Olympic players over the years play for Team Canada. Guys like Marshall Johnston (64/68 captain), Glenn Anderson (80), Ken Berry (80, 92), Kevin Dineen (84) Craig Redmond (84) and Derek Mayer (94). Many of them left DU early and played for Team Canada in the 60s and 80s, and many more of them would have played for Canada in those Olympics when Canada sat out in the 1970s, protesting the Soviet pros. One of our Minnesota players even played for Italy in 1980, and is now in the Minnesota State Senate (Dave Tomassoni). Our only US Olympic hockey player was Ron Naslund, who won silver in 1972, who had graduated in the 60s. Paul Stastny will be the second DU American hockey Olympian in 2010.
3) Your Olympic Gold Medal memories are great and so are ours. Our 1959-60 NCAA Champion Denver team beat and tied the 1960 US Olympic team just prior to the Squaw Valley Games. They also tied the Soviets, which is something no college team has ever done, before or since. The 1980 USA Olympics team was helped by an American Denver grad as assistant coach by the name of Craig Patrick, who played as big a role on that 1980 team as any player. Patrick also helped Team USA win silver as GM in 2002. Patrick captained DU to an NCAA title in 1969, and was a member of the 1968 NCAA title DU team.
4) Not all of Denver's players retired to Canada after playing for DU. Many of them went on to distinguished Olympic and pro careers, and many of them choose to live here in Denver today.
