Team Ethic

Tiger Wood was quoted as saying he didn't understand the hype about the Ryder Cup.

Perhaps that, more than anything else, explains why the Europeans do so well. I appreciate that Americans do have team sports, US Football, Baseball etc but there is nothing at the national level. The US has no real sporting rivalries because the sports it plays tend to be ones that are, or until recently have been, US dominated.

This has started to change, major league Hockey and basketball players are now eligible for the Olympics. When the dream team first played they demolished everything in sight but with more Europeans playing in the NBA the standards are narrowing and the US are not dominant.

We all remember the upset of 1980 when a team of college students beat the USSR Ice Hockey team. The superstars of the NHL would beat all comers it was thought. But in recent years this hasn't happened, with Eastern European and Scandanavian teams beating the US and Canada.

I understand that in Europe the ice hockey rink is a different size. A canadian friend said that when the games were held in North America the US and Canada would do better and vice versa. Still the NHL, for so long believed to be of a standard beyond the rest of the world, has proven to be mortal.

In the rest of the world international rivalries are rife. Brazil v Argentina, Holland v Germany, Australia v New Zealand, Pakistan v India, England v Scotland, England v Australia, England v lots of people I guess.

In Europe and the rest of the world it matters to us. I wonder if the American public "care" if they win the Ryder cup? If they do will the players really "care".

The Australian players may have been gutted after losing the Ashes but on returning home they found out that the country wanted revenge. The English footballers knew that the public were "devastated". I'm not talking about the people who go everyweek but the casual fan as well.

Upon returning home to the millionaire Golfers, Basketball and Hockey players feel the same pressure and sense of hurt? If they don't, losing at the games they used to dominate, is something they may have to get used to.