U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL : LOS ANGELES--1991 : MEMORABLE MOMENTS

TONY GRANATO

Ice Hockey

It’s hardly a surprise that young Tony Granato dreamed of making the U.S. Olympic hockey team. What else would you expect of a teen-ager living in Lake Placid in 1980?

Three years after watching the U.S. win the gold medal in his hometown, Granato was in Colorado Springs for the Olympic Festival, bidding to make the squad himself.

“I never thought it would become a reality so soon,” he said.

It didn’t. At 18, he was too young and too inexperienced. When the names making the cutoff for the Olympic squad were read, Granato’s was not among them.

Four years later, it was a different story at the ’87 Olympic Festival in North Carolina.

“I came in knowing I had a lot of international experience,” Granato said. “Unless I fell flat on my face, I was going to make the team.”

This time he was on the list.

But while that memory is Granato’s most vivid from his Festival experience, it wasn’t a moment of pure joy.

“I had mixed feelings,” he said. “I had a lot of good buddies who didn’t make it, and I remember being in the same position. So I didn’t want to get too excited. I was disappointed for them.”