Olympic Trash Talk Is Needed

It sounds funny, asking an athlete from a macho sport to behave like a man.

But today, as the NHL resumes its season under a cloud of U.S. Olympic embarrassment, that’s what needs asking.

To the players who trashed three apartments in the Olympic Village in Nagano, then scattered like kitchen bugs before dawn:

‘Fess up. Admit and apologize. Put your teeth back in, step to a microphone and behave like a man.

It’s not about the chairs, 10 of which were damaged, including six that were tossed five stories down into a courtyard.

It’s not about the fire extinguishers, two of which were discharged, with another being tossed into that same courtyard.

It’s not even about the monetary damage, which officials estimate at $3,000, or the approximate cost of two Japanese hotel ashtrays and three bath towels.

It’s about something trashed along with the rooms, that being a country’s honor.

It is custom in the United States--at least, it used to be--that you do not end a visit to a hospitable neighbor by breaking some of his stuff and not admitting it.

Especially if you expect to return home to a big hug.

That is what is facing the NHL today as it tries to uncover the culprits before regular-season games resume and 23 returning U.S. players are booed throughout the rink.

If players had immediately taken responsibility for the incident, it would have already disappeared. In the scope of world sports affairs, chairs and fire extinguishers are high school stuff.

But each day the culprits stay hidden, the incident seems to grow.

The league has promised to punish the offenders for violating NHL bylaw 17.3(a), which prohibits a player from doing something “dishonorable” to the game, even off the ice.

This is honorable. But the punishment had better be swift, while the U.S. team players and--by association, the U.S.-based league--still has another cheek to turn.

When Finland’s Teemu Selanne showed up at the Mighty Ducks’ practice Tuesday, he walked to the edge of the ice and looked at U.S. goaltender Guy Hebert and shouted something to the effect that, “U.S.A. stinks.”

That rip was only for the team’s poor showing. Now, add the prospect that any U.S.A. player could be a small-time vandal on the lam.

Not only will the “U.S.A. stink,” the U.S.A. will also be accused of being chicken.

And because nobody is guilty, everybody is guilty.

Maybe one of them was the Phoenix Coyotes’ Keith Tkachuk. His glare alone could break a few chairs.

How about the Chicago Blackhawks’ Gary Suter? If he could nearly remove Paul Kariya’s head with a cheap shot, fire extinguishers wouldn’t have a chance.

The Dallas Stars’ Mike Modano, anyone? Don’t those pretty boys always fool us?

Maybe none of those players were in the Olympic Village at the time. Considering the U.S. had been eliminated earlier in the evening, maybe none of them were even in the city.

Doesn’t matter. When nobody admits guilt, everybody assumes guilt.

USA Hockey says it doesn’t know who did it, that the players left town too quickly after the early-morning incident.

The NHL says it doesn’t know who did it, because its security chief was not allowed in the village.

And the players--surprise, surprise--aren’t telling.

Brett Hull says that an NHL official told him who did it, and that he was surprised the official had not yet announced the names.

The NHL said Hull was mistaken.

“We are still trying to determine who was responsible,” said Arthur Pincus, NHL vice president of public relations. “We believe those persons should come forward so all are not tainted. It’s not about the $3,000, it’s the damage that has been done to the game.”

How crazy has this search become?

There was a report that the NHL found its suspects when, at the next morning’s team photo shoot, two players showed up with fire extinguisher foam on their shoes.

If that sounds doubtful, how about the story from the Ducks’ Hebert, who admitted to reporters that some of the broken chairs came from an apartment he shared with four other players.

“They broke while we were playing cards,” he said. “They were little desk chairs and, all of a sudden, a guy would be on his rear end.”

They must have been playing that new game, Texas Break ‘Em.

You would like to think you could count on the players’ union to encourage accountability among its members.

Sorry, bad joke.

“It’s the USOC’s issue, they should be looking into it,” said Rick Winston, public relations director for the hockey union.

Hey, maybe nobody did it. Maybe those fire extinguishers and chairs flew around by themselves.

Inanimate objects can move, you know. Refrigerator doors can push themselves open and jars of jelly can jump to the floor. In my house full of perfect little angels, it happens all the time.

Then again, maybe everybody should just stop acting like children.

Maybe Hull should be telling the offending U.S. teammates if they don’t admit it themselves, he will do it for them.

That would be breaking an unwritten players’ code of honor, but how honorable is it to leave your innocent teammates twisting?

Maybe the NHL should threaten greater suspensions for every day the embarrassment goes unsolved.

And maybe good guys like Hebert, who have never done a thing to disgrace themselves or the game, should stop saying stuff like, “I think things were blown vastly out of proportion.”

On the remains of the U.S.A. hockey team right now, the only thing out of proportion is the size of their egos compared to the size of their hearts.