Samaranch Welcomes Return of NHL Players

Despite the room-trashing in Japan by some Team USA players, participation by the NHL at the next Winter Games would be welcomed by the International Olympic President Juan Antonio Samaranch.

“Too much has been made of the American players in Nagano,” Samaranch said Sunday at Zurich, Switzerland, the site of the World Ice Hockey Championships. “These were young players, things happen.

“We cannot approve of it, but you cannot condemn them to death. They were punished and now we have to look to the future.”

The Nagano Games marked the first time that the NHL interrupted its season to allow its players to represent their countries at the Olympics.

But when American players vandalized rooms at the Athletes’ Village after their quarterfinals elimination by the Czech Republic, there was speculation that the IOC might not welcome professional hockey players back when the Olympics are contested in 2002 at Salt Lake City.

Samaranch has dispelled that notion.

“We like to see the best players in the Olympic Games,” Samaranch said. “And if they are from the NHL, we are very pleased to have them.”

No players ever came forward to acknowledge their role in the vandalism, but because of the incident the team was not invited to a White House reception last month for U.S. winter Olympians.

U.S. team captain Chris Chelios has sent an apology and a $3,000 check to Japanese Olympic officials for the damage his teammates did to the room.

The NHL has not yet decided whether it plans to interrupt its season again for the 2002 games, but is expected to announce its decision this summer, said league spokesman Arthur Pincus.

*

Sweden tied Olympic bronze medalist Finland, 0-0, on Sunday in the second game of a two-leg final at the World Ice Hockey Championships to win the title and gain revenge over its arch-rivals.

It was the third time in the history of the championships that the teams met in the final, and the second time the Swedes won.

Sweden’s previous title was in 1992, when it had also defeated Finland in the final. The last time the teams met in the final was at Stockholm in 1995, when Finland beat Sweden for the gold, and received a fighter-plane escort home in honor of its victory.

Finland had knocked out Sweden in the quarterfinals of the Olympics at Nagano three months ago.