oh, you can be sure part of the point was asserting dominance after recent failure in what was considered an "American" sport, don't kid yourself there.losing to the Soviet Union of all places on the olympic stage with all the world watching did not go over well at all and the media starting asking questions immediately after. Not that your points here about wanting to see all the best players wasn't true but the fans and media were not happy that the Euros were starting to get their number with the college boys, it's so long ago now that there is no way I can find the articles in sports illustrated, etc and stuff on T.v that I saw and read at that time but I can assure you plenty were wringing their hands, they had taken it for granted for so long that the college guys would always be good enough to get it done because the U.S was so far ahead until one day the woke up and saw they could no longer do that, enter the calls for the pros.
I can't even imagine if football was an international sport like hockey and the U.S started losing in that, the U.S would want blood. To think otherwise from one of the most patriotic countries on earth, you know, the one that coined and truly believes in the term "American exceptionalism" would be quite naive.
Was it the sole point for the pros involvement at the olympics? no, but you can be sure it was high up there in importance, that's enough.
Americans or anyone else are not any different that way then Canada in this manner, all you have to do is read the threads on this site here at HF to see how nationalistic fans from each country are, you can see it is this thread even. The Euros are probably the most extreme example of this, they would not even follow the N.H.L or be on this site if not for players from their own country, everyone knows that.That is their one and sole interest for 95% of them. So who are we kidding when it's insinuated that Canadian fans have some unique trait concerning where players in hockey are from? They seem to have less of that trait to be honest, because most by all appearances, on HF at least, seem to only care about whether the player is helping their club team win, not where he is from, I mean the rinks seem to be pretty full aside from Ottawa and with the way that gong show is with ownership who could blame them? it's certainly not because there isn't enough players from Canada.
If New Zealand were to start failing in rugby and their players did not have dominance anymore there would be an outcry, it's not a "Canadian" thing at all.
And to boot you are not even taking into account of what hockey means to Canada culturally as a small and very insignificant country(compared to the U.S and other powers) sitting in the shadow of the behemoth of the United States right next door. It's a unique cultural situation and that needs to be factored in which you don't seem to do. You seem to want to paint it all with a theory of hyper Ethnocentrism unique to Canadians, I gotta call falsity on that one.
Some of your points here are accurate but you shade others or leave them completely out.
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