Stanley Cup vs. Olympic gold.

• Author: Barrett, Wayne M.

After the Czech Republic won the gold medal in hockey by defeating the hated Russians at the 1998 Winter Olympics, thousands upon thousands of delirious revelers jammed Old Town Square in Prague. This even outnumbered the multitude who celebrated at the same locale when Czechoslovakia finally threw off the yoke of communism nearly a decade ago, and almost matched the unbelievable throng who wept and cheered at that site when World War II finally ended. College basketball may have its March Madness and the National Football League may have its Super Bowl -- personally, both rate a yawn and a snore-but ice hockey has something much more precious: the heart and soul of the international athletic community.

At present, many of the nations around the globe, while not forgetting about the upstart Czechs and their improbable string of upset victories at the Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, have riveted their attention on North America, where hockey's ultimate prize, the Stanley Cup, again is up for grabs. (Yes, the oldest professional team trophy in the New World is more important than a gold medal at the Olympics.) What makes this spring's quest for the Cup even more special is the fact that many of those who shone brightest (as well as those who disappointed most) in the Far East just a few months ago now are on a different stage in different uniforms vying for Lord Stanley's prize, for this year was the first time that NHL players -- in other words, professionals -- have competed on both fronts. This certainly has made for some interesting dynamics. Teammates started the season with their respective pro clubs, then jetted off to Japan to wear their native country's Olympic colors (and, in many cases, face off against their regular-season teammates). Afterwards, they returned to their day jobs, so to speak, and got back to the business at hand, earning their mega-salaries by trying to win a Stanley Cup championship.

Ever since the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1989, and with it the Soviet Union and all the U.S.S.R.'s communist satellite countries. the NHL has been flooded with a rich talent pool of players from Eastern Europe. Throughout the Cold War years, there was a mere dribble of Eastern Europeans (and absolutely none from Mother Russia) who reached the professional ranks in North America, since those with the courage and wherewithal to defect inevitably had to leave their families behind, with zero prospects of ever seeing them again. The NHL was...