I don't know if this has been discussed here before but watching the US-Russia hockey match tonight, something started bothering me. How can athletes who spend most of their time living/training in one country, compete in the Olympics for another country?

For example, some hockey player making 3 million dollars with the New York Rangers, living most of the year in a 15 room mansion in Connecticut, yet skates for Russia when Olympics time rolls around. If you skate for Russia, you should be a Russian. You should live in and like a Russian. You should train in Russia. That way, you’d get a true measure of the Russian athlete.

Most of the players on the Russian team, spend most of their time in the US (or Canada). In what way are they Russian, because they were born there? Though technically, they were born in the Soviet Union. It's not just hockey, though. I've heard the announcers remark about athletes from other sports living and training in one country yet represent another country. It's just that hockey stands out more.

[ February 22, 2002: Message edited by: PCC ]

Just because they play pro hockey here doesn't make them any less Russian.

Where it gets interesting is with these people with dual citizenship who can qualify for two countries, and have to decide which one to play for.

This is an old issue in the real football (ie soccer).

It's always fun to watch what happens about 2 years before a World Cup when guys "suddenly" find out that they have in their family history a great-great-great-great grandfather from some country whose team sucks eggs. They'll use that to get playing time with the crappy team because they don't have a chance to play for the country that they were born/grew up live in. It happens all the time with Englishmen who have no hope of playing for The Three Lions but will use the fact that their relative came from Belfast in 1761 to play for the awful Northern Ireland team. It's a bit of a joke, really.

It isn't just hockey. Most of the figure skaters live and train in the U.S., and a lot of the athletes in the other sports do too. They go where the money and expertise is.