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In 1994, a little known athletic competition hit center stage in America. With Los Angeles as the host city, The Junior Goodwill Games served as a launching point for youth athletics into the mainstream, headlined by Team USA Hockey. Coached by The Minnesota Miracle Man, Gordon Bombay, the US team captured the hearts of Americans and left behind a legacy that included an NHL team being named after them and a Saturday morning cartoon.
With the Winter Olympics in full swing, I say we take a look back to the premiere youth athletic competition of the 1990s:
Multi-sport athletes were allowed to compete.
If you were a disgraced, drunk-driving attorney and former minor league hockey star, you got a million dollar endorsement deal.
It showcased talent from all across America.
Coaches settled scores by a good old fashioned game of three bar and sick burns.
They let sociopaths coach.
The coaches were getting way more ass than the players.
They showcased otherwise unknown ice hockey programs on an international stage.
You could literally pull kids off the street to play for your team.
You could literally pull people out of the stands to coach your team.
It introduced the world to the greatest up-and-coming 20-year-old youth hockey superstar of all-time, Gunner Stahl.
They were way down with gender equality.
It brought people from different walks of life together.
If things weren’t going your way…
…you could just change your uniforms entirely.
Because the Ducks America won.
USA forever.
Respond
Brian McGannon
What do I love? I love happy hour, a good golf tan, and getting moderately drunk during dinner.
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brianmcgannon
Is the coach for Trinidad and Tobago also the guy from Cool Runnings?
The amount of Mighty Ducks references on PGP pleases me.
If Silje Norenadal was in the movie then I would agree with this column.