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Again, totally disproved by the 1980 game and we have competed against the Russians very well in International competition. All of the most elite talent in the International Junior Hockey Championship pretty convincingly proves that Americans can not only complete the pass, but beat the Russians. We won the championship last year.

Anatoly Tarasov passed away in 1995. He last coached the Soviet national team in 1972. He was indirectly responsible the things you described here as indicators of success in the U.S. hockey program. 1980 Olympic coach Herb Brooks considered Tarasov the greatest hockey coach of all time.

Whenever you go to a hockey rink and see players practicing with pylons scattered around the ice, just remember something: Tarasov invented this method of training hockey players.

There's no question about it: The U.S. developed a strong hockey program by adopting much of the Soviet model of hockey.

And you can see how many of the Europeans who came over to play in the NHL in the last 30 years have been among the best players ever seen on the ice. We have seen Jaromir Jagr eclipsing career scoring totals of Hall of Famers, Nicklas Lidstrom winning seven Norris Trophies as the top defenseman in the league, and Alex Ovechkin standing alone as perhaps the last person for the next hundred years who might credibly threaten to break Gretzky's lifetime goal-scoring record.