Monday, February 18, 2002
Coaches canned, Canucks un-crazy season cancelled
By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
SALT LAKE CITY -- The once proud program which created The Crazy Canucks has now gone so low that they've cancelled the season and sacked all the coaches.
Fire the coaches two weeks from now, and it's a paragraph in sports shorts. Fire the coaches at the Olympics and it's news.
SAVING MONEY
Making news, however, wasn't the idea when Jose Josko Sparovec, Alpine Canada's vice president, tied the can to four men's downhill and Super G coaches here yesterday. It was more a matter of saving money.
Peter and Rob Bosinger, Mike Syrovatka and Paul Lavoie will not have their contracts renewed and the Canadian downhillers won't go to the last two stops on the World Cup schedule.
Why spend $20,000 to take the team to the next race in Norway, said Sparovec. It's obviously a waste of time and money.
"We think the money can be better spent right now in the developmental program.''
The reasons for the firing ought to be obvious, suggested Sparovec.
"Disappointing performances in the last two years,'' he said. "And the chemistry on the team was not that good recently.
"We're terminating the program for the rest of the season. I want to emphasize this has nothing to do with the men's technical team or the women's speed or technical teams.''
Edi Podivinsky, the former Edmontonian who now calls Toronto home, a bronze-medal winner at the Albertville Olympics a decade ago, completed his career here as the top Canadian in the downhill, finishing 24th. Darin McBeath of Calgary was 32nd and David Anderson of Rossland, B.C. was 38th.
None of the Canadians managed to find their way to the finish of the Super G.
McBeath and Anderson will head home and join Burkhard Schaffer's developmental program for the rest of the season.
'NEED NEW PLAN'
It's expected that Schaffer, the former Austrian women's downhill coach, will take over as head coach of the men's team and hire his own assistant coaching staff.
"We didn't make that decision,'' said Sparovec. "We need a new plan for the Olympic quadrennial.''
Schaffer makes sense.
"He's the guy running the developmental program and we have a good young group of skiers coming up. We think the group coming up is very talented.''
2002 Games Alpine Skiing Coverage
