Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 23, 1992 TAG: 9202230266
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MERIBEL, FRANCE LENGTH: Medium
U.S. HOCKEY TEAM FALTERS
Do you believe in debacles?Ray LeBlanc was forced out of his stronghold - the American net he guarded like gold - and his team couldn't get silver or bronze. In fact, it barely got a goal.
A fantastic goalie on a flawed team finally fell - but he didn't fail.
Czechoslovakia skated faster, passed better and shot much more Saturday night as it roared past the United States 6-1 to win the Olympic hockey bronze medal.
The Czechs (6-2) got their first hockey medal since a silver in 1984. They have won seven of their past eight Olympic games against the United States.
LeBlanc allowed four goals Saturday night and had little chance to stop any of them. His defense let him down, and his offense couldn't pick up many loose pucks.
The end came for him with 17:22 left; Tomas Jelinek had just made the score 4-0. LeBlanc, who had played every minute of every game until then, was tired.
America's hopes for its first medal since winning the gold in 1980 were gone. For the first time in the Olympics, so was LeBlanc. He was replaced by Scott Gordon.
"That was a very emotional moment," U.S. captain Clark Donatelli said. "Ray's been fabulous for us. He was the heart and soul of our team. When we'd make a mistake, he was there to shut the door.
"Raymond can't be Superman forever. The team feels bad that we couldn't get him a goal. Ray was getting frustrated."
That frustration boiled over in a heated exchange with coach Dave Peterson after a first period in which Czechoslovakia outshot the U.S. team 24-9.
"I was trying to get the team going any way I could," LeBlanc said later. "I suggested some things. He suggested some things."
At one point in the exchange, picked up by CBS-TV, Peterson told LeBlanc: "Get hard-nosed!"
LeBlanc was just upset, Peterson said after the game. "We were behind. It was not a big thing at all," he said.
Neither was the American performance in the medal round. Its 4-0-1 record in preliminary games was the tournament's best. It finished 5-2-1 after being outshot 47-29 by the Czechs.
It beat France 4-1 in its playoff opener, then lost 5-2 to the Unified Team in Friday night's semifinal, ending hopes that this team would do what the 1980 U.S. team did - win a gold medal few people expected it to win.
Czechoslovakia also lost a semifinal Friday night, 4-2 to Canada, but "maybe the U.S. game against the Russians put them more down than us," Czech coach Ivan Hlinka said.
Said Peterson: "Everything is related, so I wouldn't say that it's not. We were a tad flat. Sometimes you want something so much you can want it too much."
What finally became too much for LeBlanc was the number of shots on goal by American opponents.
He faced 298 in the tournament, 100 more than any other goalie. The United States was outshot 24-9 in the first period Saturday and 36-21 by the time LeBlanc left. In the last four games, he faced an average of 44 shots, while his teammates took only 19 per game.
The first three Czech goals resulted from excellent passing. Frantisek Prochazka scored at 16:12, and Tomas Jelinek made the score 2-0 at 17:23 after Jelinek passed the puck from about 40 feet in front of LeBlanc to Otakar Janecky on the left.
LeBlanc went toward Janecky, but Janecky passed the puck back to Jelinek, who popped the puck from the slot into the open right side of the net.
LeBlanc couldn't do much about Kamil Kastak's goal at 5:51 of the second period that made the score 3-0. Kastak took a pass from 40 feet away, then scored to the far side of LeBlanc.
The goalie also was outnumbered on the fourth goal. Richard Zemlicka passed the puck from the left side between defensemen Guy Gosselin and Moe Mantha. Jelinek got the puck about 20 feet out to the right of the net, skated in and put a 10-footer past LeBlanc.
Ted Drury scored for the United States with 13:05 left, but by then LeBlanc was on the bench. He saw Czechoslovakia's Robert Lang score two goals in the last seven minutes.
"I don't think anything bad happened when you finish fourth in the world," LeBlanc said. "I have nothing to be ashamed about; none of the players do."
But they all wanted more.
"I'm proud of what our people have done," Peterson said, "but we're disappointed because we've fallen short of our goal."