A little context, perhaps, for the violence and threats reported in the news this week directed at Washington lawmakers: recently the White House denied a request by Minnesota State Senator David Tomassoni to honor the 1960 United States gold medal-winning Olympic hockey team at the people’s house, in this the 50th anniversary year of its triumph.
“Perhaps Congressman Terry and his Congressional Hockey Caucus can go to work on it,” the senator suggested to me in email this week.
Here’s a modest list of athletes who in recent years have been honored for their athletic feats at the White House: volleyballers from Penn State; the women’s bowling team from Vanderbilt; the University of Colorado ski team; and even a WNBA team — the Detroit Shock — went to meet President Obama last summer.
Don’t you forget about 1960; if you haven’t seen the terrific DVD made of the feat grab a copy of it today for your hockey media library. Meanwhile, the list of agenda items for the first-ever Congressional Hockey Caucus grows.
5 Comments
Not to diminish this post at all. I am Penn State graduate who is also a hockey fan so I see your point. But Penn State’s Women’s Volleyball team won their 3rd consecutive NCAA Championship while setting the record for the longest consecutive winning streak in all of sports…..EVER. No small task amassing 102 consecutive wins.
I’m confused. When you say “the people’s house” are you referring to The House of Representatives or The White House?
Because The House of Representatives is commonly referred to as ‘the people’s house’.
@CAPSBLOG: Actually “The People’s House” refers to The White House, a term which I believe dates back to Andrew Jackson’s presidency.
That phrase is still in use today; for example:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Opening-up-the-peoples-house
I guess the meaning varies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People%27s_House
Anyway, the former-Olympians definitely should be invited to The White House to be honored.
I guess to Obama inviting a bunch of old guys to The White House isn’t as ‘cool’ to him as inviting skiers or volleyballers.
@ KYLE: actually, the longest winning streak in college sports belongs to the Trinity Men’s squash team, with 202 straight wins and 11 straight national titles.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=3927303