The 2022 Beijing Olympics are scheduled to begin on Feb. 4 and run through Feb. 20. The Games will coincide with the host country’s most important holiday, the Chinese New Year, which begins on Feb. 1. Along with dozens of rights groups who are advocating a full boycott over China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang and other regions, governments are weighing whether to boycott the games.
In today’s “Mondays with Murray,” Jim Murray addresses the issue of boycotting the 1980 Olympics.
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FRIDAY, JULY 21, 1978, SPORTS
Copyright 1978/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY
JIM MURRAY
Would an Olympic Boycott Really Free Shcharansky?
“The Olympics movement tends to bring together in a radiant union all the qualities which guide mankind to perfection.”
— Baron Pierre De Couberttin, Paris, 1900
Poor old Baron de Coubertin. Born in Paris on New Year’s Day in 1862, trying for a military career at St. Cyr despite being passionately devoted to peace all his 
life, he conceived the quaint notion that the best way to ensure international tranquility was through the games people play. So he revived the ancient Olympic Games in 1896 to “promote global amity.” If countries persisted in misunderstanding each other’s politics, perhaps they could get on common ground through athletics.
The ancient Games had foundered in a miasma of quarrels, jealousies and commercialization, but the baron reasoned we were a more adult world now and above such pettiness.
Unfortunately, the ancient Games were run by gods. The modern Games were run by men. Rich men.
They tried to keep the baron’s ideals inviolate, they tried to keep the Games apolitical, a foreign elite of sportsmen, far above the madding crowd.
It worked fine until the IOC’s governing body of dukes, earls, marquises, counts and barons could not resist the trappings of Nazi Germany, whose citizens looked to them like their kind of people. There were abortive attempts to boycott the Games in 1936 by the U.S. There were already dark rumors about Nazi treatment of Jews, but it had not yet approached the sharp frenzy it was to become. The “final solution” was still some years off and, although synagogs were being stoned, and Himmler was beginning to pick sites for his death camps, Hitler cunningly removed the “Jews Not Welcome” signs from Berlin, Leni Reifenstahl took movies and, all in all, it looked like just a nice track meet.
The Germans were thus the first to seize the Olympic platform to make political capital — the first, but not the last.
In Mexico, in 1968, student unrest on the Avenida of the Insurgentes rose to fever pitch on the eve of the Games, and the IOC president, Avery Brundage, gravely troubled, met in some urgency with the Mexican president and wondered aloud if he shouldn’t move the Games to a more secure location. He was assured by the police the Games would go on without trouble. And, about two weeks before the opening ceremonies, student demonstration permitted in the Plaza of the Three Cultures was wantonly fired on, and, when the dead were cleared away, the Games had its peaceful venue.
Or, almost. In America, Black athletes that year had weighed boycott, too, not of Mexico but of America. They ultimately elected to compete, but chose the victory stand, where the cameras of 100 countries around the world were on them, to show black-gloved defiance at the raising of the American flag and the opening notes of the national anthem.
Mild as it was, the lesson was not lost on the terrorists, revolutionaries and people with causes throughout the world. At Munich, the guerrillas didn’t raise black gloves, they raised Kalashnikov machine rifles. First a black glove in the air, then a pulled grenade in a helicopter. The Olympic flag had a new ring, a death head.
The 1980 Olympics are being scheduled to a counterpoint of dissidence in the host nation, where men are being sent to Siberia for devotion to free speech and the right to criticize its absence. Anatoly Shcharansky goes to the Gulag Archipelago for no visible crime, and the U.S. is all but up in arms. The Soviets make the classic rejoinder, the hell with you Yanks, what about the lynchings in America? They have a point, even though most of the lynchings in America these days are in Central Park, but Americans not only want to deprive Russia of American farm machinery but American athletes as well.
But, on the eve of the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, Soviet armor crushed hundreds or thousands of Hungarian Freedom Fighters, and we marched, not to war, but to the start line with them. On the eve of the Mexico Olympics, Soviet tanks appeared on the streets of Czechoslovakia and again hundreds upon hundreds of Shcharanskys were not only thrown in jail but killed in the streets.
The organizers know that, once dead, the Olympic Games stay dead for 1,500 years. If boycotting the Games, or even canceling them, would free Shcharansky, or any of the thousands of poor wretches in the salt mines, it would be a small price. And if the Soviets pull a last-minute power play to bar Israel from the Games, the way the Chinese did Taiwan at Montreal, the U.S. should promptly pull out.
A U.S. pullout would almost certainly torch the Olympic movement once and for all. And there is very little doubt the Soviets would boycott the Games if they were scheduled, say, in Chile.
But would a final irrevocable boycott help — or hurt — Shcharansky? Would the Russian man in the street or woman in the street really understand why we turned down their party? Wouldn’t a boycott threat serve as well as a boycott? Anyway, do the Games have to become a political football? If they do, let’s just cancel them forthwith. I think, by now, even Baron de Coubertin would agree.
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Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times
Jim Murray Memorial Foundation P.O. Box 661532, Arcadia, CA 91066
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season coaching victory and that moved him into 10th place on the WHL’s all-time list. He did in style, too, as the Blazers (17-2-0) won, 3-2, in Everett, handing the Silvertips (16-1-2) their first regulation-time loss of the season. Kamloops G Dylan Garand (14-2-2, 1.76, .935) came up with 41 stops. . . . Everett actually has lost two in a row now, having dropped a 4-3 OT decision to the host Victoria Royals on Friday. . . . Clouston’s 467th victory moved him past Peter Anholt and Jack Shupe and into sole possession of 10th spot on the all-time list that is led by Don Day (750). . . . Clouston has 76 victories with the Blazers after putting up 375 with the Medicine Hat Tigers and 16 with the Tri-City Americans. He won’t be moving up the ladder again anytime soon because the next man on the list, Pat Ginnell, is at 518. . . . BTW, the Blazers went 4-0-0 on a swing into the U.S. Division, winning twice in Kent, Wash., and beating the Winterhawks, 4-3, in Portland on Friday night. . . .
Kings, 2-1, in Brandon. It would seem that he didn’t get fined — at least, there isn’t anything noted on the WHL’s discipline page — after getting tossed for whispering Christmas greetings to the on-ice officials prior to the start of the third period of a 4-1 loss to the visiting Moose Jaw Warriors on Wednesday. . . . BTW, after D Kaiden Guhle scored twice in the Raiders’ 2-1 victory over the host Brandon Wheat Kings on Saturday night, Habscheid told Jason Kerr of the Prince Albert Daily Herald that Guhle “might be, for his age, the best player in the world. He’s just a special player.” Guhle, 19, was selected by the Montreal Canadiens with the 16th pick of the NHL’s 2020 draft. He has signed his first NHL contract.
halted the New York Islanders’ season, at least for now. The Isles were to have played the New York Rangers today and then visited the Flyers in Philadelphia on Tuesday. Those games have been postponed. The Islanders next are scheduled to play on Thursday against the visiting San Jose Sharks. . . . The final straw for the NHL came Saturday when F Casey Cizikas went on the list. He became player No. 8, joining F Josh Bailey, F Kieffer Bellows, D Zdeno Chara, D Andy Greene, F Ross Johnston, F Anders Lee and D Adam Pelech. . . . Earlier, the Ottawa Senators had three games postponed as they went through a stretch in which 10 players and a coach were impacted. The Sharks and Pittsburgh Penguins also have been down this road, but their schedules were left intact.
fewer than five minutes remaining in the third period on Tuesday night. . . . He then scored three straight goals — at 15:05, 16:23 and 18:45 — in a span of 3:40 to finish off Regina’s 6-2 victory. . . . As quick as that was, Carrier was 3:16 shy of the WHL record that is held by F Jim Harrison. On Dec. 5, 1966, Harrison scored at 19:31, 19:44 and 19:55 of the third period to give the Estevan Bruins a 6-5 victory over the Pats. According to the Regina Leader-Post of Dec. 5, 1966, Harrison, who also had two assists, “scored the winner . . . after the Bruins had pulled goalie Gordon Kopp for an extra attacker.” The story didn’t indicate why the Bruins had pulled their goaltender in a tie game, but perhaps there was a faceoff in Regina’s zone and Estevan coach Ernie (Punch) McLean chose to play a hunch. . . . Harrison did it in the first season of what was then known as the Canadian Major Junior Hockey League. . . . At that point, Harrison had 40 points, including 18 goals, in Estevan’s first 20 games. . . . That season also was the first for McLean as the Bruins’ head coach. He and Bill Shinske had been among 35 shareholders who had purchased the team from Scotty Munro during the 1965-66 season. . . . Carrier, from Strathcona, Alta., came out of Tuesday’s game, his 19th this season with eight goals. He went into the season with four goals in 44 games.
It’s easy to swallow your pride when that’s all you’ve had to eat that day.
Merritt, Astorino, a 20-year-old from Prince George, was billeting with Jenny and Jesse Pierce, whose home is a snapshot away from the Coldwater River.
head coach, is moving up the WHL’s all-time victories ladder. “He sits at 464,” Keen tweeted. “One more win ties him with Dean Clark and Kelly McCrimmon for 12th all-time. Peter Anholt and Jack Shupe are next at 466.” . . . 
trip. They beat the Seattle Thunderbirds, 5-1, in Kent, Wash., on Saturday night and are scheduled to play their again on Wednesday. But rather than stay in Kent or return home, the Blazers moved into Vancouver for a couple of days. . . . “Some guys went and rode bikes on the seawall and a bunch of our players went to the Canucks game (Sunday) night,” Clouston told Radio NL. “It was a nice break.” . . . The Blazers skated with players from St. George’s School at UBC on Monday. Tom Gaglardi, the Blazers’ majority owner, has served on the board at St. George’s and has had sons play hockey there. . . . After playing in Kent, the Blazers are scheduled to meet the Winterhawks in Portland on Friday and the Silvertips (15-0-1) in Everett on Saturday.
be from Kamloops. Due to injuries and a couple of positive tests, the Chiefs were short of forwards earlier this month, which is one of the reasons they gave up a seventh-round selection in the WHL’s 2022 draft to acquire Streek, 17, from the Saskatoon Blades on Nov. 11. . . . In 21 games with the Blades, six of them this season, Streek had yet to score. So guess what happened in his first game with the Chiefs? Yes, he scored his first WHL goal — it was Spokane’s first goal, tying the score 1-1 at 3:54 of the second period, in what would be a 5-3 loss to the visiting Seattle Thunderbirds.
make a proposal to the junior B Kootenay International Junior Hockey League in the hopes of landing a franchise that would be known as the Thunder and begin play in 2022-23. . . . Broadhead told George Henderson of 
to forward it to him. . . . “Green Bay Packers fans in Canada now have the opportunity to purchase shares in the iconic franchise, the organization announced today,” the release reads. “Approximately 174,000 shares remain available for purchase.
The West final is to be played in Winnipeg on Dec. 5. . . . Between those dates, pandemic-related rules regarding flying will change in Canada, with travellers needing to be fully vaccinated after Nov. 30; negative test results no longer will be enough. . . . Dave Dickenson, the Stampeders’ head coach, admitted on Saturday that should the Stampeders advance they will have a different look in Winnipeg than they will in Regina. In other words, there are a few unvaccinated players in the Calgary locker room. . . . Meanwhile, the Roughriders moved third-string QB Paxton Lynch to the practice squad late last week because he is unvaccinated so is unable to fly. According to Murray McCormick of the Regina Leader-Post, Saskatchewan head coach Craig Dickenson said that Lynch is the lone unvaccinated player on the team’s roster. . . . “We’ve encouraged guys to get vaccinated and given them motives and incentives, which are mainly about the ability to play and travel,” Craig Dickenson said. “If they chose not to, that is their choice. We do the best we can. If someone doesn’t want to get vaccinated, we aren’t going to force them.” . . . With Lynch out of the picture, QB Mason Fine came off the Saskatchewan practice roster and is behind starter Cody Fajardo and Isaac Harker on the depth chart.
Saturday night. That’s when the Kamloops Blazers, now 14-2-0, are scheduled to visit the Everett Silvertips (14-0-1). . . . The Blazers beat the Seattle Thunderbirds, 5-1, in Kent, Wash., on Saturday and will be back there on Wednesday. Kamloops then will meet the host Portland Winterhawks on Friday before moving on to Everett. . . . The Silvertips, who dropped the visiting Thunderbirds, 5-2, on Sunday, are at home to the Tri-City Americans on Wednesday and then will visit the Victoria Royals on Friday. . . . Kamloops holds an 11-point lead over the second-place Kelowna Rockets (8-4-1) in the B.C. Division. . . . The Silvertips are atop the U.S. Division, eight points ahead of Seattle (11-5-1). . . .
McCallum Memorial Trophy as the WHL’s coach of the year, has taken over and now is the organization’s vice-president of hockey operations, general manager and head coach. Paddock ran the Pats’ practice in Regina on Thursday.
start with some Thursday tweets from Brad Elliott Schlossman, the Grand Forks Herald’s superb hockey writer . . . 
few potential goaltending coaches on Wednesday.
draft, has been a long-time student of Wilson’s, having attended his goaltending camps as well as working with him with the Americans.
and the Penticton Vees was postponed with a rescheduled date yet to be announced. Merritt, with a population around 7,500, remains under an evacuation order after its wastewater treatment plant was compromised by flood water from the Coldwater River. . . . That evacuation order is expected to be in place for at least another week. . . .
League was to have entertained the Chase Heat on Wednesday night. However, the Storm’s home arena at McArthur Island is being used to house evacuees from Merritt so the game was postponed. The Storm’s next home game is scheduled for Sunday against the North Okanagan Knights. . . . 
on the COVID-19 protocol list, are scheduled to play the Colorado Avalance in Denver on Monday. By that point, eight of those players could be back, depending on how the testing process goes. . . . The Senators have had three games postponed. . . . Ottawa F Michael Del Zotto explained the situation to Toronto radio station TSN 1050 on Wednesday: ““Some guys have had some loss of taste and smell, and I think that’s about as serious as it’s gotten, at least to my knowledge. Everyone is vaccinated so that certainly helps, but it’s scary how quickly it can spread and how quickly it went through the team. This is 20 months now still talking about (COVID-19) and it would be nice for us to get past this.” . . .
after all players and staff members returned negative tests. The organization had been on pause since Nov. 10 when two players tested positive. That resulted in the postponement of three games.
already used four goaltenders. That might help explain the announcement on Monday that they have hired Eli Wilson as goaltender coach. . . . It should be noted that Wilson, a veteran goaltender coach, also fills that position with the WHL’s Tri-City Americans. In the past, he has worked with the NHL’s Ottawa Senators and AHL’s Syracuse Crunch, along with the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers and Vancouver Giants. . . . He apparently is replacing Adam Brown, who had been with the team since 2016. Brown’s name doesn’t appear in the news release announcing Wilson’s signing, and he no longer is listed on the team’s website. . . . The Rockets went into the season with four options in goal — veterans Roman Basran and Cole Schwebius, a pair of 20-year-olds, freshman Nicholas Cristiano, 17, and Cole Tisdale, 19, who made 12 appearances over three seasons. Basran and Schwebius were released, Cristian was returned to the U18 Fraser Valley Thunderbirds, and Tisdale went to the Americans in the deal for Boyko. . . . The Rockets also acquired Colby Knight, 18, from the Edmonton Oil Kings on Oct. 12. . . . So now the Rockets will ride the 6-foot-7.5 Boyko, who was selected by the New York Rangers in the fourth round of the NHL’s 2021 draft, and Knight, with Wilson charged with getting them on the right track and keeping them there.
TAKING NOTE 