Vals Kilmer (like "attorneys general"?)

[Alice Faber]

Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> The U.S. Olympic Hockey Team was nicknamed "Team U.S.A." after  (probably even during) its "miracle" upset of the "unbeatable" Soviet team in the 1980 Winter Games.
>
>   This was an especially dramatic moment because the USSR had just moved into Afghanistan, and many commentators were prophesying nuclear doom just around the corner.  (Because Jimmy Carter had allegedly made our military defenseless. I vividly remember an op-ed writer in the _Washington Post_ reporting that he had already secured two kinds of pills for himself and his family : anti-radiation and suicide.)
>
>   Since then, though, infotainment science has demonstrated that the hockey upset was the actual turning point of the Cold War, leading directly to the fall of the Soviet Empire barely more than a decade later.
>
>   Hence "Team America" for all our guys 'n' gals.
>

Team X is the standard form for teams in international hockey
competitions at all levels. I have no idea how far it goes back. It
would be interesting to see if Team Canada was referred to as such in
the 1972 Canada Cup series, for instance. If the US team was referred to
as Team USA during the Miracle on Ice Olympics, the teams they beat
would have been referred to also as Team Finland and the like; somehow
Team USSR doesn't fall trippingly off the tongue, but still.



--
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Alice Faber                                    faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                           tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
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