[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 85 (Tuesday, June 11, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H6119-H6120]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               CONGRATULATIONS TO THE COLORADO AVALANCHE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I hope everybody knows what this is 
because if they do not, they are going to by the end of the day. In 
Colorado, this is gold. This is the wonderful jersey of the Avalanche 
who last night won all of our hearts by winning the Stanley Cup in four 
straight games--four straight games. And this was their very first 
season in Colorado.
  Now, my district is normally a mile high, but today I think it is 2 
miles high. I cannot tell you the excitement. And I know I should 
apologize to all of you who are here who were awakened last night at 
about 1:04 in the morning when the winning goal was made, but we are 
not going to apologize because we think it is great that you were 
awakened by people from Colorado cheering everywhere.
  In fact, we are even talking this morning about renaming the Rocky 
Mountains to the Hockey Mountains. I

[[Page H6120]]

think they are going to find that hockey fever has taken over and is 
absolutely captivating.
  Some of the things that I particularly want to point out as we talk 
today is this wonderful, wonderful team. You just heard 5 minutes of 
the same kind of thing we hear over and over again. The fabulous thing 
about this Avalanche team is they have acted as a team. I do not know 
if it was their marvelous Canadian trained organization, whatever, but 
you do not see egos popping out. You see them working together and 
liking each other, and look what they did in 1 year. There may be some 
real messages there for politicians, some tremendous messages for 
politicians.
  So I think I would be remiss not to thank our wonderful neighbors to 
the north in Quebec who helped train this great team and, of course, 
everybody is particularly fond of the goalie who happens to share my 
first name, but we are so proud of him. But he would not want to be 
singled out because they really see themselves as a total working unit. 
That is kind of a novel concept when it comes to politics, but it could 
be something we could all learn from.
  We know today that Colorado is going to be a work-free zone. It is 
going to be a total work-free zone. The question is whether the whole 
week we are going to be a work-free zone only because we are 
celebrating this great victory. I think all of America can celebrate 
it, and I mean all of North America, Canadians and North Americans 
because of the great example they set in showing how to do this, how to 
do this together, how to do this without ego, how to make it not look 
like they were kind of throwing it to drag it out and make more money, 
all the things that have circulated around some of the things we have 
heard in professional sports. This is about values, and they have 
really shown us some tremendous values that are the kind that we 
traditionally had in sports.
  That is wonderful to see come back again. So to see the young people 
in Colorado out there with their roller blades playing hockey is very 
exciting. I will tell you, we may not have had the hockey players we 
would like to have had in the past, but I will bet this next generation 
is going to be there. It is basically going to be because of the 
leadership and the example of these wonderful, wonderful men who wore 
this wonderful, wonderful jersey. I think if anybody wants one of 
these, good luck. I am not giving mine up, and they are not giving 
theirs up.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. This gentleman from Florida would say to the 
gentlewoman from Colorado that she is justifiably proud, but I did find 
some pain in her comments.

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