That extends to my country, too. While I abide by the strictures of my profession, which demands “no cheering in the press box,” my heart is with our lads and gals. Though they may never know it-certainly, I hope, not from my coverage-I have been and will be quietly pulling for Michelle, Sasha, Sarah, Bode, Casey, Picabo, Tim, Bergy, Cammi and the rest of our Olympic team.

All of them except for our U.S. men’s hockey team. As a Bostonian, I grew up with an innate love of the game of hockey. I am old enough to remember the “miracle on ice” and I ain’t talking 1980. I mean Squaw Valley 1960 when the underdog Americans, led by Boston’s Cleary brothers, stunned the favored Canadians and Russians en route to their first-ever Olympic gold. And, of course, I relished the 1980 reprise, even though I watched the whole shebang on a black-and-white TV in a fleabag hotel in Chicago, where life’s slight knocks had dumped me.

But I have no truck with the current edition of U.S. hockey that begins Olympic play tomorrow night against Finland. Because four years ago, when both I and they were a guest of an extraordinarily gracious nation, Japan, they embarrassed themselves and, by extension, all Americans. Believe me, this had nothing to do with their lousy performance on the ice. I must note, though, that their effort did seem a little lacking, at least when compared with that of all the other national hockey powers at the Nagano Games. Certainly their record of one win and three losses was somewhat feeble.

Still, it was their off-ice comportment that mortified me. Maybe it was only a few players and maybe it was only a few thousand dollars worth of damage. And who hasn’t smashed chairs, trashed rooms and thrown a fire extinguisher through a fifth-floor window? At the time it brought to mind what my mother used to say to me when I was about 11 years old: “Were you brought up in a barn?” I might have forgiven the incident in time. I did a few stupid things in my younger days-make that quite a few very stupid things-when anger was fueled by sake or its equivalents.

What I couldn’t forgive, though, was the code of silence embraced by the whole team. I know they viewed it as something honorable not to rat out a teammate. But that’s so adolescent frat-boy, so mob cinematic that it is pathetic. Then again they shouldn’t have had to make that choice. The few guys responsible for the wreckage should have been standup and taken responsibility-and the inevitable time in the penalty box. And thus taken their teammates off the hook.

Four years later, the culprits have never acknowledged their mistake or personally apologized for the travesty. And if U.S.A. Hockey managed to identify them privately, it never took any punitive action. Or at least none recognized by the American public whom that organization and those players represent. None that showed any comprehension that while the players may be Bruin, Ranger and Blackhawk hotshots the rest of the time, when they are in Salt Lake City they are our team.

And here in Salt Lake I know to a moral certainty that someone, maybe several someones, who did the damage in Nagano will be wearing the red, white and blue. In the last six months, I and every American has spent a lot of time talking about the flag, patriotism and what it means to us. And every one of us comes up with a slightly different version. Mine only has the virtue of being mine. But somewhere beyond my notions of pride in country, there is something too about respect for other peoples and cultures. And one thing that has made proud as an American here in Salt Lake, amid the “U.S.A., U.S.A.” chants and all the flag-waving, is how generous the U.S. fans have been to the foreign athletes who are competing.

So starting Friday night I intend to be very, very generous when our hockey team takes the ice against Finland and again Saturday night against Russia. I will break ranks. As much as it pains me, I will be quietly urging, “Go you Finns,” “Rock on, Russia.” Oh, yeah, I’ll also be cheering for a great and model-citizen American hockey team: “Go U.S.A. women!”