Hockey game results-Flyers 3, Thrashers 4

I've always thought that hockey was a violent sport, nasty,a sport only about hitting and bumping and hurting members of the other team. It IS physical for certain, and the bumping or 'checking' as I found out from my friend Cal, is a vital part of the game. Players even deliberately throw themselves against the boards at times. In this game the major fist fights came in the last 20 minutes of play when the pressure was on. [I'm told that its against the rules to fight in the Olympics]

My goal watching the Philly Flyers and the Atlanta Thrashers (what kind of name is that for a sports team. It sounds like a horror movie) was to learn as much as I could about the sport from Cal the Calgary hockey buff, who played hockey as a kid (He also took a turn for the heat and sea when he lived in Hawaii part of his life.) The other missions were 1)to have a good time, 2)to scream when the Flyers got goals, 3)to marvel at some of the intricate plays, 4)to eat really bad food, and 5)smile when the folks behind me yelled "The refs suck, the refs suck". I wonder how you say, "The refs suck" in Latvian, or Ukranian. I could tell from the Flyers gear that the folks around me were clearly fans, as they constantly commented on all the mistakes that the refs made. And as can be imagined, they disagreed with most of the decisions unless they were favorable to our side.

Okay, there WAS violence towards the end. A player from each side ended up on the ground pummeling each other. The refs seemed to lose control of the situation, but did send them packing to the penalty box for 5 minutes. The fighting,though, wasn't as distressing as the fans reactions. During the fight, the whole crowd stood up and cheered. Loudly. Alot. Modern gladiators?

Cal's comment about the game: We ouplayed them but we didn't outscore them. 'nough said.

During the game, I was daydreaming about being in a stadium with people talking other languages, cheering on a national team. I won't know who will be competing, because the game is the best of a playoff. But I know that whoever wins, if the game is half as entertaining and exciting as the one last night, I'll have fun.

Hockey anyone? Go Flyers

Hockey was one Olympic ticket that I bought because I could! There were so many available, and since It is the sport I am least familiar with and perhaps even the most uncomfortable with, I thought, "what the heck". When I talked about my lack of real enthusiasm about hockey to my friend Elyse, she said, "I love hockey, and I have a friend who has tickets". Soon enough I got an email that 2 tickets were available. I didn't jump on them right away, still a bit hesitant. How darn coy of me, after being so bold to plan this trip.

In the 11th hour I decided to take the two. Who would enjoy going with me? First, I invited a friend's son who I used to skate with at the local community center. When he couldn't go, his father,Cal, a native Canadian and hockey skater, jumped on the chance. In all his hockey playing he'd never seen a pro game. so both of us virgins! I went to find out about the atmosphere, but I knew he'd be able to tell me how to follow the team and the individual players. Great match!

Curling videos Olympic trials and others

Gotta love this sport. This one is of Jennifer Jones final shot. Gorgeous.

Curling anyone?

Curling? I've been fascinated by it ever since my sister- in- law's cousin came to visit from Utah, and talked with great passion about the sport. She had made it her mission to teach the elementary school kids where she lived, and had set up many teams.

If, like me, you've ever wanted to know what the heck is happening with that big rock and the broom, here is what the Potomac Curling club has to say:
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Seemingly simple. A granite rock, a sheet of ice, a target 42 yards away. Finish with your rocks closer to the target than your opponents', and your team of four wins a game in which keen competition mixes with a wonderful social atmosphere.

But wait: this is an Olympic sport, played by people across the world from ages 8 to 80. There must be more to it.

And there is. The rocks curl (or curve) down the sheet, traveling over an ice surface rife with nuances thanks to specially applied 'pebble' of frozen mist that lets the 42-pound rocks move with surprisingly little effort. Finesse and control of how hard rocks are thrown (the 'weight') become the important factors, not strength. The weight of a thrown rock affects the amount of curl, but a rock's progress can be altered by judicious sweeping to polish the ice in front of it, making a rock move both farther and straighter. Added complications are crafty opponents who place their stones in positions to block your access to the center of the target (the 'house'). You have to think several rocks ahead to make sure that, at the completion of each end of 16 rocks, your rocks are closest to the button, the center of the house.

So curling is a game of strategy, of finesse, and yes of fitness. A team's sweepers travel up to two miles in a game and, at the highest levels of the sport, expend the same energy as a sprinter in a 200 meter dash.
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I didn't know any of this when I went for a lesson that they graciously set up on Thursday nights. The club itself consists of a lounge area for spectators. This area is separated by windows from the main ice.. The rink has the feel of a 4 lane shuffleboard court on ice. It IS much like Shuffleboard and bowling and bocci rolled into one.
To start, we were given a teflon 'slider', half slippers to put on the foot that slides out. And slide you do. If you put your foot down without support, off you go.
THe other foot is set against a stand much like runners use in track and field. The main fun that I experienced was the pushing, which produced a gliding motion producing a deep lunge forward. ( Take a look at the video of Jennifer Jones in the next post for a glimpse). The stone releases from your hand and slides ever so slowly down the lane. Between holding the rock and a broom, there is balance and finesse. For us beginners,Falling became part of the experience, and now I know why they ask people to bring Clean sneakers or rubber-soled shoes and A good nature and sense of humor.

I didn't get to stay for a match, but that is next week when I travel to the Philadelphia Curling club in Paoli, PA to watch some actual matches.

The place that I am staying-Chapter 3

As I looked daily for listings on the Vancouver Craigslist, I found one that was intriguing: Home for the Games. Here is what I found:

http://www.homeforthegames.com
Home For The Games is a web-based system that matches Olympic Games visitors with Metro Vancouver hosts for short-term home stays. We create opportunities for hosts, to share an unforgettable Olympic experience with guests from around the world while earning modest income.

At the same time, we assure both groups that at least 50% of their rental fee will go directly to registered charities helping Metro Vancouver’s most vulnerable citizens. Hosts will receive a tax receipt for the portion of the rent that goes to charity.

So, that is what I decided to do. For a very reasonable rate, I will be staying with 2 women who live in Vancouver, and helping out a bit. Seemed like a good solution.

Finding a place to stay Chapter 2

When I realized that I would have to pay for a place to stay, I sent out an email broadcast on my community listserve. That channel opened up a whole new set of wonderful resources. First, someone told me that he had a 'friend' on Facebook from Vancouver. Being new to the world of Facebook (and yes, you can find me there) I wasn't exactly sure whether they were actual friends or Facebook friends and whether that mattered. But at that point, I needed to be bold, so I asked my friend to contact the woman in Vancouver, who promptly emailed me. She pointed me towards Craigslist (duh, of course). There were 100s of listings there, yes 100s, for prices ranging from $100 a night to, gulp, $700.
I started trolling craigslist daily for about a week, trying to figure out the geography of Vancouver-thinking through what kind of situation I wanted. Did I want to pay more to be close to town? Did I want to be with one person, or with someone who might be hosting a group of folks? Did they have internet available, was there a TV?
Many people were renting out their lofts or condos and bolting out of town. (can you imagine renting your place to someone you didn't know at all and then leaving?). That wasn't what I wanted. There were single people, families, located in town and in the near suburbs. I emailed a few, got some connections, made no promises.
And I held tight.

Finding a place to stay chapter 1

Early on in the process, really back last March, I thought I would be able to stay with a friend, but she had moved back to the States. By the time I found out that she was not living in Vancouver it was impossible to even book a hotel. There were NO rooms available. Well, there might have been some, but for 700$ a night. No kidding, even the Holiday Inn Express cost that much.

I put out some broadcast emails to listserves. Do you know anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone who would like to host a visitor. My request for free home hospitality, I realized, was naive. Vancouverites were opening up their homes, yes, but for hundreds for dollars a night. And most of my connections were 2 degrees of separation, so no one was inclined to make the offer to host.

And then came Facebook.

Events I have tickets to so far

Just to end the suspense, here are the events I am going to.
Feb 19 SKATING, yay! That was a last minute buy, last week when I trolled the websites for extra tickets. They range by the way from 200-1300$
Feb 20 Hockey-and while I'm not a hockey fan, I hear that Olympic hockey is more civilized, so to speak. This one is for Barbara S. and for Elyse, who know something about hockey
Feb 21 MORE SKATING, yippee
Feb 22 Curling, cool
Feb 23 Ski jumping-thats the time to go to the mountain outside of Vancouver. Again, not really a skiing fan, but am looking forward to being in the mountain with the snow. Will do my best to do lots of 'apres' skiing posturing.

I'm hoping that once I get there, i'll find some other events. There will be an area set up with jumbo screens to watch with folks, so whatever happens, it should be fun.

Skating ticket just arrived

Last week I stumbled on a website that still had tickets available, so I jumped on another skating event. Today the ticket arrived and I was so very excited. It made the whole thing real. So, take a look on the right side of the blog

Vancouver gets ready (video)

If you have ever been to Vancouver, you know already what a beautiful city it is. I used to live in the Northwest, so the city was always a place to go for an evening or a weekend.

It takes all kinds of fans

AFter several days of watching promising young junior skaters to the almost good enough senior skaters, my mother and I were now about to watch the finals for the top ranked skaters, including what was to be a triumphant performance by Michelle Kwan.

If you no anything about ice skating it is probably the name Michelle Kwan. She won nine U.S. championships, five World Championships, and two Olympic medals (sadly not the Gold). She competed at a high level for over a decade and is the most decorated figure skater in U.S. history. Known for her consistency and expressive artistry on ice, she is widely considered one of the greatest figure skaters of all time.

We had found our way to the magic 7th row behind the judges (comparable to sitting behind the batters box in baseball), and were looking forward to the evening.


Behind us was a woman who was apparently quite drunk and loud. Although she hadn't disturbed any skating up until then, I was getting worried as she got more boisterous. So, I turned around and told her that she was disturbing us and that she would need to leave.

Next to her was a man,, who shrunk down in his seat, as his date got more and more beligerant. She said, " I'm not loud, you can't tell me what to do." Well, I wasn't going to let her spoil my time, so I yelled out to the people sitting around us. " Who thinks this woman is being too loud?" Everyone raised their hands!

We managed to get an usher who escorted her and her very embarrassed date, out of the arena. Thank God!

The furry judges' tribe

As we found our seats close to the ice for one evening the US Skating Nationals we sat next to a woman who was clearly a devotee-She looked with critical eyes at each skater making comments like, " Nicolle's jumps are looking good this year'.

It turns out that she was a former skating judge. Her perfunctory claps were based on years of experience watching each skater progress, regress, flame brightly and burn out.

I noticed that this woman was wearing a full length fur coat, which she said was one of the rewards of being a judge. AS I scanned the arena I could spot other fur draped women, members of an exotic tribe, each with sharply focused eyes, ready to pounce on the slightest flaw and bobble and feast on the critical meal.

Our seats at the 1998 Nationals

When my mother said she would like to come up for the 1998 Figure Skating Nationals in Philadelphia (see previous post) I was very excited to get the tickets.It is astonishing that, at the time, $50 seemed like a lot to spend, considering the value we were about to get. But I wasn't willing to spend $100 a ticket, so we opted for the upper decks of the Wachovia Center. The first day we arrived, we went up and up to our seats. Looking down, we could see that the stadium was half full (half empty?). Being Hoffmans we thought of 'sneaking' down to the lower level. As it turned out, no one cared if we moved down and down and down until we were in the 7th row behind the judges. This is where the skaters do their most difficult moves and where we were to enjoy the rest of the skating all week.

Skating nationals 1998

Figure Skating Championships come to Philadelphia.(Originated from Knight Ridder Newspaper)

That was the headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer announcing the 4 days of competition that would determine the US Olympic skating team. What an opportunity-My mother came up from Washington and 5 hours a day we watched everything from the up and coming skaters to the best of the best.
The first skaters were the juniors. One pair stood out- the brother and sister duo of Tiffany and Johnnie Stiegler with Their vibrance and coordinated dancing.
We then saw a group of skaters that seemed to us to be excellent. When they got 4.5/ 6 scores, we were puzzled. "looked good to me" I kept saying to my mother. Then we saw the next group of skaters, who were, clearly, significantly better. Still they only earned 5.0/6. " Looked good to me" I said.

Aha-then we saw the 3rd group, the Olympic hopefuls, such as Todd Eldredge and Michael Weiss, Tara Lupinski, Nicolle Bobek, and the greatest of the great, Michelle Kwan.

Now, That looked really good to me!

Check out any video of Michelle Kwan and Tara Lupinski's performances that year and you are in for a treat.

Making the decision to go

Buying Olympic tickets was not as straightforward as I thought it would be- and EXPENSIVE-. You could go to the Canadaian Olympic website or the US team website, or any number of sites, all of which had rules and regs to read and agree to (you know that ubiquitous box at the bottom to click that says you have read and understood and agreed to and pledged your life and first born child, and sworn up and down to honor and obey all of the pages of fine print above).

I had kept track of the ticket buying process early in the year, but misread the dates that tickets were to go on sale. By the time I got online, my valued skating tickets were almost all gone.
I thought I would change course and possibly go to the Skating Nationals in January instead. After all, it was skating that had inspired this whole crazy notion. Going that week would have been cheaper, but well, I didn't think going to Spokane WAshington in January was exactly what I had in mind when I dreamt of going to the Olympics. In a moment of meditative decision making I thought-I want to see any Olympics sport, not just go see skating. So the decision was made.

Beijing Olympics (video)

If you haven't seen the Opening and Closing Ceremonies from the Beijing Olympics, it is a must see.

Here are just two snapshots of the Olympics. Its hard to find any real footage of the whole ceremony online, but I think there is a DVD that you can buy.

Bejing on my mind

In 2007 I thought about going to the Beijing Olympics that took place the summer of 2008. I had this in my mind for several years actually, but didn't know how to make it happen. Just the fact of wanting to go to China and putting that out in the universe,though set in motion a conversation with the Director of Admissions who asked me to accompany one of her staff on a trip to China for work (read: paid for). Thrill thrill thrill thrill. It worked out well because it was in the fall, a much more pleasant time to be in Beijing. And of course, we had a constant translator, great meals, and I got to meet Chinese students and professors who took me in with great warmth.

When did I start the process

Sometime in March of 2009, I really really really decided to take the plunge. I researched the Olympic websites (more about that later), found ticketing information, signed up for some email updates, and dreamed ahead. At that time I thought I could stay at a friends house (more on THAT later) and that I'd be able to use my frequent flyer miles.
There was so much to think about. I started to go to Olympic websites and watch video of past years.
Then things went dormant for a few months, though I kept getting emails from the various Olympic committees.

In June I found out that there were some deadlines for buying tickets-then I found out exactly how much they cost. Yikes. Yes, the Olympics are expensive, so its a good thing that I had saved up enough to make it possible.