Departure Day for Vancouver is now just eight days away!
But back in October, I got a little preview of the work I’ll be doing — not to mention a glimpse of how much fun it is to cover the Olympics.
In preparation for the 2010 Winter Games, the folks in charge sent me up to Lake Placid, NY for three days. You might recognize it as the site of the 1980 Games, or, as they’re commonly known, the “Do you believe in miracles?!?” Games. But Lake Placid is also where many of the US Olympic athletes train … and that’s how I found myself on a plane to SLP Airport on a Sunday in mid-October.
First, when I say “plane”, I’m not talking about your typical Delta flight. I’m talking about a nine-seater where you can actually see through the front of the cockpit. And when I say “airport”, I’m talking about a building barely bigger than your standard McDonald’s; it has just one terminal and serves just three flights a day.
(See my plane? It’s the one all the way on the left … Also, this is at Boston’s Logan Airport, not Lake Placid’s, which is far smaller …)
I could probably spend the rest of this entry making “How small is Lake Placid?” jokes. (This is true — there’s only one rental car place at the airport, and I had to call the owner at home to come in and give me my car. Thankfully, as was typical of the folks in Lake Placid, he was tremendously friendly once he got there.) The fact is, Lake Placid could never host an Olympics today; it’s way too small to handle the gargantuan number of athletes, families, fans, and media that make up the modern Winter Games.
But as a place to visit and spend a few days, it’s just about perfect.
You won’t find a resort town with much more personality than Lake Placid. During the winter it’s a palace of white, seemingly always smothered with snow while skiers and tourists come to get away.
When I was there, in the middle of autumn, I got a different view: the leaves changing all over the forest that is the New York Adirondacks. Combine that with crisp fall weather, and you couldn’t ask for a more picturesque feel.
As for my work up there, I spent three days interviewing a variety of potential US Olympians from the luge, bobsled, and skeleton. Since we will only have limited access to the athletes in Vancouver, we decided to jump the fun and talk to a whole bunch of them at the start of the season. I spoke with luge standouts Erin Hamlin and Tony Benshoof; bobsled stars Shauna Rohbock and Steve Holcomb; skeleton racers Zach Lund and Noelle Pikus-Pace; and a slew of others, including Douglasville, GA native and now-Olympian Elana Meyers. I also filmed their training sessions and got to stand atop the track as their sleds came whizzing by.
Your nutshell/understatement/summary? It was fun.
I came back with enough video and interviews for 20 stories; you’ll likely see about 8-9 of them on the Olympic Zone shows running throughout the 2010 Games. In addition to talking with the athletes, I also received a tour of Lake Placid from the town historian and got an inside look at the 1980 Arena, home of the Miracle on Ice. One of the coolest moments was at the 1980 Olympic Museum, where they were showing a tape of the actual “Miracle on Ice” game. As the third period played out, two middle-aged gentlemen stood at the screen, unable to turn away from a game whose ending they already knew.
To me that moment crystallized the joy of sports, the joy of being a fan, the joy of the Olympics. It’s the type of moment I hope I experience in Vancouver; we leave in eight days … let the Games begin.
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For a couple nights in a row our trash cans were ransacked. Since we had a big St. Bernard that lived on The Ranch, Felix, we all assumed he was the mess maker.
But as a 12 year old I really hoped we were actually being invaded by something scary. Living at the base of the Golden Ears mountain range in Maple Ridge, BC it was pretty likely.
Racoons or Big Foot or Bears oh…you know.
The noise got our attention. 5 or 6 of us kids who lived with our families at Timberline Ranch were in “the little” house when we heard something dropping out of the apple tree. Every mountain kid worth his lack of tv signal knew if you shine a light in the dark and an animal is there, the eyes will flash like little bulbs.
4 eyes, 2 bear cubs eating apples in the branches….how cute. So cute we ran under the tree. “Can we touch one”?
It might have been a growl…A bark…Just the scraping of claws on rocks. I don’t remember the sound, just the sight. 2 big black bears tearing around a corner, heading right for us with Felix trying to get in the way.
Quick survivor lesson now: momma bear doesn’t want you to touch her babies, she probably doesn’t even want you lookin at em.
Can kids who ride horses for exercise outrun bears? Maybe I could I thought but that’s because I was 12. We scrambled to get back in the house. Anita, a year or 2 younger than me fell down. I watched Murray, 18 or so pick her up by the belt loop and toss her towards the door. My 2 sisters dove in. The door slammed shut.
It might have been a bluff. It might be Felix, the dog everyone was mad at when we thought he was the trash thief cut the bears off and saved one of us a good mauling.
I always thought it was cool to be able to say “I’ve been chased by bears in Canada” one of my favorite places on earth.
I get to go home to cover the Olympics.
Just not the way I thought.
More on that later.
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I’m getting sick and tired of everyone being sick and tired.
Well, that’s probably not true; it takes a lot to get me truly annoyed. But I do raise an eyebrow every time the Olympics comes up in conversation and someone responds, “Who cares …”
On a certain level, I understand if people are somewhat nonplussed about the Games. After all, many of the events that get such attention during the Olympics can otherwise only be found on ESPN: The Ocho. And the international symbolism that spurred such intense emotions in the past is rarely found today.
But I’m a big believer in taking things as they are — and the Olympics, as they are, are still pretty darn cool.
Blinded sports fan, you think? An NBC shill promoting the network, you say? Not in the least (I won’t be writing any Jay vs. Conan blogs anytime soon …); mine are simply the words of someone who enjoys competitive sports, finds intrigue in international competition, and appreciates the escapade and extravaganza of this rare event.
Let’s start with the most obvious positive: the sheer thrill of the sports. Yes, the bobsled and snowboarding aren’t exactly household sports — and that’s precisely why they’re so much fun to watch. You and I most likely have never raced on a luge sled, and that only adds to the mystique of how these athletes do what they do. And for the most part, the events are presented very well on TV. Have you seen the camera angles on the skeleton? It’s like they’re running a 24-style spy mission. There’s a nice balance in styles among the events – the grace of figure skating, the speed of the sledding sports, the outdoor elements at play during the ski events, and the physical punishment of ice hockey. And even though the international angst isn’t as deep anymore, I still enjoy the pure fun of following the medal count and rooting for the U.S. to climb the ladder.
And let’s not discount the subtext at play when nations compete against nations. No, it’s not war — and thank goodness, in many cases, the emotions don’t run that hot anymore — but it is a test of both our athletes and our equipment. One of the stories I have already done for this year’s Winter Games deals with the secrecy involved in protecting the technological and stylistic advances in American equipment. Countries are constantly trying to come up with the perfect recipe — in terms of sleds, skis, sticks, and any other piece of equipment at play. On top of that, other countries are always trying to steal each other’s secrets. It’s actually pretty funny — especially because, in talking to the American athletes about it, everyone sheepishly admitted getting caught up in the espionage.
But more important than anything, I use a variation of that oft-quoted Chevy Chase line to describe why I like the Olympics: “They’re the Olympics, and all these other sporting events aren’t.” See, it’s easy to deride the Winter and Summer Games for a variety of reasons, but they’re still the only competition to bring in athletes from more than a hundred nations. They’re still a major point of pride for cities that get to host them (see Atlanta, 1996). And they’re still a spectacle unlike any other in sports. And listen, I LOVE sports. I’m a Hawks season ticket holder who regularly finds himself planted on the couch with a game on the teleivision. The Super Bowl, the World Series, the U.S. Open … these are all great events. But none of them match the sheer scope of the Olympics.
Now I’m not foolish enough to deny that the Olympics are flawed in a variety of ways. But, to be fair, no sport runs without its share of issues. And at the end of the day, the positives far outweigh the negatives; more importantly, the negatives that do exist, for the most part, don’t take away from one’s ability to enjoy the sheer athleticism and competition on display.
So, let’s put down the collective Haterade for a few weeks. It’s time to appreciate and enjoy two weeks of plain ol’ fun. When it comes to the Olympics, I do care — and am proud of it.
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Sometimes life just smiles upon you.
Let’s say, for example, you have just returned from a vacation in Japan — one of the most amazing trips you have ever taken. You are already feeling pretty wonderful – refreshed and rejuvenated – and you arrive to work ready to sift through hundreds of unread e-mails and return to the daily grind. And then, let’s say, about midway through the day, your boss comes up to you and says the following:
“Hey, would you like to cover the Winter Olympics in February?”
Um, what was that?
This is normally the time where I would do somersaults across the newsroom. But when it actually happened, not looking to jump to conclusions, I held up. I asked all the questions that seemed utterly obvious but needed to be asked before I fully embarrassed myself in front of my co-workers … questions like, “You mean, in person?”
“Yes, in person.”
Then I did the somersaults.
That was five months ago, and now our departure date is two weeks away. Ted Hall and I will be in Vancouver bringing you the stories of the athletes, events, hoopla, and entertainment that make up the 2010 Winter Olympics. You can catch our work on the air all day on 11Alive.
And, of course, we’ll be hooking you up online as well.
In the weeks leading up to our departure, and then throughout our days in Vancouver, Ted and I will be blogging here at 11aliveblogs.com. We also plan to frequently update our Twitter accounts (Ted’s is tedhallnews; mine is MattPearlWXIA11), bringing you our up-close photos and thoughts from the whirlwind of the Winter Games. Check back in this space over the next few weeks as we provide a little insight into the work we’ll be doing (and in some cases have already done) and the stories we’ll be telling.
Hopefully, we might just be able to make you smile, the same way life has smiled upon us.
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