August 25, 2009

If you have questions about the internship, this blog post or any of the topics I cover this year, please send me an e-mail at mattc@usahockey.org. I'll try to answer as many questions as possible in future blog posts.

This past week I was lucky enough to travel to Chicago for the Olympic Orientation Camp. It was great interacting with the players and seeing how they act behind the scenes. They seemed like a great group of guys that enjoy being around each other, and I think it’s going to make for an exciting Olympics for Team USA.

The event itself was a great success. When we arrived at the arena a little after 7 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 17, there was already a line of eager fans waiting to get inside. I’m not sure what the exact figures were but we had around 1,200 fans in the arena the first day. We even had to turn a couple hundred away. For this event or any event for that matter, I wonder if the people there know how much work goes into everything. There’s so much planning and behind-the-scenes work that goes unnoticed to the general public.

Also, on Monday, the Olympic jerseys were unveiled to the media at the morning press conference. I’m a big fan of the 1960 replica jerseys, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Team USA winning the gold medal at the Olympic Winter Games in Squaw Valley, Calif. Check out usahockey.com for a lot of good information and photos of everything at the camp.

While I was in Chicago (and through tomorrow), I’ve been writing the releases for our U.S. Under-17 Select Team that’s competing at the U17 Five Nations Tournament in Fussen, Germany. Multi-tasking is one of the job requirements.

After the U17 Select Team is done, the Women’s Under-18 Select Team will be in action in Canada next week, and I’ll be writing the releases for those games as well. This will be straight weeks serving as the contact for our select teams, but luckily after about the third release it becomes pretty much second nature.

In other USA Hockey news, there’s been some construction in the office with addition of some cubes for all the new hires. I’ll be moving one cube over, where the magazine intern used to sit and just a stone throw’s away from where my boss’ office is located.

Also, with college football season coming up, there will be an edition to the blog, as I’ll be making comments on how my alma mater, Penn State, is doing. I know there a lot of people down on the Big Ten, but once you’re a Penn Stater there’s no turning back on the Nittany Lions. First game is on Sept. 5 vs. Akron, and I can’t wait. I think it’s going to be an interesting year for the team. The secondary looks vulnerable (but fortunately we’re playing cupcakes for the first three weeks). It’ll be exciting to see how the team plays against Iowa after the heartbreak last year. I’m predicting and 11-1 year. I think we’ll lose to either Iowa or Ohio State even though they’re both in Happy Valley. Hopefully I’ll be pleasantly surprised and they run the table. Let’s Go State!