USA Hockey Foundation

Feb. 13: Great start for our women with the 3-1 victory over the Finns. It was pretty much a full house for the game and interesting to see and hear the South Korean fans during the game - big cheers for even a shot from the neutral zone that goes on the goal. We had some friends from Toyota at the game and connected them with Coach Granato and Coach Chelios during the game. Afterwards Ben Smith and I joined them for dinner. Following dinner, we met up with some friends from NBC Sports and our new best pal, Katie Couric.

I was able to make the rounds a bit in the Olympic Plaza to see some figure skating and check out the park. Everything is brand new and looks phenomenal. The buildings are great but they haven’t quite figured out the whole concessions thing.

The men had their picture day so there are a few shots of that on here. I met a Columbian speed skater who has Red Sox skate blade cover-what a world.

Feb. 10: All of our men’s team have arrived, so things are in full swing here in South Korea. Five guys made it in on Wednesday night and the attached photo shows Mark Arcobello giving you his best Blue Steel. After a long day of travel, our five coaches and almost all of our players pulled in to the Village after 11pm on Thursday night and they went straight to the dining hall. The attached pictures of them at the dining hall are from Friday morning’s breakfast - they were in much better spirits! And here’s a random dining hall fact…they only have blue Powerades - no other colors.

After an adventurous bus ride that had yours truly using his best Korean to navigate to the arena, the guys pulled in to the locker room to get ready for practice. The locker room looks awesome and the guys had a great skate. After practice, Coach Granato spoke to the entire team and staff about JJ. It was perfectly done and we all can feel Jimmy’s presence with us.

After practice we had a get together with both of our teams that was tremendous. We met at the USOC’s Performance Services Center around lunch time so the players could get to know each other. Then both coaches, both captains and Chris Chelios spoke to the group. It was really cool to watch everyone interact with their fellow Team USA teammates.

Feb. 8: A great couple of days here…primarily because Scooter (Scott Aldrich) and his crew made it to the Village! And with their arrival, my eating habits in the Village have totally gone south. The dining hall is incredible and you can’t even escape the golden arches in South Korea. 

We made it to the rinks over the past two days and ran in to one of our favorite ice makers, Don Moffatt. Our women’s team had a blast at picture day and were flying in their practice. Looking forward to their first game on Feb 11. The venues look amazing.

Finally, I watched Scooter and the guys set up our men’s locker room. Lots of moving parts to get everything ready for our players to arrive.

Good night from Gangneung!

Feb. 6: Hello from Pyeongchang, South Korea. I’ve finally arrived after a long travel day on Saturday/Sunday but ultimately made it to the Olympic Village around 10:30pm on Sunday night.

The living arrangements are typical of the Olympic Village, with 5 people to a suite-2 doubles and 1 single per suite. The US Olympic Committee decorated a bit so it was nice to walk in and see the TJ Oshie photo on the wall!

The South Koreans are very serious about removing your shoes before walking in to a room so we had 5 sets of slippers waiting for us.

The statue of the dancing white tiger is Soohorang, the official mascot of the Pyeongchang Winter Games. It’s sunny today but very cold.

I’ll post more later.