Meet the United States Youth Olympics Hockey Team

the first ever youth winter olympics start today in Innsbruck, Austria today. I’ll have fairly comprehensive coverage of the proceedings, starting today with a look at the US boys U-16 Hockey Team.

Goalies

Logan Halladay (Cary, North Carolina) – Halladay plays for the Junior Hurricanes, and took part in the prestigious Strelow Camp last year, where he was reportedly very impressive. He has been described as a very good butterfly goalie who also is great on his skates.

Edwin Minney (Wind Gap, Pennsylvania) – Minney also took part in the Strelow Camp, and had a .928 save percentage at a USA Hockey invite camp in New York.

200 Days To Go!

Well, technically it’s 199 now, but yesterday London marked it being 200 days until the 2012 Summer Games with a cabinet meeting at Olympic Park. Prime Minister David Cameron noted that both the Aquatics Center (or, Centre) and Handball Court will be owned beyond the Olympics thanks to new ownership agreements.

Chief Organizer Sebastien Coe noted that there was still some work to be done on the overall atmosphere, noting that he “never wanted an athlete telling me that he did not make a final because the Olympic Village did not create the right atmosphere, or he did not get the right service or the transport did not work.”

When the Opening Ceremonies commence on July 27th London will be the first city to host the Olympics three times.

Kurt Angle Wants To Make a Comeback

Kurt Angle, who is probably best known for his exploits in the WWF, wants to make a comeback to real wrestling. That’s right: the 43 year old is going to attempt to make the 2012 US Olympic team. Angle is actually an incredibly accomplished wrestler, winning the heavyweight division of the freestyle wrestling event at the 1996 Games in Atlanta.

Angle also has numerous other wrestling exploits, winning a Junior World Championship, an NCAA national championship and the 1995 World Championship.

The United States had one medal winner, a bronze from Adam Wheeler, but that was in Greco Roman wrestling. Angle will be attempting to make the team in freestyle, where no American finished in the top 18 in 2008. He’ll have to win the qualifying event in April in Iowa City to make it, but he seems optimistic about doing just that.

Denver May Try To Right 1976 Wrong And Bid For 2022 Games

Denver won the rights to the 1976 Winter games, but in 1972 the public decided to not devote public funds to the games, which resulted in the IOC moving the games to Innsbruck. Now almost 50 years later Denver might want a re-do:

the first meeting Saturday of a committee exploring a new Olympic bid. The group of Colorado business, health care, tourism and political leaders will consider whether Denver should bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Although competing cities will probably try to remind the IOC of the calamity caused by Denver in the 70s, there is only one remaining member from those days, so many of those concerns should be long gone.

The time might be ripe for an American games as well: it has been since 2002 since the United States hosted an Olympic games, which would be 9 games between visits to America. It would also be four games in between Winter Games in America. The longest stretch is five, but that includes when the Olympic calendar was switched, alternating the winter and summer games to every two years, which forced winter games in both 1992 and 1994. That, plus how well run the Salt Lake City games were (absent the bribery scandal) would probably make Denver the favorite in 2022.

Instead of Synchronized Swimming, You Get To See Usain Bolt!

In an awesome gaffe, London organizers accidentally oversold tickets to the Synchronized Swimming competition to the tune of, oh, 10,000 tickets. I am assuming this means they sold a total of 10,010 tickets, but I digress. (the actual mistake was about twice more than should have been sold). So instead, they’ll get upgrades to events they previously applied for but were unsuccessful:

The alternate tickets will come from the pot of 1 million for all events that are to go on sale in May once the seating configuration has been finalized at all venues.

Some ticket buyers took to Twitter on Wednesday to reveal their delight at the administrative blunder.

“Just exchanged our Olympics synchronized swimming tix for men’s & women’s medley finals & freestyle finals,” London-based author Stella Duffy tweeted. “Sorry synchros, but woo hoo!”

About 200 more people will get to see the 100m dash final, which, given that it lasts under 10 seconds, doesn’t seem like a major upgrade, but what do I know.

This isn’t the first ticket snafu, as in July 2011 around 700 people were charged twice for tickets they had purchased.

Former USOC Boss Moves To The College Hockey World

Former USOC boss Jim Scherr is expected to be named the first ever commissioner of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, according to a Colorado Springs Gazette report. I posted my reactions to the hockey side of it earlier today, and here is what I said about his Olympic credentials:

The South Dakota native was a national champion wrestler at Nebraska and finished 5th at 198 pounds in the Seoul games. Scherr became the USOC head after the fallout of the Salt Lake City bribery scandal, and oversaw the most successful period in Olympic history, as the US broke a record for medals won in an Olympics without a boycott in 2008 with 110. They also won 25 medals in Torino in 2006, the most medals they had won in a European winter Olympics. They then shattered their “road” Olympics medal high winning 37 in Vancouver. The 9 golds each in 2006 and 2010 are a US record for a Games not on US soil.

It wasn’t all sunny for Scherr (pun alert!) during his tenure, but if he does as well as he did with the USOC the NCHC should be in good hands.

Ted Ligety Wins Giant Slalom Gold

Ted Ligety has given the United States its first gold medal at this years alpine skiing world championships. Ligety, who won the combined event a tthe 2006 Olympics in Torino, won the giant slalom by just .08 seconds over Cyprien Richard of France.

The course in Germany was apparently under extremely declining conditions and it was tough to eve get down the hill, much less do it as quickly as Ligety did. Ligety was in fourth after his first run, but made it up in his second. His combined time of 2:10.56 edged Richard and Philipp Schoergerhoefer of Austria by just .43 seconds. Aksel Svindal of Norway was fourth.

 

Vonn Skips Downhill Won By Marchand-Arvier

Lindsey Vonn skipped the downhill at the Alpine Skiing World Championships, and France’s Marie Marchand-Arvier. Arvier’s time of 1:51.23 defeated Lara Gut of Switzerland by just .2 seconds. Ingrid Jaquemod, the oldest woman in the field at 32 years old, finished third.

The highest placing American was Laurenne Ross in 6th. Julia Mancuso was 12th and Stacey Cook was 18th.

Vonn is still recovering from a crash she had in training for this event, and is struggling with concussion symptoms. She took a practice run today, but only because it was a pre-requisite for her to continue to be eligible for the rest of the world championships.

West Ham Wins 2012 Olympic Stadium Bid

The OPLC (Olympic Park Legacy Company), in a bit of  a shocker (to me at least) has decided that their favored bid for the 2012 Olympic Stadium is that of West Ham, instead of Tottenham.

The main selling point seems to be that West Ham will keep the track and allow the stadium to host both track and field events as well as other sports and entertainment events as well after the 2012 Olympics are over.

Apparently Tottenham were going to take down the stadium and build a new one to house their soccer team, Tottenham Hotspur, after the games. That seemed to be a sticking point, as a BBC poll found that 81% of the Londoners were in favor of keeping the track.

For more read the BBC’s report

Lindsey Vonn Might Miss the Rest of the World Championships

The alpine skiing world championships have begun in Germany, but a notable name could be missing from the rest of the event. Lindsey Vonn injured her head in a fall while training in giant slalom last week, before finishing 7th in Super G.

Vonn is more than likely going to skip her next event and could skip the rest of them as well. She is ranked 2nd in the overall world cup standings, and would likely be a favorite in the rest of her races, as she won the only super-combined race held so far this year, and she of course is the Olympic gold medalist in the downhill.

Vonn’s husband has said the course is both “overdone and dangerous”