National Sports Center Blog

Happy Thanksgiving

By Colleen Bourdon, Recruiting Director

To our friends in the United States we wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with your family and friends. To our friends that participated in 2007 from around the world we wish you a wonderful celebration on your current holiday..

Brazil - November 15 - Proclamation of the Republic Day

Mexico - November 20 - Mexican Revolution Day

Costa Rica - December 8 - Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary

Canada - November 11 - Remembrance Day

Bermuda - November 11 - Remembrance Day

Japan - November 23 - Labour Thanksgiving Day

Ecuador - December 6 - Independence of Quito

Colombia - December 8 - Immaculate Conception Day

Guatemala - November 1 - All Saint's Day

Denmark - December 13 - Saint Lucy's Day

Finland - December 6 - Independence Day

Scotland - November 30 - St. Andrew's Day

France - November 11 - Armistice Day (no teams in 2007 and two wonderful French interns)

Tunisia - November 7 - New Era Day

Iceland, Sweden, Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Estonia - List no holiday until Christmas, how can this be - smile!

Sage and Malcolm skate to Midwest Sectional title

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

Congratulations to National Sports Center figure skaters Sage and Malcolm Kelner, who skated to the championship in the juvenile ice dancing division at the USFS Midwestern Sectionals over the weekend in Rochester Hills, Mich. Sage, 11, and Malcolm, 15, are from Minnetonka, but they have recently started skating at the Schwan Super Rink under NSC Skating School coaches Pamela O'Connor and Jonathon O'Dougherty, former British ice dance champions.

At the Midwestern Sectionals, Sage and Malcom won both their compulsory dance events and then finished 4th in the free skate. Those results were good enough to edge the second place pair, Mallory Detota and Thomas Ontko, of Strongsville, Ohio, 59.96 to 58.18.

The next event for Sage and Malcolm is the U.S. Junior Nationals in Salt Lake City, Nov. 26-Dec. 1. We'll update you on their results at that event here.

A Short Visit to Colorado

By Colleen Bourdon, Recruiting Director

What is team relations? 

Basically, Vicki Barnes and I are the two people at the National Sports Center that have the privilege of going out and meeting with soccer coaches, parents and players (sometimes we even add a hockey team or two into our schedule). We fly around the US and Canada ( even going to France on vacation this fall I could not pass up the chance to talk to soccer coaches about USA CUP and the National Sports Center) to meet prospective USA CUP soccer teams.

We love the opportunity to do these meetings and find most people like the chance to talk soccer with us. It is amazing how much soccer can vary from one state to another and region to region. 

Vicki and I just completed our annual whirlwind trip to Denver, Colorado and the surrounding suburbs.  We completed 17 meetings (in three days) with clubs that have either been to USA CUP or have an interest in coming to the tournament.  (Way to organize a trip Vicki!!)

Soccer in Colorado is very good and it seems like every club has business offices and executive directors or directors of coaching that manage them. These clubs are truly striving to develop players and give them excellent opportunities to be seen by other teams and college coaches. Many of these leaders consider USA CUP to be one tournament that should be on a player's resume.

Thanks Colorado coaches for opening your doors and welcoming us in. Thanks for all the positive feedback about your experiences at USA CUP and for your continuing support. Thanks to the club that has already set up a meeting with our sponsor, Puma, it is fun to connect good people to make great relationships happen.

Thanks to Dan and Jerry for letting Vicki and I continue to have USA CUP and the National Sports Center play such a major role in our lives.

Welcome Shea Terry, future Schwan's USA CUP radio ops director?

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

Every July, volunteers Paul and Nancy Terry direct the radio operations center at Schwan's USA CUP. This husband-wife team from Blaine, manage all radio communications during the tournament. It's a challenging job that demands long hours of work, a cool demeanor, rock-solid resistance to pressure, and a spot-on nose for irony. Their wry humor is most evident when the Terry's hand out demerits to the tournament staff for real and imagined violations of policies and procedures -- like failing to return cart keys, mangling the English language during radio calls, or ironically, being too well-behaved.

There's so much stress in Paul and Nancy's chosen volunteer job that we all realize they may decide to hang it up one of these years. So we were greatly relieved to learn before Schwan's USA CUP this summer, that the couple was expecting their first child. Now there would be a new member of the Terry family to take over when Paul and Nancy decide to retire -- a line of succession to the radio ops throne, if you will.

The heir apparent, Daughter Shea Cailin Terry, was born on October 27, 2007. Weighing 7 pounds, 7 ounces, she waited until 2:56 am to make her appearance, a choice of timing that promptly earned her a demerit from mom.

Today, Nancy stopped by the NSC offices for the first time since Shea's birth to show off our next Schwan's USA CUP Radio Ops Director. Of course Paul and Nancy would have to hang on for at least 20 years, until she's trained and ready, which gives all of us on staff plenty of time to rack up more demerits.

Below are two photos of Nancy, a soundly sleeping Shea, and Schwan's USA CUP director Teri Vogt.

A sad farewell to the "Frenchies"

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

On November 7, the NSC organized a staff happy hour to bid a sad goodby to our two French interns, Adrien Bequart and Camille Saliot. Affectionately known around the office as "the Frenchies," Camille and Adrien have been working full time at the NSC since May. After their six month stint here, the interns will return to college at Group ESC Rouen, the Rouen School of Management, which is located in the Normandy city of Rouen. Each has one more semester remaining in their business degree program.

Camille, left, and Adrien show off their NSC goodby gift bags, that included a PUMA soccer ball and various not-so-serious souvenirs culled from NSC storerooms, desk drawers and dark corners.

During their six months here, the pair worked primarily on Schwan's USA CUP, both during the event and in the months after in our recruiting department. They also learned about American football by working on our NSC Football Classic, where they met the Minnesota Vikings Cheerleaders. They co-hosted a very funny episode of Kick TV, the video journal of Schwan's USA CUP, where they searched the NSC campus for anyone (anyone!) who knew that July 14 was Bastille Day.

On July 14, Bastille Day, Camille and Adrien, shown here with Kick TV host Mike Woodley, quizzed Schwan's USA CUP players and fans about the French National Holiday.

They took Schwan's USA CUP marketing trips to Winnipeg and South Dakota, where they visited the Badlands, Mount Rushmore and the Mitchell Corn Palace.

In June, while participating in the annual Intern Cycling Day at the NSC Velodrome, Camille suffered a wipeout, which left him limping for a few days.

Camille gets up close and personal with the wood surface of the NSC Velodrome.

If you were one of the many NSC visitors and volunteers who met Camille and Adrien, and maybe even worked with them, we know you join us in wishing them the best. We're still hoping we can twist their arms to come back next summer to work Schwan's USA CUP.

Flu shot day at the NSC

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

"Staff Flu Shot Day" sounds like an episode of "The Office."

But that's what today was at the NSC. Express Healthcare, an NSC sponsor, was on campus to give free flu shots to the staff. Over 30 staff members took advantage of the service. We hope it'll keep all of us healthy through the winter flu season -- the better to serve our valued customers!

 

Express Healthcare's Lynne Hendrick delivers flu shots to Schwan's USA CUP Director Teri Vogt, top, and to your intrepid blog author. 

Cyclo-cross racing at the NSC Velodrome

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

The NSC Velodrome is one of the most unique facilities on our campus. For full information on the velodrome, click on the link. But the primer is this: a velodrome is a banked bicycle racing track. Our velodrome is a 250-meter wood track banked at 43 degrees in the turns. It's a beautiful track that has hosted the 1992 Olympic Trials and several National Championships.

But on November 4, it hosted a bike race where the riders didn't even ride on the track. Well, they did; but they didn't. How's that?

We hosted our first-ever cyclo-cross race at the NSC. Cyclo-cross is a hybrid sport that combines cycling and running. It's usually contested over courses that combine turf, dirt, gravel and maybe a bit of pavement. Some courses have steep hills, water crossings, and even jumps and barriers. Every cyclo-cross course requires riders to occasionally dismount and carry their bikes over jumps and up hills. And since cyclo-cross is a fall-winter season sport, many races are contested in rain, cold and even snow. You like getting muddy? Cyclo-cross is the sport for you! Although the NSC Cyclo-cross was contested on a dry sunny day, so the mud factor was minimal.

The cyclo-cross course at the NSC ran over the grass and ditches around the velodrome, fields U2 and U3, and once each lap entered the velodrome by the backstretch gate. After negotiating some barriers in the infield, the riders ran up the carpeted track surface and back out onto the bigger part of the course.

The NSC Cyclo-cross race hosted 175 riders in three divisions, riding races of 30 minutes to one hour. The results are linked here: A, B, and C.

Here's a sampling of some of the more than 600 race photos posted on http://www.skinnyski.com/. Thanks to Bruce Adelsman of Skinny Ski for his permission to reprint.

The racers started by riding up the paved path between the NSC Residence Hall on field U3.

Then they made a sharp right turn toward field U2, the NSC's Exhibition Field.

Mark Byrnes exits the infield part of the course, via the steep climb up the NSC Velodrome's backstretch.

 

Aric Hareland vaults over a barrier on his way to second place in the "A" race.