National Sports Center Blog

What Day is Today?

  

By Marie DeMars, NSC Media Intern

I woke up this morning slightly disoriented. I'd been working the past three days, so it shouldn't be Sunday or Monday. But I have the distinct feeling it's not Friday. Maybe Thursday? Shaking the sleepiness out of my brain, I realized it was Monday, and I was trying to catch up after working long days at Star of the North in St. Cloud.

For those of you who aren't familiar, the Star of the North Games is Minnesota’s annual Olympic-style amateur sports festival. Over the last two weekends, over 6,000 athletes from all over the state competed in 24 different sports. There was even a team there from Baudette, which is nestled along the Minnesota/Canada border.

Bartt Gevens (local director), Abby Maxon (intern) and Kathy Petron (soccer director) watch soccer - and Barclay's camera.

Three interns from the NSC plus Barclay, who is the State Games director in Minnesota, hauled two cars full of office supplies and team registrations to St. Cloud for two weekends in a row. It was a little more intense than your run-of-the-mill weekend tournament because we were hosting so many sports at one time in several different venues. Some of the most interesting competitions included the Family Eco Adventure Race, which we held in a granite quarry. Child/adult teams ran, biked, canoed and "orienteered" their way around the course. Also fun to witness was Carter Holmes, a Star of the North regular who returned after having a combined stroke and heart attack.

One of our gold medalists in track & field.

Seeing Minnesota's amateur sports community in action was a new experience for me. The infrastructure behind each sport proved sturdy, and the personalities of generous volunteers and directors made me hopeful that the spirit of the games has a long life ahead of it. We're lucky to have such a vibrant group of athletes, too. From lacrosse to disc golf, Minnesota's youth and adults are getting out there and playing games. Being a part of that was worth not knowing what day of the week it is. (It is Monday, right?)

See oodles more photos here in our galleries on the Star of the North homepage.

At the NSC the grass is greener!

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

Scott Seroka, a reporter with KARE-11 News, the Twin Cities' NBC affiliate, was here at the NSC yesterday doing a story on how the NSC's turf-maintenance department is dealing with this year's draught in Central Minnesota. If you don't live in the Twin Cities, you'll need to know that we are nearly six inches below normal for rainfall this year. Last year at this time, we were about ten inches above normal, so that's a big swing.

Neil Ladd, the NSC's Director of Turf, and Curt Conkright, our Turf Superintendent, appear in the story.

The segment ran during the evening news on June 24, but you can watch the segment online by clicking here. Below: the sprinklers on the Victory Links 18th fairway show their stuff on the KARE-11 report.

When Scott originally called me to say they wanted to do that story, I initially thought, boring story! But the finished piece came out pretty good, and when Neil got on camera, he came up with some pretty interesting facts about the NSC's irrigation system. Here's just a sampling:

The NSC has over 75 miles of irrigation pipe underground.

There are about 2,000 sprinkler heads on the campus, split about 50/50 between Victory Links golf course and our athletic fields.

At peak flow, we can put 750,000 gallons of water onto our golf course in a single night. (We always water at night to reduce evaporation.)

Our irrigation system is computer controlled, and we only water when we need to. If there's sufficient rainfall on a given day, the system won't waste water.

Our irrigation system is self-contained. We draw all the water we need from three retention ponds on the campus, that are all linked by ditches and channels. The ponds are filled by rainwater, water run-off from neighboring areas and run-off from the water we use for irrigation. No city water is used for irrigation. As Neil says, "We're off the grid."

The NSC takes a lot of pride in running an environmentally friendly turf-maintanance department. Whether it's water conservation or the responsible application of chemicals, it's a mission we take really seriously.

And in case you're worried, we expect all of our soccer fields will be nice and green for the opening day of Schwan's USA CUP on July 17.

These Teams are so 80s

By Marie DeMars, NSC Media Intern

 

Finally, I finished rifling through the pages of 25 Schwan's USA CUP programs! I was looking for clubs who have been with us for our entire history. I typed them all in Excel, clicked "sort" and here they are:

Anoka Tornadoes               Blackhawks SC

Blaine SC                           Bloomington Youth    

Burnsville Fire SC             Coon Rapids Soccer Assn.    

Eagan Traveling Soccer     North Suburban Soccer Assn.

St. Croix SC                       Valley United SC                    

White Bear SC                   

A congratulatory "horray" for them! They've been coming back since 1985, when there were 68 teams. They went to opening ceremonies at the dome in '88, played at the brand new National Sports Center in '90, waded through soggy fields the year of the "flood," cheered for Pele (both times), and bought Umbro, adidas and PUMA gear. They've helped make each year great.

Here's to another 25 years of new friends, cool gear and great soccer.

Video Intern Makes History

By Marie DeMars, NSC Media Intern

Media is a team effort at the NSC, but as the designated blogger, I’m kind of the only one you see. Against human nature, I’m going to share the spotlight and introduce you to Eric, the video intern.

Eric Swanson comes to us from the University of North Dakota, where he will be a senior in the fall. He is majoring in broadcast communication and worked on his university’s TV show, Studio One, for a year. He was a sports reporter, technical director and audio operator for the weekly cable news show, and I have to say it’s pretty classy. Trust me; I watched his episode covering RC Car Races.

Eric editing video at the MAC.

In addition to “lots of sports reporting,” Eric has done smaller, documentary-type projects under his own initiative. That will come in handy because Eric is the lead producer on a fun project we came up with to celebrate the SCHWAN’S USA CUP 25th Anniversary: a video history series! It will have several short segments covering themes such as the original idea behind the tournament, memorable moments and technology at the tournament.

Eric wants to use the project to capture personal stories from many integral volunteers and staffers, and he hopes it will show “interesting little things that people don’t realize when they come here.” The videos will be comprised mainly of interviews, or as Eric said, “I get to talk to all the head honchos.”

There is no release date for the videos yet, but watch for more details in July. In the meantime, view back episodes of Studio One, and catch up on NSCtv, which Eric currently helps produce. His summary of the work: “I get paid to sit and edit video. I love that stuff.”

What happens here doesn't stay here!

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

"What happens here, doesn't stay here."

Besides being a take-off on the old Vegas marketing slogan, that's a slogan that we in the National Sports Center's media department have started to use as a driving philosophy in many of our media projects.

Here's what that slogan means to us: the teams, families and athletes who travel from around the world to stay and play at the NSC don't leave their experiences on the turf and ice of the NSC. They take their stories, pictures, memories and personal growth experiences back home to share with family and friends who couldn't make the trip. For every single person who travels to play in an event at the NSC, who know there are many more watching and listening for phone calls, texts, tweets, photos and emails sent home by the players and fans here.

My personal feeling is that because we're mostly about youth sports here (sorry adults, I know you're out there too), the stories and experiences from NSC events are shared more passionately, and they sometimes live on, often for a lifetime.

That's also why the NSC has created so many new media products to help everyone here share their experiences with all their family and friends who can't make the trip, giving everyone a little window on what happens here. There's NSCtv, our weekly video show; Kick TV, the daily video show that runs only during Schwan's USA CUP; and NSCwebcast.tv, our live webcasting service that broadcasts selected events live year around. There's also photo galleries of scenes from our larger events, and new this summer a Schwan's USA CUP Twitter account.

And then there's all the media coverage the NSC gets from hometown media covering their local teams. We track that coverage as best we can, and we're always amazed at huge number of impressions we get all over the country and the world. A lot of it is in smaller community weeklies, but it still adds up big time.

I thought about this just today, when I got a Google News feed to a lengthy article in the Northeast Arkansas Times. What happened here that would capture the attention of a mid-sized paper in Arkansas? Well, the Fayetteville High School ultimate team traveled to the NSC on May 16-17 to play in the Ultimate Players Association High School Western USA Championship, where they joined 27 other elite high school ultimate teams from all over Western half of the U.S. The team lost all three of their games, to teams from Kansas, Minnesota and Washington State. But they still got a big article in their hometown newspaper, and the National Sports Center and Blaine, Minnesota got mentioned too.

What happens here, doesn't stay here. It's true.

 

Ready for 2011? A big year for ice events at NSC

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

2011 is two years away, but Pete Carlson, the Ice Arena Operations and Programs Director at the Schwan Super Rink, has reason to be pumped up for the clock to run fast.

The National Sports Center recently learned that we have been awarded three big national/international ice-sport events that will happen in a four-month period of time. Here's a rundown of the schedule.
April 1-3
2011 USA Hockey Disabled Hockey National Festival - 60+ teams
Programs will be divided into four disciplines - standing/amputee, deaf/heard of hearing, sled, and special hockey. 
 
April 6-10
2011 USA Hockey Girls and Women National Championship - 60+ teams
The NSC hosted this event in 2001.  We will host the best female hockey athletes from around the country.
 
July 24-31
2011 ISI World Figure Skating Championships
The NSC hosted this event in 2000 and 2004.  This event will bring recreational skaters and upper level skaters together in one location.  This is ISI's most prestigious event and will bring more than 1,500 participants to the NSC.

Once again, the world's largest ice arena with eight sheets of ice, proves it's also the world leader in hosting big events.
 

A New Gold Standard

By Marie DeMars, NSC Media Intern

This blog is the third installment of a series introducing the teams of the PUMA vElite tournament. The vElite group aims to increase the caliber of competition at the USA Cup, and the teams are hand-picked and then invited to play during the USA Cup Weekend tournament.

Charlotte United 92 Gold has been playing in North Carolina since 1995 and is now the largest classic soccer club in that state. What sets them apart is their work on the finer points of soccer: Team leader Rob Dalton notes United has a history of producing “technically good college players.”

The team may be on sound footing technically, but Dalton knows that the style of play depends on what the players bring to the field each game. When I asked him in an e-mail to give a short description of his team’s style, he joked: “That depends upon which 92 Gold team decides to turn up that day!” Overall, he wrote, the players have developed a great ability to play on the counter attack, and they try to play the ball on the ground.

Even a non-soccer girl like me can see the United will be tough to beat. Check out their wins this season: undefeated at Disney, Jefferson, Mathews Invitational and Julian Brown. But that’s not the only reason to head out to their games. Dalton said in his e-mail this will be a brand new 92 Gold team, as several of the season’s starters moved on to play at the USSF Development Academy.

The team will also include four U15 players competing in U16 for the first time at the tournament. “This will be the very first time these guys have played together … keep your fingers crossed,” Dalton said.

Will the younger guys find their groove? Will the new starters start it out right? Come to their games and find out!

Just Shoot Me

By Marie DeMars, NSC Media Intern

No. The internship is not going so poorly that I need someone to put me out of my misery. (My boss reads these, blogs, you know.) The title is referring to shooting with a video camera, which is what we were up to today.

 

Eric Setting up our outside shooting location.

There will be more details to follow on the footage we’re gathering, but I wanted to share with you a specific story from today. Tom Spindler, first class volunteer in charge of gift packing, came out talk with the media team about the Schwan’s USA CUP’s 25-year run. His job is to organize the tons of gifts we get for the teams, which can amount to two semis full of goods. He forms the volunteers into a big assembly line, and they go down the row collecting water bottles, T-shirts, Breathe-Right strips and whatever else someone wanted to sponsor. (One year, everyone got Slim-Jims.)

Tom (left) talking with Eric at the interview.

Tom’s been doing this for 10 or 12 years now, but this is his last one. He’s decided to retire and enjoy the tournament in a different capacity next year. When we asked him what he’ll miss the most, he stopped. With effort, he spoke. He said sometime during the cup, take a minute. Walk up to the deck of the Schwan’s Center or the top of the stadium and look out over the tournament. Everything you can see and hear and feel, that’s what he’ll miss.

We are lucky to have people like Tom, who volunteer so kids can get this incredible experience. And this Schwan’s USA CUP, I'm going to walk to the top of those stadium stairs and look out at what he’s worked so hard for. Maybe I’ll see you up there.

No Sleep for Brooklyn

By Marie DeMars, NSC Media Intern

 

 

This blog is the second installment of a series introducing the teams of the PUMA vElite tournament. The vElite group aims to increase the caliber of competition at the USA Cup, and the teams are hand-picked and then invited to play during the USA Cup Weekend tournament. Today we’re off to New York to meet the Brooklyn Italians.

 

Founded in 1949 by Italian-American immigrants, the Brooklyn Italians is the oldest Italian-American soccer club in the United States. I'm excited to see its U16 team compete in the PUMA vElite tournament and find out if the players’ “forza” (strength) can bring them out on top.

 

In addition to cultural history, the club has a winning past. It won the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup twice, in 1979 and 1991, and has produced many MLS players, most notably Shalrie Joseph; Juan Carlos Osorio, current New York Red Bulls coach; and Carlos Llamosa, Chivas USA assistant coach.

 

The Brooklyn Italians will have a chance to make their mark at SCHWAN’S USA CUP, and coaching director Maciej Sliwinski said the team is getting geared up. “Our goal is to have a strong showing at the SCHWAN’S USA CUP,” he wrote in an e-mail. “We had a pretty successful season so far: first place in CJSL (league) and finished with two ties and one loss at Dallas Cup.

 

Even with a great record, the Italians can’t rest now, with the tournament just over a month away. That shouldn’t be a problem, since Sliwinski said the team’s always on the offense. “We are a possession type team that always tries to attack, with emphasis on wing play,” he wrote.

 

All Brooklyn Italian teams play in the Cosmopolitan Junior Soccer League of Eastern New York. In addition, they enjoy some great travel benefits: Brooklyn Italians regularly competes in Italy, in the “Memorial Claudio Sassi,” and international travel is encouraged. Some teams have even trained with elite teams from Italy. Take it from a traveling girl, this deal is “molto bello.”

25 Years of Soccer Dreams Come True

 

 

 

By Marie DeMars, NSC Media Intern

 

When I started this job, I had heard of the Schwan’s USA CUP, and I even know a couple kids who play in it. But I’ve never been to it, I didn’t know where they held it and I certainly had no idea how many teams come to play from all corners of the world. Staffers love to share stories and fun facts, and now my brain is swimming with information. Seriously? We have 978 teams, 16 countries and 28 states worth of players, families, refs, coaches and fans come to Blaine, Minn., to play soccer? That’s pretty sweet.

Since we’re celebrating our 25th anniversary this year, I’ve been looking back through the old programs and trying to wrap my mind around what the week will look like and how it will feel. Skimming through the $2.00 souvenir program from 1988, I found myself inspired. Here’s what it had to say:

Young athletes learn that the world is much larger than their hometowns and what happens in other countries affects the rest of us. “Essentially, I think the tournament opens young people’s minds to the possibilities life has to offer and allows them to dream," said Kris Bjerkness (director of USA CUP at the time).

I’ve traveled abroad, and the best thing that I could wish for you is that moment when you realize how big your world could be if you let it. When you meet kids who came from Mexico and England and Japan to play soccer, I hope you see how far your own dreams can take you. So come to the cup, make some new friends, and expand your world a little … or a lot.

Schwan’s USA CUP, presented by PUMA: Bringing soccer players together since 1985.