National Sports Center Blog

Webcasting Schwan Cup at the Xcel Energy Center

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

This week the NSC holds our annual Schwan Cup high school hockey tournament. This year is the 9th edition of Minnesota's top high school holiday tournament. Sixty-four varsity teams -- half boys and half girls -- are playing at five different arenas around the Twin Cities.

The marque division each year is the boys' gold division, which plays at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, home of the Minnesota Wild. Eight of the top teams in the state are playing in this division, including four of the top five-ranked AA teams in the state (Minnetonka, Hill-Murray, Blaine and Holy Angels), and the top-ranked A team (St. Thomas Academy).

 

The NSC's in-house webcasting service, NSCgamecast.tv, is broadcasting all the games at the Xcel Center all week. The Xcel Center's video team is also picking up our web camera feed to broadcast on the big screen at the arena.

Photos: Above (L to R), cameraman Kevin Johnson, producer Jake Frantzen, play-by-play team Jeff Huffman and Joe Moore broadcast the quarterfinal matchup between St. Thomas Academy and White Bear Lake on NSCgamecast.tv Monday afternoon. Below, Kevin Johnson's expert camera work is fed to the Xcel's big screen.

 

US Women's Olympic Hockey Team announced

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

The 21 members of the 2010 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team were announced on December 17 in a big ceremony at the Mall of America. The team has been training at the Schwan Super Rink on the NSC campus since August, and will continue to train at the NSC leading up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games.

 

Above: Red, white and blue streamers at the team announcement.

There are several ways you can participate with the team and support their quest for the gold medal. All practices are open to the public. The team practices on rink 6 at the Super Rink. In a partnership with the players, the NSC has created a Fan Club that will hold special events for you to meet the players.

 

L to R: Olympic team members Julie Chu, Jocelyn Lamoureaux and Kerry Weiland. Chu and Weiland were also members of the  National Team Residency Program at the NSC last year. 
 

Click here to get all the information on the team's practice schedule and to find out how you can join the Fan Club.  

U.S. Women's National Team volunteers for Blaine FD Food Drive

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

For more than 30 years, every December, the Spring Lake Park-Blaine-Mounds View Fire Department has been taking their trucks into the neighborhoods around the NSC to collect non-perishable food for community food banks. Last year they collected more than 14,000 pounds of food.

On December 7, eight members of the U.S. Women's National Hockey Team, which is training at the Schwan Super Rink at the NSC, volunteered to ride the trucks and help collect food. The effort was sponsored by the U.S. Women's National Team NSC Fan Club, which is helping to coordinate the team's community service projects as they train at the NSC in preparation for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games.

 

National Team Santas Gigi Marvin, left and Julie Chu flank Angela Ruggiero as the players stay warm inside station 3 before heading out for the food drive. 

Volunteering last night were Brianne McLaughlin, goalie from Sheffield Village, Ohio; Molly Schaus, goalie, Natick, Mass.; Angela Ruggiero, defense, Simi Valley, Calif.; Julie Chu, forward, Fairfield, Conn.; Hilary Knight, forward, Hanover, N.H.; Gigi Marvin, forward, Warroad, Minn.; Karen Thatcher, forward, Blaine, Wash.; and Jinelle Zaugg-Siergiej, forward, Eagle River, Wis. Marvin and Chu got the honor to play Santa Claus and ride on the top of two fire trucks.

 

National Team players Karen Thatcher, left, and Hilary Knight live every kid's dream - riding on a fire truck! There's a reason the players are dressed as Arctic explorers; the temperatures dropped into the teens.
 

 

 

Team USA signs autographs at AAG Hockey

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

The Schwan Super Rink at the National Sports Center hosted the All-American Girls and Women's Hockey Tournament, November 19-22. Five members of the U.S. Women's National Hockey Team signed autographs at the tournament. The National Team is based at the NSC as it prepares for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

U.S. Women's National Team members (L to R) Molly Engstrom, Meghan Duggan, Karen Thatcher, Kerry Weiland and Julie Chu sign autographs for young fans. 
 

It's appropriate that some of the best women's hockey players in the world supported the AAG Tournament. When it started in 1993, the AAG Tournament was rare as a female-only hockey tournament. Now 17 years later, the tournament is the largest female tournament in the U.S. The growth of the tournament has very-much paralleled the boom in girls' hockey.

Many of the players currently on the National Team hadn't even started playing hockey when the AAG Tournament began. Some of the younger players don't even remember a time when there weren't girls' teams available for them to play on.

But progress like that doesn't happen by accident, and it's great that the National Team supported an event that helped pioneer the road for them to play the sport they love -- women's hockey.

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.
 

U.S. Women's Hockey Team (otherwise known as "our team") takes gold!

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

As many of you know, the U.S. Women's Select Hockey Team has been living and training at the Schwan Super Rink at the NSC since last September. Ten members of that USA Hockey Residency Program made up the core of the U.S. National Team that defeated Canada last Sunday, 4-1, to win the Women's World Championships in Finland.

The members of the team in the Super Rink Residency Program that played in the gold medal team are Caitlin Cahow, Lisa Chesson, Molly Engstrom, Angela Ruggiero, Kerry Weiland, Julie Chu, Natalie Darwitz, Jenny Potter, Megan Van Beusekom and Karen Thatcher.

I hope you'll excuse all of us on the NSC staff, but we're pretty proud of this team. None of us took the ice against Canada, but we like to brag that this is "our team."

The photo above shows two of the players who've moonlighted to help our media efforts at the NSC this season. Angela Ruggiero, left, did color commentary for NSCwebcast broadcasts during Schwan Cup last December; and we've used Caitlin Cahow, right, as a pretty regular correspondent on NSCtv episodes that covered the National Team.

And it's only going to get better. After a brief off-season break, the women will reconvene at the Schwan Super Rink in August for the Olympic selection camp, after which they'll make their home at the NSC again. And this time the big goal will be the Olympic gold medal in Vancouver in 2010.

If you're interested in getting some behind the scenes stuff on this great team, and their great story, check these links out:

Caitlin Cahow, a self-described "proud member" of the Residency Program has written a great blog all season long. Click on the link to read her fantastic journal after winning the championship.

Click here to watch the latest episode of NSCtv, our weekly video show about things happening at the NSC. We have a segment about the team's big win.

NSCwebcast to broadcast two USA Women's Select Team games

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

The National Sports Center (NSC) and USA Hockey announced that NSCwebcast, the NSC’s webcasting department, will provide live internet broadcasts of two U.S. Women’s Select Hockey Team games in December. The U.S. Team will play Ohio State at 10:00 am on Sunday, December 14 and then face off against the Minnesota Whitecaps at 7:00 pm on Friday, December 19.

Both games will be played on rink #5 at the Schwan Super Rink.

Jeff Huffman and Joe Moore will share the play-by-play duties. Craig Roberts will provide color commentary for both games.

The games may be viewed by logging on to www.nscwebcast.tv. There is a $6.95 charge for each game.

The U.S. Women’s Select Hockey Team has been training at the Schwan Super Rink since September 8, utilizing the eight-sheet ice arena for on-ice practices and the strength and conditioning facilities of the Herb Brooks Training Center at the Super Rink. The team recently moved into a new locker room at the facility.

Historic AAG Hockey Tournament shows growth of female hockey

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

When the National Sports Center started the All-American Girls and Women's Hockey Tournament in 1993, just having a female-only hockey tournament was newsworthy -- and even controversial in some minds. That was back when girls had to fight, and sometimes threaten legal action, to get ice time at a reasonable hour of the day, or even at all. And most of the girls and women playing hockey had learned the game by playing on boys' teams.  

Fast forward to this weekend at the Schwan Super Rink, where 76 teams, with players ranging in age from under 10 over adult, are playing in the 16th annual All-American Tournament.

Most of the players skating this weekend weren't even born when the tournament began. Nearly all have had the option of playing for girls-only teams. And most don't even think it's unique that they're playing in an all-female tournament.

Below, the Roseville Raiders U10 team proudly shows off their bronze medals from this weekend's All-American Tournament.

In fact, when asked if she thought it was cool to be playing in an all-girls tournament, a player from the U12 Arizona Selects said, "Yeah, because the boys I play hockey with in P.E. class really suck at hockey."

So much for understanding historical landmarks. Let's just play hockey, and do a little trash talking too!

Below, the U14 Thunder Bay Queens' uniforms definitely set the style standard this weekend.

 

NSC-based players lead Four Nations Cup win

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

Congratulations to the U.S. Women's Select National Hockey Team, which won the annual Four Nations Cup championship game in Lake Placid, N.Y. this past Sunday.

The U.S. beat rival Canada 3-2 in the championship, in a game that went to the fourth round of an overtime shootout.

We have some hometown pride in this result because all three goals, and all assists, were made by athletes currently training at the Schwan Super Rink as part of USA Hockey's residency program at the NSC.

Erica McKenzie scored the winning shootout goal. Natalie Darwitz and Julie Chu scored the two regulation-time goals. Angela Ruggiero and Caitlin Cahow asisted on Darwitz's goal.

The Four Nations Cup matches the four power nations of international women's hockey -- Sweden, Finland, Canada and the U.S.

Check out Caitlin Cahow's blog about winning the tournament on the National Team's Facebook page. She describes what it's like to be at the bottom of the victory scrum.

The following photos were shot by Nancie Battaglia, and are taken from the USA Hockey website. To see more of her photos, click here.

 

NSC famous athletes are big stars in New York

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

A lot of famous athletes train and compete at the NSC. And this week some of them are making big news in New York.

 From 1991 to 1995, Kara Wheeler was a star distance runner for Duluth East High School. She won won state track championships at the NSC Stadium in 1993 and 1994 in the 3200 meters. She then went on to run at the University of Colorado, ran in the Beijing Olympics and now lives in Eugene, Ore. where she runs as Kara Goucher -- she's now married to fellow U.S. distance running star Adam Goucher.

On Sunday, Kara Goucher finished 3rd in the ING New York City Marathon. This was notable because not only was she the top-finishing American and the first on the podium at NYC in 14 years, her time of 2:25:53 the fastest-ever debut marathon by an American woman.

My second update is about the U.S. Women's National Select Hockey Team, which is currently training and in residence at the Schwan Super Rink at the NSC. Nine members of that team, with some college stars added, is playing this week in the Four Nations Cup in Lake Placid, N.Y. This tournament matches the four most powerful nations in women's hockey, U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland. The U.S. opens with a game later today (Tuesday, November 4) against Sweden. The championship game is Sunday, November 9.

Photo right: Minnesota hockey legend Natalie Darwitz is one of the members of the National Team training at the Schwan Super Rink who is in Lake Placid this week for the Four Nations Cup. Click here to read an article in today's Star Tribune about Natalie. There's also a nice video, that has footage of her practicing with the National Team at the Super Rink.