Olympic Miracle on Ice in Sochi Thanks to Former UMass Hockey Goalie Jonathan Quick With Help from T.J. Oshie

This morning I have been working on the presentation that I will be giving at the INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics  & Operations Research that will take place March 30-April 1 in Boston.  The speakers are to deliver their presentations in pdf format to INFORMS by February 24 and they will be distributed to the registrants.

But since the US was playing Russia in men's hockey this morning, live on television, I could not resist spending a few minutes watching the game which went into a thrilling overtime.

The US Olympic team goalie is none other than Jonathan Quick, who played on the UMass Amherst hockey team and we would enjoy watching him at our great Mullins Center.

 

And Jonathan Quick is not the only Olympian who was a student at UMass Amherst at these Winter Games in Sochi - Thomas Pock is as well and he is playing for the Austrian hockey team.  UMass produced the nice graphic above and you can read more about our former students in this nice press release.

Today's game against Russia was a thriller - it went into overtime and then, thanks to the former North Dakota student, T.J. Oshie, 4 of his 6 shots made it in!

Since my daughter was a competitive figure skater we spent a lot of time on various ice rinks, including the ones at Lake Placid, where the Miracle on Ice took place back at the 1980 Olympics with a relatively young US hockey team beating the Russians. 

 

My daughter even had a chance to skate with the Olympian Johnny Weir in an ice show at Lake Placid a few years ago and we met his mother. 

Weir is an announcer now at this Olympics in Sochi and is doing a great job (although the US men did not medal except for the bronze in the new team event (with women)).

Congrats to the Bruins!

I was in Boston yesterday and one couldn't help but notice all the Bruins hockey shirts that the fans were wearing. We did see one brave soul wearing a Canucks shirt.

Now it is official and the Bruins have captured the Stanley Cup with their win against the Canucks in Vancouver in the seventh game with a shutout score of 4-0!

Although I was born in Canada and am the mother of a figure skater and not of a hockey player, one can't help but be swept up by the celebrations in Massachusetts. Besides, as my daughter says, why can't the Canadians think of more appropriate names for their teams?

The Boston Globe has a great article on the Bruins' win and what it means for the fans -- bringing the Stanley Cup back after 39 years.

Boston will have the parade to honor the Bruins on Saturday at 11AM so be sure to watch it, either in person or on television.

Tonight we will be back at a skating rink since our daughter is preparing herself for another skating competition.

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver Come to an End

My daughter predicted what the score would be for the men's hockey final game today at the Olympics with a score of 3-2 even before the game started but she was expecting/hoping that the US would be the victor and get the gold medal. We watched the game until the US tied the game with 2-2 with only seconds remaining and did we cheer! Then the game went into overtime (but it was time to drive her to the rink where she teaches Basic Skills in skating and skates herself).

We heard the news when we returned home and saw the Canadian men's hockey team with their gold medals and the US men skating off the ice looking pretty dejected.

The New York Times already posted an article on this intense game, which concluded these 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. It also has a graphic of the medal talleys for various countries with the US garnering the largest number of medals with 37; Germany, in second place with 30, and Canada, in third with 26 (not bad for all that this country and its people invested in these games). In fact, Canada won 14 gold medals at these Olympics (the most of any country), whereas the US won 9, as did Norway, with Germany getting 10 gold medals. I was born in Canada so I am pleased that these games, overall, were quite successful and filled with many wonderful athletic memories.

At the same time, we saw tremendous courage in such athletes as Joannie Rochette, whose mother passed away in Vancouver just 2 days before Joannie skated her short program. Joannie, who is from eastern Canada, went on to win the bronze medal in women's figure skating this past Thursday. She is a true heroine and Olympian.

These Games were marred by the death of the Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili, at age 21, during a training practice run, just hours before the opening ceremonies.

Many of the male hockey Olympic medalists (especially the gold and silver medalists) will very soon be back with their NHL teams and the figure skaters will be getting ready to compete again in the 2010 World Figure Skating Championship that will take place in late March in Turin, Italy.

Busses from Massachusetts Off to the Vancouver Olympics

The 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada, begin in less than 3 weeks. The above mittens my daughter received recently from our friends in Vancouver, the Wassermans, whom we met in Stockholm, Sweden, when we lived at the Wenner Gren Centre, a housing complex for 150 families from across the globe, who are engaged in research. Dr. Wasserman was conducting research at the Karolinska Institute, the renowned medical research facility, whereas my husband and I were based at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). The Wassermans also visited us when we lived in Innsbruck, Austria, when I was on my first Fulbright.

Although we won't (regrettably) be traveling to the Olympics (either as spectators or athletes) there is a local story to this international athletic competition.

Amazingly, there are busses that will be used for transporting the athletes at the Olympic games that are from our area in Massachusetts. The Greenfield Recorder is reporting that the Kuzmeskus Bus company of Gill, Massachusetts, will be providing 6 bus drivers and 3 busses to shuttle the Olympians! The company is owned by the Kuzmeskus family. Their grandson, Trevor, was a classmate of my daughter's at the Bement School and I recall how the first school birthday party that she attended was at the bus garage for Trevor's 6th birthday.

Appropriately, Trevor is a hockey player and my daughter is a figure skater (when she is not engaged in other sports and pursuits).

There is, however, not only a transportation connection between our area and the Olympics. Jon Quick, a former star hockey goalie at UMass Amherst, has been selected to the US Olympic hockey team.

With the US figure skating national competition now completed in Spokane, Washington, the various US Olympic skating teams (men's, women's, pairs, and dance) have also now been identified.

We wish all the athletes, as well as their coaches, family members, friends, and the organizers of these Olympics exquisite competition and experiences!

Miracle on Ice and the Winter Olympics --15 Million Minutes of Fame

Today's Boston Globe has a feature article on Mike Eruzione in its Sunday magazine, complete with a cover photo. The article is entitled, 15 Million Minutes of Fame. As you may (or may not) recall, Eruzione scored the winning hockey goal in the Lake Placid Winter Olympics in 1980. The article covers the US winning the hockey gold medal by a team that was assembled by the coach, Herb Brooks, and the life that followed for Mike Eruzione. Some of you may have seen the movie, Miracle on Ice, that was based on this extraordinary team, their coach, and the series of victories that led to their gold medal. On January 15, 2009, we had the Miracle on the Hudson with the "safe" landing of the USAIR plane in the Hudson River by Captain Chesley "Sully"Sullenberger. Nice to reflect on the Miracle on Ice, as well, especially with the upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

We were at the Olympics training facility at Lake Placid two summers ago since my daughter, who is a figure skater, was training there. I thought that I would share the photos above which we took there, as we start to anticipate with a lot of excitement the upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, that begin on February 12, 2010. The photos include one of the tableau of medals given out at the 1932 Olympics at which Sonja Henie, the figure skater (and later medical doctor and motion picture star) excelled. The rink in the photo above is where the Miracle on Ice took place.