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)).

Figure Skating -- A Truly Unique Sport

With the blizzard of 2010 upon us and New England looking like a winter wonderland (albeit with major travel disruptions and even our trip to NYC rescheduled) I thought the time perfect to write about a truly unique sport -- that of the sport of figure skating.

My daughter donned her first pair of skates as a kindergartener at that fabulous school, the Bement School, in Old Deerfield, Massachusetts. Every winter, the husband of the head of the school, Ms. Shelley Jackson, Rob Jackson, would create an outdoor rink for the children to skate on and there, I suspect, my daughter's love of figure skating was born. Over several winters my husband would build a skating rink in our front yard where neighborhood children would learn to skate and parents and the neighborhood dogs would congregate to watch and have fun (yes, oftentimes, we even served refreshments).

Numerous figure skating lessons followed, along with skating competitions throughout New England, and performances in ice shows even at Lake Placid, where we have gone several times for my daughter to further train. When I was on a Fulbright in Innsbruck, Austria, and our home had a view of the 1964 Olympic ski jump, we brought the figure skates with us but the rink closed in March (we were told that the skaters there trained with weights until it reopened late in the Fall). Her second grade teacher, Frau Shwerma, taught the class to rollerblade, so we compensated with that.

Figure skating demands stamina, terrific balance, endurance, athleticism, and something which makes this sport truly unique -- musicality and artistry. And all of this while one is balancing on metal blades on the ice and trying to land after doing several jumps in the air! Figure skaters have tremendous discipline but many, for a variety of reasons, drop out of this sport. But for those who, sometimes through just sheer drive and love of the sport, continue, it can be used in numerous positive ways -- from entertainment of audiences to teaching the young skills and good sportsmanship.

Now my daughter is a teenager and still goes to school in historic Old Deerfield but at Deerfield Academy.

The above classic books she received from one of our wonderful neighbors recently when she delivered a plate of holiday cookies that we had baked.

The book in the collection, which intrigued me the most, is The Ancient Art of Skating by Robert L. Merriam, which was published by Deerfield Academy in 1957.

It begins with: The Ancient Art of Skating being a brief discussion of man's gliding on the ice from the earliest times to the present and including information about skates, dress, ladies, learning, figure skating, hockey and artificial ice.

Fragile Train Travel in NYC and Commuter Chaos vs. a Glorious Train Ride Through the Adirondacks

While my family and I were enjoying the beauty and serenity of the Adirondacks while spending several days in Lake Placid, there were several major transportation disruptions in the NYC area that affected train travel (the LIRR, New Jersey Transit, and even Amtrak) over two days.

Fascinatingly, as The New York Times article, "Amtrak Adds to Commuter Chaos in Region," reports:

The electrical travel chaos on the Long Island Rail Road on Monday offered a frustrating reminder of the fragility of a rail network still dependent on antiquated equipment.

Embedded along the railroad tracks by Jamaica Station, and soaked by rain from the night before, two or more cables shorted out around 11 a.m., the authorities said, sending a pulse of electricity into a nearby train control tower and setting fire to the century-old equipment inside.

It seems improbable that a piece of ancient machinery, a contraption of levers and pulleys designed in 1913, would be critical to the successful operation of one of the nation’s largest commuter railroads.

But the machinery, which remained on fire for about an hour, controls the 155 track switches at a crucial choke point: Jamaica Station, which 10 of the railroad’s 11 branches must travel through to get in and out of New York City.

With no way to direct trains onto their proper routes, railroad workers scrambled onto the tracks, spikes and mallets in hand, to lock the switches into place manually so that trains could travel by, a practice known in railroad parlance as “block and spike.”

For several hours, nearly the entire railroad ground to a halt.

The fragility of networks, from transportation to the Internet, and even supply chains and financial networks, was explored in our book, Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain World.

Above I feature photos taken at the spectacular station in Lake Saranac in upstate New York, where, in contrast, the Adirondack Scenic Railroad was working beautifully and ferrying tourists between Lake Place and Lake Saranac. The station is simply gorgeous and we felt as though we were transported to another era (which we were). My husband is a huge train buff but we all enjoyed the experience a lot from seeing the station outside and inside to viewing the turning around of the engine to reading the historic boards inside the station and even talking to the pleasant gift shop operator.

As for train travel from NYC, we were told that, in the late 1800s, one would leave NYC at midnight and then arrive in Lake Saranac at 4PM the next day. This Adirondack area was known for its restorative benefits for those with lung ailments and for "cures" for tuberculosis. There were even trains that ferried sick passengers. A notable resident of the area, who lived there for 7 months (and whose residence we also toured), was Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, among other works. He was born in Scotland and was very sickly (and a chain smoker). His wife credited the 7 months that they stayed at Lake Saranac as giving him 7 more years of life.

Figure Skating Olympians that We Have Actually Met

As the first figure skating medals at the 2010 Winter Olympics have been announced with the gold in pairs going to Zhao and Shen, a married couple from China, I thought it appropriate to share with my readers photos and reminiscences of some of the figure skating Olympians that we have actually met.

Above I have posted photos of Paul Wylie, the 1992 Olympic silver medalist in men's skating, taken at Harvard, of Sarah Hughes (the gold medalist at the 2002 Winter Olympics), after the Stars on Ice performance at the Mullins Center in Amherst with some members of the Skating Club of Amherst skaters, and of Johnny Weir with my daughter during a performance at Lake Placid in the summer of 2008, where she was training.

Paul Wylie, a graduate of Harvard, has been the leader behind the An Evening with Champions event at Harvard University, which takes place each year. It is an event that raises money for The Jimmy Fund, for cancer research. While I was a Science Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard in 2005-2006, my family and I went to this wonderful event and we got a chance to speak with Paul Wylie.

The inimitable Sarah Hughes, who has, since the above photo was taken, graduated from Yale University, and whose sister, Emily Hughes, is a student at Harvard and was an Olympic contender (who, unfortunately did not make the team this year) graciously posed with our local skaters for the photo above. Todd Eldridge, also a 2002 Olympian, but, unfortunately, not a medalist, also performed in the same show, and was fabulous.

As for Johnny Weir, who is competing in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, we met him in July 2008, on a rainy day, while walking on the main street in Lake Placid close to the Olympic training rinks (where the Miracle on Ice took place at the Lake Placid Games in 1980, that I have written about on this blog). Johnny Weir was walking with his mother and we stopped since he was immediately recognizable. Despite the rain, we chatted, and it was clear that the affection that he and his mother share is very special. Needless to say, when my daughter got a chance to skate in the same show as Johnny Weir, while training at Lake Placid, it was fantastic. The above photo was taken during that special performance.

We wish all the figure skaters competing in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver magnificent performances!

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.

The Science of Skating and Thanks to the Coaches

This past week, The New York Times had a fascinating feature article on the Science of Skating. The article focused on the program at the University of Delaware in which scientists are tracking the motions and movements of figure skaters with goals of improving performance while attempting to also minimize injuries from improper training, overtraining, etc. The NYTimes also featured an article on a skate sharpener in Connecticut named "George," who sharpens skating blades with precision and knowledge of the skaters' skills and level of skating. Some of you may be aware of the President of the University of Delaware, Dr. Patrick Harker, who was the former Dean of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and is well-known in the operations research and management science communities.

My figure skating skills are non-existent, but as the mother of a figure skater, I have been introduced to this magnificent, unique world of artistry, musicality, and intense athleticism. Plus, figure skating combines costumes, drama, competitions, training, and incredible discipline on the part of the skaters (and their coaches). Skating has opened up new friendships, taken us to places we may not have otherwise traveled to (such as Broadmoor and the Olympic training facilities in Colorado Springs and Lake Placid). We have also watched numerous ice shows from Harvard University's to our Amherst Skating Club's annual show at both the Amherst College rink arena and at the Mullins Center at UMass Amherst. Plus, we have had a chance to meet such Olympians as Sarah Hughes and Johnny Weir, whose kindness to the young skaters will always be treasured.

I wanted to take a moment to thank the coaches who have through their hard work and expert coaching steered the skaters in their individual directions to strive for their dreams. From skating coaches, to dance coaches, to off-ice coaches, and to all the volunteers who run the various skating clubs, I give a big Thank You!