Sunday, December 23, 2018

A whole new Olympic experience?

This blog has generally come alive around the Winter Olympics. Or at least when the credential applications and approvals for the Winter Olympics come into play.
However, as we sit in December of 2018, the next Winter Olympics, in Beijing, China in 2022, are a long way away. And the credential process is still more than a year and a half away. However, here we sit with a new post on the Olympics.
That’s because for the first time, I applied for credentials for the Summer Olympics, which will be held in the summer of 2020 in Tokyo, Japan. Having talked to many journalists who’ve covered multiple Olympics, the summer games not only feature more athletes and more events, but more journalists as well. Going into the process, I was not terribly high on my chances to receive credentials, but I figured just putting my name out there wouldn’t be a bad thing and if I didn’t get them, that was fine too.
A little more than a month ago I got a call on my office phone from Matt Pepin, the Boston Globe Sports Editor. I had the pleasure of meeting Matt in PyeongChang over the course of the Winter Olympics. He was truly one of the nicest guys you could possibly meet and he helped me make a few connections with local athletes that I wasn’t even aware of.
Anyway, Matt was calling to conduct my interview for the credential process. Prior to Sochi, my first Olympic experience in 2014, I was interviewed by a journalist from a newspaper in Buffalo. The idea is that experienced journalists do the interviews and pass along recommendations to the US Olympic Committee, which in turn assigns the credentials to members of the media. I spent some time talking to Matt and explained to him my situation and my plans. I was happy that Matt was my interviewer, since he had seen the work and hours I put in while in Korea and surely could convey that to the powers that be.
At the same time, I also made sure to tell him that I completely understood if I didn’t get credentials, since weekly newspapers are low on the list of priority for the credentials. He told me I’d hear by the end of the year.
Sure enough, just last week I received an e-mail from Peggy Manter of the US Olympic Committee, letting me know that the USOC had approved one credential for Salmon Press, meaning if I want it, I can be in Tokyo for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
I am excited for the opportunity, something that’s a little bit different. Instead of cold and windy, I have been told to expect hot and humid in Tokyo in July and August. But at the same time, there are a number of differences to deal with, something I learned when I downloaded the media manuals.
The first two Olympics I attended were in relatively “small” cities but this one will be in a huge metropolis. There will be no media village in which we all live, instead media will be housed in regular hotels around Tokyo. There will be the normal media transportation buses, but we will also get transit cards to use on the subway and trains, which from all accounts, are quite nice.
There is a little trepidation on my part, simply because I know the expense of attending the Olympics can be a bit much. However, I am also eager to see something totally different and to check out the Summer Olympics for once.

And I promise, if all goes as planned and I make the trip to Tokyo in 2020, I will take everyone along with me through stories, columns, blogs and photos.

Sunday, July 22, 2018

Live from the media center

New Hampshire International (now Motor) Speedway was my first real taste of big time sports. I put in for credentials for a race quite a few years ago and came down every year for quite a while. I missed a few years here and there, but I have been coming to Loudon at least once a year for at least a decade now.
The first year was fantastic, mainly because it was my first experience in a major sporting event and I was a big NASCAR fan. I came down for much of the weekend and had a ball walking through the pits and seeing the drivers and crew members at work.
It remains to this day one of the coolest feelings I've had while doing this job, that feeling I got the first time I drove through the tunnel and out into the infield of the speedway on a race day Sunday morning.
I still enjoy the NASCAR weekend because it's a chance to add to the regular high school coverage I do all year long. Going from the Granite Kid Triathlon on a Saturday morning to a legion baseball game on Saturday afternoon to the largest sporting event in New England the next day definitely shows the wide variety of events that I get to cover. And that's one of the biggest joys of this job.
As I sit here this morning, it is absolutely pouring outside the media center. I made a quick trip outside when I first started this morning, walking through the pits and garages. Perfect timing meant that I saw Patrick Chung get out of the pace car after he turned a few laps. Then I came back inside and attended a couple of press conferences, including Chung and Mike Reno, the lead singer of Loverboy, who did a pre-race concert at the speedway.
But otherwise, I've been using the time to get work done. I've written a couple of stories, wrote up my radio report for tomorrow morning and prepared pages for a couple of papers. It's basically a normal Sunday, except that I'm doing it in the comfort of the media center instead of sitting in my office.
No word yet on whether the race will be run (doesn't look good right now), but I'll continue to get work done until a decision is made or until the race is over.
Patrick Chung shows off the pace car with his name on it after taking a few laps.

Friday, June 29, 2018

Not a regular day

My job is not dangerous. And in my humble opinion, my job is not terribly important. Most of my job consists of me watching high school kids play sports and writing about those sports. Sometimes I cover younger kids. And sometimes I cover adults.
But what I do is not terribly exciting (Olympics aside) and doesn't provide much drama.
However, there are days when you think about what you do in a different light and certainly yesterday was one of those days. You see a shooting at a community newspaper in Maryland and you wonder if it might happen where you are. It forces you to think.
When our offices were in Wolfeboro, our office manager, Vicky, and I would have discussions after a shooting somewhere in the world, talking about the possibilities of it happening in our office. It wasn't something we expected would happen, but it was obvious that Vicky, who had much more experience in bigger newspapers than I did, had given it some thought and knew what her plan was if such a situation arose.
Truth be told, I could walk out of the office tomorrow and get run over by a speeding car. I could be driving to a game and get in an accident. There are ways that I could die on the job, but I think that's the same for just about anybody. But there are few people (military members and police officers aside), who expect that they could get shot when they go to work.
However, it seems that there is no safe place in the world these days. Elementary schools. Malls. Churches. Newspaper offices.
There are people who are going to blame one political party over another and I am not one of those people. The culture of mass shootings has existed in this country for many years, long before the current administration and the previous administration.
The country is at a point where many people on both sides of the aisle can't have respectful conversations with people on the other side. It's insane and it's causing a divide that will be tough to close, meaning even more and more divisiveness as we move forward. There are many people that I am friends with who have different political opinions than I do. And you know what, that's their right. They are allowed to have their opinions just as I am allowed to have mine. I don't insult their opinions and to the best of my knowledge, they don't insult mine. I respect the fact that they are passionate about their opinions, even if they are different opinions that what I tend to hold. You know why? Because we're adults. And adults should be intelligent enough to recognize that not everyone is going to agree with their opinion. Of course, not all adults are intelligent enough.
I do this job because I enjoy sports and I enjoy writing. I've thought about the possibility of moving on from this job for a variety of reasons over the years, but to this date, I'm still here. And if everything goes as planned, I'll probably be here tomorrow too.
Sadly, today, that can't be said for everyone who does my job.

Thursday, March 8, 2018

The routine returns

It was a quick jump back to reality after a two-week hiatus. It was really like I never left.
I got back on Sunday night and drove straight from the airport to the office and finished up all of my Sunday night normal work. By the time I got home it was after 1 a.m. and I got up at my normal 5:30 a.m. alarm and went to the gym, which may have been my first mistake. After not working out for more than two weeks, my muscles were so sore when I got up on Tuesday morning.
Luckily I didn’t have a game on Monday but I had to work at the other job and again got home well after 1 a.m. before getting up and going on Tuesday morning. Tuesday brought the first game in my return to the high school sports scene, as I headed to North Conway to see the Kennett hoop girls in the opening round of the Division II playoffs. The Eagles put on a good show and walked off the court with a win, meaning there would be at least one more game that week.
Wednesday night I headed to Wolfeboro for the Kingswood hockey boys in the quarterfinals of the Division II tournament. The Knights went to overtime, which made me a bit late for the second job, but it was worth it when they put the winning goal in the net in the extra session, meaning yet another game on the docket in the coming weeks.
Thursday I made the trip north to Cannon Mountain for the alpine Meet of Champions. The conditions were a bit icy, which can be good for racers but weren’t so great for my skiing purposes, though I did get a few runs in and it was good to get back on the skis and get my alpine pictures back in the swing of things. From Cannon, I traveled south on 93 to Plymouth, where I caught the Kennett and Plymouth hoop boys in the final regular season game.
The next night was another playoff hoop game, as the Kennett girls played in the Division II quarterfinals after their first round win earlier in the week. This time the result was not quite as good, but it was still a solid game to close out the season.
Saturday brought my final game of the week, as I headed to Conway to see the Kennett hockey team in the Division III quarterfinals. The Eagles rolled to the win and moved on to the semifinals.
Of course, this set up a bit of a predicament, as both the Kingswood and Kennett hockey teams are playing at the same time on the same day at arenas far away from each other (one in Exeter, one in Plymouth). OF course that’s just the way things goes.

It’s good to be back to normal.

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Back at it

Wow, that was a long day.
Those are the first things that cross my mind as I climb into bed at 2 a.m. on Monday, about 3.5 hours before I have to be out of bed again to get back to the gym and back to work.
The day was Sunday and it essentially lasted 38 hours. In South Korea on Sunday morning, I slept in a little bit and was off to breakfast before finishing up packing up all of my clothes and other belongings in preparation for leaving the place that I've called home for the last few weeks.
At 10:40 a.m. I was on the bus to the train station in Gangneung, where we were greeted by volunteers who helped get us to the proper train platform. The train took off for the Incheon Airport and a few hours later, I was stepping off the train and into the airport. After a quick lunch, I was able to find my way to the departure area and then a very nice young woman directed me to the Air Canada desks, where I checked my bag and headed to the right gate. My Olympic credentials got me in a shorter line through security and once through, it was easy enough to find the gate and eventually, board the flight.
The 12-plus-hour flight from Incheon to Toronto was much more successful than the flight from Toronto to Incheon, which was delayed by two hours on the tarmac. We landed in Toronto on time, weirdly enough not too long on the clock after we took off. After grabbing a little dinner, the next flight heads to Boston and home. But not before a moment of panic when I realized I didn't have my backpack on. I was able to track it down before someone reported it to airport security as an abandoned suspicious bag, which is good, since it contained pretty much everything I needed to get home.
We landed in Boston just after 8 p.m. and after I got my bags (which all arrived as well) and got to my car, it was after 9 p.m. and I was heading north toward Meredith and the office. To my pleasant surprise, the code on the door still worked and I walked into the office to find one of the packages I had sent from Korea already awaiting me.
But, that will have to wait to be opened until the next day. I got the work done and headed home after what surely was the longest day I've ever had.

Sunday, February 25, 2018

On the way home

We’re climbing past 7,000 meters, I have my headphones in listening to Rob Has a Podcast as we head out of South Korea toward Toronto.
Looking at the map on the screen in front of me, it makes me realize I am a long way from home and I have been a long way from home for a long time. This is obviously the second time I’ve been away for that long, coming after Sochi four years ago.
So, officially, as this gets posted, South Korea is in the rearview mirror and I’m either on my way home or already home when I post this.
There were a lot of things in PyeongChang that were different than Sochi four years ago, many of them good. As I fly away, I wanted to reflect on a few of those things.
One of the biggest differences was in my accommodations. In Sochi, I stayed in what was essentially a hotel, with a bed and a bathroom to myself. This time around, the accommodations were a bit different and it wasn’t really a bad thing.
Looking to make the trip as least expensive as possible, I booked a room in a three-bedroom apartment in the Gangneung Media Village. This meant that I was sharing an apartment with two other guys and was sharing a bathroom with one of them. I was a little concerned about this, because not knowing who I was rooming with made me nervous. When I checked in the first Friday night, there was nobody else there. I headed out to find the media work room and when I returned, I met one of my roommates. His name is Jeff Cable and he is a photographer from California who works for USA Hockey, taking pictures of the men’s and women’s hockey team.
It took me a while to meet the other guy in the apartment. His name is Ken and he worked at the sliding center mostly, running a blog on the sliding sports. However, back in the United States, he is also the track photographer for Martinsville Speedway.
They were both nice guys and made the accommodation situation easy. Like me, they were both pretty busy so there were very few times when we were all in the apartment at the same time.
Another good difference in South Korea had to be the distances to the venues, which was significantly shorter than in Sochi. While there were a few long bus rides, getting to and from locations took a lot less time, which meant that I actually wrote less on the bus than I did four years ago.
Perhaps the best different was the internet situation. I was able to do work from pretty much anywhere in PyeongChang, be it on the bus, in the Main Press Center or outdoors at the venues. I think my Instagram photos from all over the Olympics probably showed that, as I was able to post photos from pretty much everywhere. In Russia, it was pretty tough to get access to the internet, even sitting in the media center with the Ethernet cable plugged in.
Korea is officially in the rearview mirror and leaving is disappointing, but all good things must come to an end.