Quiet winter into a quiet summer

It's been an unusual high school season. Perhaps the most jarring part about all of it was the lack of fans in many gyms and arenas over the course of the winter.

Many schools were allowing a small number of fans, in most cases, a couple of fans per player from the home team. A few other schools allowed two fans per player from both teams. But there were a number of schools who were not allowing fans at all. The only people in the gym, besides the coaches and players were school officials and media members such as myself. This definitely took some time to get used to. It hit me the most at my first hockey game of the season, which took place at the Merrill Fay Arena in Laconia. Berlin-Gorham was in town for the game and the only people in the arena besides the coaches and players on the bench were a few Laconia-Winnisquam-Inter-Lakes parents who had been taking temperatures at the door, ADs from the schools, arena staff, the Berlin-Gorham bus driver and a couple of Berlin-Gorham players who weren't dressed. And me.

Probably one of my favorite quotes of the season came in the first round of the Division IV playoffs when Lin-Wood's boys' basketball team traveled to Woodsville to take on the Engineers. Both teams has played without fans all year, with the lone exception for each team being senior night, where families of the seniors were allowed to attend. In the tournament, two fans per player were allowed in the gym and you could tell that these fans had been cooped up at home, they came out excited and cheered from the first whistle to the last, making for a great atmosphere. After the game, Lin-Wood coach Matt Manning told me it felt like there was "1,000 fans" at the game. After a year of playing to nobody, 50 people or so probably did feel like a lot.

I am hopeful that the outdoor nature of the spring sports will allow fans to be back on the sidelines come April when those seasons start, but that's a story for another day.

It seems that the lack of fans throughout the winter sports season was just a way to get me ready for the trip to Tokyo this summer.

The Tokyo Organizing Committee announced over the weekend that no fans from outside of Japan were going to be allowed into the country for the Olympics. This is a huge blow to the many family members and friends who travel to see their favorite athletes compete on the world's biggest stage. But, sadly, I think it is a decision that the organizers had to make in deference to the COVID-19 pandemic and the health and safety of the Japanese citizens.

It is expected that Japan will not be finished vaccinating all residents who wish to receive the COVID-19 vaccine by the time that July rolls around and they are not requiring that athletes and other games personnel, such as media, have vaccines to enter the country. However, they are setting up strict guidelines for us to follow and it would be impossible to do the same for the hundreds of thousands of spectators that would be pouring in from outside the country.

No decision has been made on the number of fans that will be allowed in the stands come July, but only fans from inside Japan will be permitted, which I imagine will make things pretty quiet in many of the venues. Sure, if you have a Japanese team or athlete competing, there might be a good amount of fans in the stands, but if not, I bet it will be pretty quiet.

The time will come when everything is back to normal again. Count me amongst those that say that can't come soon enough. A quiet high school winter season was one thing. A quiet Olympics is something totally different.

No spectators from outside Japan will be permitted to attend the Summer Olympics in Tokyo when they kick off in July.

Now it's time for a slow down

And breathe...

The past fall and winter sports seasons have been the strangest season's I've dealt with in my 20 years doing this job. They've also been the busiest seasons I've had.

With the 10 extra schools put on my list to start this past school year, I've found myself driving all over the state to cover games, even more so than normal. Most weeks I would drive north to Lincoln or beyond at least once, sometimes twice, to cover teams in the Littleton Courier area. Add that to the teams all around the Lakes Region, then throw in playoff games, championship meets and the like and the mileage started to pile up.

But, that's part of the job and I'm OK with it, as long as I remember to get some sleep so that I don't total another car.

And now, the winter season has drawn to a close and I can breathe again. For a month or so.

All in all, it was a fairly successful season and it ended on a pretty good note, for the most part. All three teams in my coverage area that played in championship games this past Saturday brought home the titles. The Gilford boys' basketball team won the Division III championship, the Woodsville boys' basketball team won the Division IV championship and the Berlin-Gorham boys' hockey team earned the Division III championship. Two other teams, the Berlin unified basketball team and the Kennett girls' basketball team, finished as the runners-up in their respective divisions. Add this on to championships from the Plymouth alpine boys, the Gilford alpine girls, the Lin-Wood alpine boys, the Profile alpine girls, the Kennett alpine girls, the Gilford Nordic boys and the Kennett ski jumpers and runner-up performances from the Kennett alpine boys and Nordic girls and there was plenty of hardware to go around this season. 

And there's no doubt that this unusual season wouldn't have happened without the work of a lot of people. The athletic directors and athletic trainers who put protocols in place, the superintendents, principals and other administrators who signed off on protocols and approved sports schedules, the school staff who made sure that teams could practice and play safely, the coaches who constantly made adjustments to their schedules, the parents who didn't argue with some tough rules as far as spectators go and the athletes themselves, who just rolled with the punches and played their sport. All these people were instrumental in making it happen and I tip my hat to all of them for a job well done. 

I am pretty sure, if you asked anyone back in December or early January if we would have a full winter season and get through the playoffs, they would've said 'not a chance.' Yet, that is exactly what happened and everyone should be commended.

However, even as the busy season wound along, I was still spending time looking ahead, be it to this summer or to next winter, as the Olympics continue to be on my mind and continue to get closer. The last time we had Olympics this close together on the calendar was back in 1992 when the Winter Games were held in Albertville, France and the Summer Games were held in Barcelona. In 1994, the IOC moved the Summer and Winter Games to alternating two-year cycles, so they've been two years apart for more than a decade now. 

But, Tokyo was postponed until this year, meaning the Summer Games will run just about six months before the Winter Games in Beijing kick off next February. I have credentials for them both and am looking forward to the opportunity to again experience the greatest sporting event in the world. And I am especially excited to see my first Summer Games in person.

That, however, is still a ways ahead. Between now and then I have what I anticipate will be a very busy spring season closing in quickly. After last fall and this winter, there's no telling what that might bring.

National Stadium in Beijing, also known as the Bird's Nest, was the centerpiece of the 2008 Summer Olympics and will host the opening closing ceremonies for the 2022 Winter Olympics as well.

New Olympics, both far in the future and coming soon

Another week and another update from the Olympics, this time almost a dozen years in the future.

The International Olympic Committee announced last week that it was entering a targeted dialogue with the city of Brisbane about hosting the 2032 Summer Olympics. While it is not official that the Australian city will be hosting the Summer Olympics in 2032, it is likely that the Olympics will be returning Down Under for the first time since Sydney hosted in 2000.

As of right now, there are still no plans for the Winter Olympics in 2030 and 2034, though there are a few cities that are rumored to be in the mix, including Salt Lake City and Sapporo, Japan, both of which have hosted the Winter Olympics in the past. It is believed that most of the cities that are exploring Winter Olympics are waiting to see just how the Tokyo Olympics go this summer as well as the Beijing Winter Olympics next February go before moving forward with their bids to host.

On a personal note, last week also brought the notification that I had been approved for credentials to cover the Beijing Winter Olympics next February. I had previously received an e-mail from the Beijing Organizing Committee asking me to register for the accommodation management system to reserve media housing for the Games. I registered online for the media web portal and got all the pertinent information regarding the accommodation options in Beijing but was still waiting for the official word from the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee on whether or not I had received credentials.

Once I received the official word, I filled out the accommodation request and submitted it to the proper channels. Like in each of the other three Olympics in which I've had credentials, my main criteria in finding media housing was price. Being as this endeavor is mostly self-funded, price has always been key when looking for housing. I found a few different hotels with the options that I was looking for and submitted my choices. Hopefully my request can be met with the least expensive option. Since I spend little time in my accommodations, all I really need is a bed and a bathroom.

On the Tokyo front, there hasn't been any significant updates in the last few weeks. It's inside 150 days until the start of the Summer Olympics and I keep seeing tons of commercials on NBCSN touting the return of the Olympics this summer. The one thing I did do today in regards to the Tokyo Games was fill out the request for access to the arrival and departure system.

The arrival and departure system at the Olympics allows accredited media to fill out forms ahead of time to ensure that we have proper transportation from the airport to our hotels and then in reverse when it's time to leave. We put in all our flight and accommodation information and when we show up at the airport, they are expecting a certain number of media and where we have to go and have the proper transportation ready for us. In Sochi, there was a bus that brought me from the airport to my accommodations while in Korea, there was a train from the Seoul airport to Gangneung and from there they had a van to bring me to my accommodations.

So, there is another Olympic city looking to be put in the lineup and there's officially another Olympics in my near future. Two Olympics in the course of a year will be interesting. Maybe a tad expensive, but still quite interesting.

The city of Brisbane has entered dialogue for hosting the 2032 Summer Olympics. Photo from theaustralian.com.