The Olympics... and beyond

Last Friday was a bit of a landmark day in the journey toward the trip to Korea for the Winter Olympics. Dec. 8 marked exactly two months until I will be on a plane headed for Seoul. I have to admit that the recent political climate certainly doesn’t have me feeling great about the way things are shaping up for this trip. Back in 2014, when I was heading to Russia for the last Winter Olympics, there was a lot of questions about the political climate in Russia but as it turned out, everything was okay on the Olympic end of things. I am certainly hoping that this runs the same way. However, last week brought a great headline that certainly didn’t make me feel at ease, as the headline on the front page of the Union Leader was a warning from a Washington official to get all dependents out of South Korea, due to its proximity to North Korea and all that’s going on there. Didn’t exactly stir my confidence in making this trip. While there’s been a lot of questions about Pyeongchang and...

A few weeks ago I went in to TD Bank in Wolfeboro to make my trip to Pyeongchang for the 2018 Winter Olympics official by sending the first payment for my accommodations to Korea. However, I was short one piece of information that I needed and since I wasn’t going to be back in Wolfeboro during the day for another week, I made sure to get that information together for the following Friday. So in I went the following Friday to make the wire transfer but the system for wire transfers was down and I was unable to make the transfer. Since the money was due by this past Friday, June 30, I had to get back in to the bank earlier in the week and on Tuesday, June 27, I met with Donna at the bank and we made the transfer official, withdrawing more than $1,200 from my Olympic account and sending it on its way to Korea to reserve my room for my second Olympic experience. As I’ve mentioned here, that first Olympic experience was something I doubted I’d ever get the chance to experience again...

A few weeks back in this space, I wrote about the top five things I’ve had the pleasure of doing while in this job. Of course this included the Olympics and some laps around New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the pace car. However, there have also been numerous things that I’ve had a chance to do that had nothing to do with this job and one of those things kind of came to the forefront of my thinking this past week. Longtime UNH hockey coach Dick Umile announced last week that he would be retiring after next season and that Mike Souza would be taking over as the new head coach. As it turns out, both of those gentlemen had a role in one of the highlights of my post-college (but still hanging around college) life. While I was not terribly surprised that coach Umile is deciding to call it a career, I am saddened that he never was able to bring home a national championship for the UNH hockey team, though I guess he does have one more chance left to do that. He’s been at it a long time ...

It seems hard to believe that one year from now, if all goes according to plan anyway, I’ll be on my way to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. As I’ve stated numerous times, I am more than excited to get the chance to cover another Olympics and I’m grateful to everyone who helped me make it to my first one and who is helping to make it possible to go to a second one. That being said, I thought it would be a good time to recount my top five moments from this job, which I’ve now been in for somewhere around 15 years. Number five came last winter when the Brewster basketball team played in a tournament in the TD Garden in Boston. Covering the Brewster hoop team is a lot of fun, not just because they are perennial national championship contenders, but also because coach Jason Smith runs a great program and their a class act all the way. What made this tournament great was the chance to stand on the fabled parquet floor, the floor once used by greats like Larry Bird and...