The Olympics... and beyond

Today, March 12, marks 500 days until the start of the Tokyo Summer Olympics 2020. While that seems like an awful long time, in preparing to cover the Olympics, it's actually not that much time. The logistics of planning a trip like this are not simple and there is a lot of time involved. Paperwork needs to be filled out well in advance and deposit checks will have to be sent for accommodations later this year. So, while it's 500 days until Tokyo, it was time to get started in figuring out exactly how to make this trip work. Over the last eight-plus years I've been honored that many people have supported my quest to cover local Olympians as they pursue their dreams on the snow in Sochi and PyeongChang. It is humbling to me that people appreciate what I do on a regular basis enough to help me chase a ridiculous dream like covering the Olympics. Sochi and PyeongChang were truly a blast and I expect that Tokyo will be much the same. With that in mind, I decided this time ar...

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had been approved for credentials for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. This will be my first time covering the Summer Olympics, as my past two Olympic experiences were during the winter months. This past week, I took the next step toward the trip to Japan becoming a reality next summer. I filled out the forms requesting the accommodations for the two-plus weeks for the Games. This isn’t a huge step, since the accommodations aren’t official until I make my first payment, but this was indeed at least a step forward heading toward Tokyo. Tokyo is different than the first two Olympics that I attended. In Sochi in 2014, my accommodations in media housing were in what was essentially a hotel room. It was a room with a couple of beds and a bathroom. In PyeongChang in 2018, I stayed in what was essentially an apartment, which had three different rooms, a common area, a kitchen and two bathrooms. Both had their advantages and disadvantages, but in both cases...

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 Bo...

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 Satur...

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 si...

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 Kingswo...

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 s...