Youth Olympic Games Blog Post: Day Two

For the next two weeks, Team USA's ice hockey team will be in Lillehammer, Norway, playing at the Youth Olympic Games. Every day, team leader TC Lewis will be blogging about the team's experiences as they gear up to try and bring home the gold. This is an insider's view that readers won't be able to find anywhere else. For more information on the Youth Olympic Games, click here.

Here is an overview of day two:

Feb. 11, 2016

Hello! Day number 2 is in the books.  It was a pretty full day, more so for the staff than the players.  We had a lot of different staff meetings, during which ground rules, procedures and guidelines were all covered. Now that we're all caught up to speed, we're all ready to go.

Today we had breakfast at 9 a.m. and then headed over to the rink.  The coaches spent about 20 to 25 minutes with the team going over video. Much of it was on what we hope will be our style of play and the players asked lots of great questions.

Before each on-ice session, Chris Mizer, the athletic trainer, runs the guys through a dynamic warm up for about 15 minutes.  We held practice around 2 p.m. on the big rink, which has the same size surface but many more seats.  The coaches were encouraged by how good our practice was.

After practice, the staff had four meetings and then it was off to dinner.  At 7 p.m., the first event for all the athletes was at the Sjoggfest, which was in a big tent next to the arenas.  Lots of music and performances and they handed out big, fun hats. The players seemed to enjoy it.  Then off to our late dinner and back to the dorm for an 11 p.m. lights out.

Tomorrow, we have a practice and then Opening Ceremonies.  Before the ceremony, we plan to watch as Finland plays Norway in the first preliminary game of the tournament. For the ceremonies, we will walk to the ski jumping area, which is on the hill above the dorms.

Be sure to watch the Opening Ceremony on NBC Sports. (Begins Friday, Feb. 12, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time.)

Go Team USA

-- TC

DAY ONE | DAY THREE