Youth Olympic Games Blog Post: Day Seven

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.

02/16/16

Today was all about hockey, but unfortunately the game didn't go our way. We lost a tough one to the Canadians, 4-2. Despite the boys playing well and outshooting the Canadians, it seemed like the bounces just didn't go our way.  The guys were certainly disappointed but they're looking forward to playing the Russians in our final preliminary round game on Thursday at 5:00 p.m., which will be our first and only game in the smaller arena.

Before the game, we stuck around the village all day, as the 2:00 p.m. start didn't allow much of an opportunity to do much elsewhere.  We did plan to go downtown for a bit tonight but the cold temperatures and the opportunity to get some rest won out.

In my last post, I mentioned that the boys are really making friends with athletes in other sports.  When we went to the snowboard cross event yesterday, they watched a few guys they have made friends with, including Jake Vedder, who wound up winning gold. Our team is really happy for him and watching other American athletes succeed appears to be giving the guys some additional motivation.

We also had the chance to meet Angela Ruggiero and Molly Schaus from the Women's Olympic team. They gave the team a pep talk after practice in the locker room, which was nice of them to do. We appreciated them for stopping by.

After the coach staff scouted the Finland vs Russia game, which Russia won in a shootout, they had the chance to stop by and root on the U.S. Curling team in a semi-final contest. That facility, which is excellent, is attached to our main arena so checking up on curling is easy.  We hope that we'll be able to watch some of the finals tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow, we have a day off from competition but that doesn't mean that the athletes are entirely off the hook. We plan to practice and hold a cultural day for the athletes.

Go Team USA

Takk

-- TC

DAY SIX | DAY EIGHT