Blogger KING: What does it take to skate with the USA hockey team?

Lake Placid, NY -- That’s the goal for this evening. I’ve rented skates (at a little shop just across the street from the arena where Jim Craig, Mike Eruzione, Herb Brooks and company shocked the world and the Russians and themselves back in 1980) and hope to get on the ice tonight with Shoreline’s Kelly Stephens and her USA teammates. I started agitating for the opportunity last week, checking in with USA Hockey headquarters, asking the "team leader" on-site if it would be possible, lobbying the local officials who run the arena if they could outfit me with gear (gloves, stick... cup?) and warning Kelly that we wanted to not only interview her but actually slap the puck around...

I just talked with her by cell. She’s in town after a red-eye flight from the West Coast and resting up before practice tonight. She’s up for the skating thing but we just don’t know how loose the practice is going to be and whether head coach Ben Smith will be amused by the concept.

This could be a fairly relaxed shoot-around practice. It's the first the women have had together in a week or so. On the other hand, the last time they played together, against arch-rival Canada, they lost two straight games and got blown out (6-0) in the second. Kelly says it stung. So it’s possible the coach will want to kick some tail and jump-start the process of tuning up and focusing on Torino. It could be a “message” practice and if so we just can’t predict what the message will be for local media types... it could be “buzz off” for all we know.

We’ll see in a few hours. Sometimes in this business you can plan and hope and push buttons and play nice with the media reps and rent skates and spread the idea all over the adnministrative map... and come up empty.

(Note to self: find out if this is a KING 5 first: Has anybody ever tried to turn in "skate rental" receipts on an expense sheet?)

Comments from our readers

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