Winter Olympics 2014- Nonstop

Sunday, February 9th-

I am starting to settle into my routine of helping parents in the morning from the hotel.  Then in the afternoon I can run over to the park to help anyone who needs a Non Event Ticket (NETs) to get in, or handle medal ceremony details.  Today was a busy day of events.  While I waited for parents to visit me for their tickets I tried to watch as many things as I could online or TV.  We had Cross Country Men's Skiathlon, Men's Downhill and Women's Snowboard Slopestyle all going on throughout the morning and afternoon.  In the end it was only Slopestyle that had a medalist when Jamie Anderson won the gold.  I was lucky that I had been at the park and was joined by Bridget.  She was able to walk me through the park and over to the village area to meet up with Julie to pick up medal ceremony tickets.  We decided to take the train from the village stop to the park station so that I could meet the family out front.  It turns out that the area that we departed to get to the train station involved having a credential that I do not have.  I pointed at Bridget and said I was following her since she does have a credential.  They let me go out a different gate that did not require scanning a credential.  I have no idea how I managed to get into an area that requires a credential to get out.  No one had stopped us as we walked over from the Park.  

Bridget showed me how to get the train from the village over to the park and we headed that direction.  On our way she also pointed out the Welcome Center which is another pick up option for medal ceremony tickets.  Of course, once I was sitting outside the spectator entrance I found out that the family was already in the Park at P&G.  I used one of our NETs to get back in and headed over there.  Now that I am such good friends with the front desk staff at the P&G Home they were happy to help me.  I needed to get some tickets to P&G and some to USA House.  Everyone must scan in and scan out when they are at P&G.  The desk staff looked and were able to tell me that the Andersons were there.  They even knew it was the right Andersons since their names have to be tied to an athlete.  I left the tickets for the family with them and Bridget went to show me the way to USA House.  I really wish I had downloaded an app for all the walking I was doing.  USA House is way in the back of the park, which I had already walked through once to go over for the ceremony tickets.  I'm pretty sure I wracked up around 10 miles during this day of walking.  We made it over to USA House and I was able to leave the rest of the tickets.  I also got to meet Lexy and chat with her while I was there.  

Once we had delivered all the tickets Bridget and I decided to walk back to our hotel so we would not miss dinner.  Since we were at the back of the park we decided to try walking out the back exit, which is funny considering our earlier experience with the gate at the village.  We walked past the Japan House and the fancy hotel.  This led us to the road that leads right to where we need to be to get back to our hotel without walking around the whole park.  But between us and that road was another exit gate.  Once again, my spectator pass does not meet the criteria.  This time they scanned it on a separate scanner and pointed me out.  I am guessing I cannot get away with that again.  And it definitely will not work if I am not with someone who has a credential like Bridget.  On the bright side, they let us out this time and we were able to walk back to the hotel without the extra lap through and around the park.  We made it in plenty of time for dinner.

Monday, February 10th-

While I was hanging out helping parents this morning I received an email from Brant Feldman who is an agent for one of our athletes.  He had stopped by the hotel to pick up tickets a couple days before when I was not around.  Bridget had helped me out by getting into my room to grab the tickets for him.  Apparently we were missing a couple for another event.  Lauren sent them down and I let him know that I now had the tickets.  He decided to come over on Sunday during the pick up hours to get them but ended up running behind.  I waited for him but was ready to run out the door to meet other parents the minute he arrived.  We ended up walking over to the park together.  He also works with the women's hockey team and some other athletes.  He suggested that I should see some other events but I was not sure if it would work out or not.  In the email sent over this morning he told me he had a ticket to the USA v Switzerland Women's Hockey game.  It was that afternoon at 2pm.  It was completely unexpected and I was not sure if I could make it happen.  I knew I had to meet some parents around 1pm at the park.  I have learned that meeting times are suggestions when we are all trying to figure out the layout around here.  Brant told me that it was a really good seat so I decided to see what I could do to make it happen.  I finally did have to ask him to leave it at P&G for me since I was not sure I could get everything done fast enough to meet him.  Somehow it worked out that I finished meeting up with families, picked up my ticket from P&G and sprinted through the park and was only 15 minutes late to the game.  I went down to my seat and discovered that I was in the front row near a goal and one seat away from Kristi Yamaguchi.  Talk about great seats!  Even better, no one had scored as of yet when I sat down.  And then the USA went and started scoring, a lot.

USA v Switzerland

Early score

Very close seats.

Anyone who knows me will not be surprised that I ended up making friends while I was at the game.  On one side of me was a USOC doctor and her husband.  She usually works with USA Hockey but is actually the doctor for USA House on this trip.  Definitely a great location to be working during the games.  I also spent a good portion of the game working.  So if anyone saw me on the coverage they might have seen me on my phone trying to send emails.  When I left the hotel at lunch time Julia Mancuso was leading the downhill portion of the Super Combined.  I was trying to find results and email with Chelsea about medal ceremony details. I did manage to see the USA goals scored though.  All 9 of them.

Final score

Proving I was at the game.

View of the Park as you leave the arena.

When the game ended I decided to see if Tammie would let me sneak into a corner of USA House to use the internet so I could provide her with information for Julia Mancuso.  She let me stand next to the bar which might be the furthest into USA House that I get unless an athlete invites me to their Order of Ikkos celebration.  I managed to get the information together and then found out that due to a private event that night we would have to put off the Ikkos ceremony for Julia.  I made plans to meet Amanda for the medal ceremony tickets and had a moment of panic figuring out how I was going to reach her without Bridget.  The suggestion I got from Bridget was to act confident and they would probably let me through.  I did manage to walk over to the village area to get the tickets but then was not sure how to get back.  So I hopped on a bus and rode around the park and got off by the ice cube.  From there I was able to walk back through the park and out to the front to meet members of the Mancuso family.  I started at P&G thinking I might meet them there.  It was good timing since they were just doing a toast for Jamie Anderson.  They introduced her family.  I had no idea she has 5 sisters.  I think her mom earned her gold medal with 6 daughters.  It was a really nice toast and Jamie made a great speech thanking her mom.  Then it was time to find the Mancuso family.  That turned out to be fun.  We had a group of them driving down with our VP of Marketing.  Another group of them were coming down on the train with her agent and the coaches/team leader arrived through the village.  Chelsea wanted to pick up tickets to the ceremony for the coaching staff from me and I kept trying to explain that their credentials got them into the same area.  By the time she would have walked out from where they were in the back, gotten the tickets, gone through security and walked back she would have missed it.  I finally told her I would send them with Lowell's group.  At this point in the day (after 8pm) my phone was dying and I didn't have the cord to charge it.  I told the family that I met at the gate to tell the group on the train to meet me by the Texas Chicken in the train station.  I stood there forever waiting and hoping they were going to make it in time to see Julia receive her medal.  One policeman even came over to make sure everything was okay.  Then he brought me a map of the train lines.  I guess I looked lost.  Finally at 8:45 someone came up the steps and asked me where to find Texas Chicken and it was one of the family members.  I handed off the tickets and told him to run for it.  I was not sure if they would make it but was hoping for the best.

Completely drained I headed for the hotel but got there after they had cleaned up dinner.  I was able to grab some cereal and a huge piece of chocolate cake though.  That helped a lot.  Hoping this all gets easier the more we do it.

Jamie Anderson and Family at P&G House