Sports journalist

Author: Kat (Page 74 of 89)

How To Best Make Your Sport Irrevelvant

Despite amazing performances at both the US Championships and Olympic Trials, Memmel still has not made the Olympic Team.Like many other sports fans, I am eagerly waiting the women’s gymnastics competition at the 2008 Summer Olympics. As I saw in person a few weeks back, the US women’s team expects to be quite competitive, as the senior championships demonstrated such an amazingly high level of competition. Despite the great performances at the Visa US Championships, no members of the Olympic team were named after the competition ended – just all but four of those who competed advanced to the Olympic Trials, held this past weekend in Philadelphia.

But was an Olympic Team for Women’s Gymnastics named after this weekend? Oh no. Two gymnasts – Shawn Johnson and Nastia Lukin – were “guaranteed” spots on the team, but four spots and three alternates still remain open. These team members will be determined in a “selection camp” held on a private ranch in Texas owned by the King and Queen of Modern Gymnastics, Bela and Marta Karolyi. This camp will be closed off from the public and media, and will be held in late July. The Olympic Games begin two weeks later. Continue reading

More Hockey Players Love Country Music (My Brief NHL Draft Thoughts)

I had these grand plans to blog about the NHL Draft. Grand plans. Then I realized that I haven’t seen my boyfriend play softball in two years (yep, I’m a horrible girlfriend), and that he had a make-up game scheduled for the exact same time as the first round of the draft. I decided that it might be a good idea to attend the softball game, and get home in enough time to catch the last few picks of the night. Continue reading

On Being The Best Luck Charm

The Front Page of the Boston GlobeNever have I been a true fan of professional basketball. Yeah, as a tweenager, there was some excitement in Rochester when the Toronto Raptors came into existence- but they quickly flew away, once we realized how horrendous they really were. (Although that never stopped the proliferation of purple Vince Carter jerseys around the city.) But otherwise, the NBA did not register on my radar – I’m really short, I grew up in Hockey Land USA (Detroit can be Hockey Town, but Western New York is Hockey Land), and out of all the professional sports out there, my father thought basketball was the most corrupt. (Ever the conspiracy theorist, my father believed that all sports were corrupt – but he watched most of them anyway, because they were fun.) This all added up to my never exhausting my Sports Girl energy on following the Boston Celtics when I moved up here four years ago.

Last night, however, I became the most despised of all sports fans – the bandwagon jumper – and went to a local bar to watch Game 6 of the NBA Finals. Since I moved here, I’ve spent every potential championship game for a Boston sports team working an event on campus designed to keep the students from rioting. For the first time, a Boston team could win a championship and there were only a handful of students around, and thus no need to throw an arena-sized viewing party. Continue reading

2008 Visa US Championships – Seniors Overall Review

Alicia Sacramone on beam during Day 1 of the 2008 Visa US ChampionshipsI don’t have as great of notes for the seniors as I did for the juniors – for both senior sessions, I sat with friends, and didn’t have the time to take detailed notes. The seniors were amazing to watch, mostly due to the sheer excitement of the crowd – it’s rarely that loud even for hockey games. Hundreds of little girls watching their heroines will do that.

Again, I am not the world’s greatest gymnastics writer, but I was there and know just enough about the sport to understand what’s going on. To review the senior competition, I’ll borrow a device from one of my favorite sports writers, Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, that I haven’t used in a while: Ten Things I Think I Think. Continue reading

2008 Visa US Championships, Juniors – Day 2

Yep, I’m still working on my thoughts from Seniors Day 1 – the Celtics and the Red Sox distracted me (I had Sox tickets last night, and was distracted by watching the Paul Pierce-drama filled Celtics-Lakers game after Seniors ended on Thursday night, and had work early in the morning on Friday…a timely post on Seniors was just not happening.)

Agganis Arena and the 2008 Visa Championships The Junior Championships just completed, with Jordyn Wieber taking it handily. She really distanced herself from Samantha Shapiro at the end of Rotation 2, with nearly a 3 point lead in the all-around. I game late, and I don’t know what happened to Shapiro in rotation 1 (she was first up on floor exercise), but she was either marked down because she was first, or something went wrong. I walked in as Wieber began her floor, and she was on – it was a statement performance. No one was going to take the title away from her this afternoon. The following are my thoughts on the rest of the session before I head back to see the seniors. Continue reading

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