Scott Wallace wasn’t born on ice skates, but pretty close. Scott’s parents are Canadian, and as most know, hockey is as important to Canadians as NFL football is here. Scott Wallace is Chair of the Bend Park and Recreation District Board, and we interviewed him recently about his involvement with ice hockey. Scott is coaching our new junior hockey program at the Sunriver Village Ice Rink.

Scott and his family moved to Bend in 1969. Many longtime Central Oregonians will remember the winters of the 60s and 70s were colder than present times, and Vince Genna, Wally Wallace (Scott’s father), and other volunteers flooded the old concrete slab at Juniper Park for ice skating and pickup hockey games. That’s where Scott and many others learned to skate. Some of you may remember in the early 1990’s when the slab was converted to a roller hockey rink and there was ice skating in that location for one season before the deteriorating slab was removed to make way for the expansion of the Juniper Swim and Fitness Center. In the early 70s the ice rink at the Inn of the Seventh Mountain opened and his father began youth hockey and adult broom hockey programs which he continued for over 35 years.

While Scott was pursuing his education and career elsewhere after his 1980 graduation from Bend High, his father continued to coach youngsters at the Seventh Mountain rink and subsequently at the Sunriver Village Ice Rink. By the time Scott and his family returned to Bend in 1997, both youth and adults had gotten into the fun. Thanks to a BPRD sponsored roller hockey rink at the old Juniper Park slab, Bend developed a very active youth and adult roller hockey program in the early to mid 1990s which led to the formation of the Bend Frontiers adult ice hockey club in the winters. The Frontiers group has evolved into the Bend Steelheaders Hockey Club and now includes 20-25 men who play on Monday nights from November through April at the Sunriver Village rink. Scott manages the team which typically plays 3 to 4 tournaments around the Pacific Northwest each year. Needless the say, without a full-size rink in Bend, all their games are away.

Ryan Smith, who manages the Sunriver Village Ice Rink, approached Scott and BPRD Enrichment Program Coordinator Sue Boettner about putting together a hockey program. The first session of Junior Hockey started in January and ran through February 7. The second session began in February and will continue through mid-March.

Scott says the first session included 10-12 participants, some of whom have skated before, while others were beginners. The first half of the 1.5 hour class is for skating drills and puck handling, and the second half is for scrimmage. Scott says there is a lot of “learn through doing”, and the kids are having loads of fun. Participants must have their own helmets, shin pads, gloves and elbow pads, but Scott says some donated equipment is available. Classes are on Sunday from 4:30 to 6:00pm for kids 6 to 14 years of age.

For anyone interested in playing or just watching ice hockey, the Bend Steelheaders practice from 7:30 – 9:00 Monday evenings at Sunriver. Broom hockey is on Wednesday evenings, same hours. Scott says there are two other loosely organized adult hockey groups that take to the ice on Thursday and Sunday evenings.

How are you doing on those New Years resolutions to lose weight and exercise more? You aren’t alone if holiday goodies are still lurking somewhere in the vicinity of your waistband and you’re making fewer and fewer trips to the gym. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up your momentum after that initial surge of enthusiasm. Don’t give up, get reinvigorated with the help of our Inch by Inch program.

You may have read about Inch by Inch in our People & Parks newsletter last fall. The program helps and encourages you to embrace a balanced exercise routine and nutritious food choices with the goal of achieving and maintaining a healthy lifestyle for the rest of your life. Twice weekly group meetings provide mutual encouragement as well as accountability, with educational sessions to move you along the path to your goal. Your instructor/coach will help you find the types of exercise that suit you and allow you to have fun while improving your fitness. There are more than 150 group exercise classes weekly at Juniper Swim and Fitness Center, all available to you with a fitness pass.

Over the 8 weeks of the course, you can expect to gain in strength and stamina, be sleeping better, and have more energy and less back discomfort. You’ll notice the loss of body fat in how your clothes fit… oh yeah! The season for bulky sweaters is coming to an end – be ready for summer this year and every year to follow. Let the Inch by Inch program bring out the fit and healthy you.

Isn’t it a thrill to watch these Olympic events? Ski jumpers soar farther than a football field, downhill skiers reach highway speeds, and figure skaters propel themselves into quadruple jumps. Mouths were agape at the incredible heights achieved by Shaun White in the snowboard halfpipe. How about the biathlon events, where competitors ski like crazy, then must immediately calm themselves enough for accurate marksmanship.

As we learned from the tragic death of the young Georgian luger, the luge, bobsled and skeleton track is dangerous and the athletes who challenge it must be fearless. How do they muster up the courage? Then there are the events equivalent to Nascar on the ice and snow – the snowboard cross, ski cross and short track speed skating that have you on the edge of your seat. How do the athletes stay cool and focused amid the chaos?

Medals rankings are decided in hundredths of a second. Expected medalists don’t always perform as expected and some athletes come from seemingly nowhere to end up on the podium. But when you think about it, even a poor Olympic performance is better than most of us watching from our couches could ever hope to achieve.

We are told the stories of athletes recovering from serious injuries incurred just weeks before the Olympics who still manage to participate in their events. Obviously, the physical conditioning required to compete at this level enables them to bounce back much quicker than ‘normal’ folks would. You shake your head in admiration of their strength and determination. Watching the Olympics, you can’t help but say “How do they DO that?!”

Then there’s curling, that strange shuffleboard on ice played, apparently, by custodians run amok. A segment interviewing the U.S. mens curling team left you with the impression their training consists of playing cards and drinking beer. Yet, the curling teams are just as serious about their sport as any other athletes. They compete with such intense concentration you can’t help but be drawn in.

The Olympics continue for seven more exciting days. Will you be watching?

Maybe it seems like the woodshop is a man’s world, but that doesn’t have to be true. Crafting a project out of wood is a process similar to sewing a garment. You begin with material that is flat, you cut out and assemble measured pattern pieces using tools and equipment particular to the task, and the result is a 3-dimensional, usable and aesthetically pleasing object. You will use many of the same skills as you do with any craft: carefulness, concentration, dexterity, following established methods and procedures for working with specific materials, and a creative eye. One sensory difference is the delightful aroma of freshly cut wood.

At first, power tools may intimidate. That feeling will disappear once you have been coached in their safe and proper use, to be replaced with feelings of empowerment and accomplishment. At each step, you will marvel at what you’ve just learned to do.

We have two more sessions of Woodworking for Women this spring. The first is March 2 – April 6, followed by another April 20 – May 18. The instructor, Maryann Veentjer, as been creating beautiful furniture, clocks, toys and other pieces for many years, and her Woodworking for Women classes are very popular. According to her students, Maryann enthusiastically shares her expertise, teaches patiently and gives you lots of support and encouragement. At the end of the class you will have built an Adirondack chair. You can proudly exclaim to your family and friends “Look what I did!”

So step aside, fellas. The girls are entering the woodshop. To visit Maryann’s website, follow this link.

Local figure skating coach and instructor Cindy Kauffman Marshall competed in her first Olympic Games at the tender age of 15, and she has graciously contributed the story below. If you would like to see a film of Cindy and Ron Kauffman’s pairs skating routine, performed at the U.S. Nationals in 1969, follow this link.

My brother Ron and I started skating at the age of 5 and 7 in Seattle under a coach whose son and daughter were competitive pair skaters. In 1962 they were among the U.S. World Team members who died in a plane crash on their way to a competition in Belgium. At that time we were Junior Champions and had to make the hard decision whether to quit skating or continue with another coach. We loved skating and decided to continue for our coach and her children. Under our new coach, Ron Ludington, we trained in the midwest each winter and in Lake Placid, NY every summer. We would return home for two months between training seasons. It was hard being away from home and our parents at such a young age, but skating was our life.

At our first Olympics I was 15 years old and it was very exciting, but scary. We were in Innsbruck for two weeks. Like in most Olympics, the pairs skated the first day, so we were not able to walk in the opening ceremonies, but the experience of staying in the Olympic Village and getting to know and see all the different athletes made up for that. We did skate very well and ended up 8th out of 24 pairs, so we were pleased for our first international competition.

The next four years was constant training and competing so that we could be medal contenders for the ‘68 Olympics. We became National Champions and repeated as World bronze medalists for three years. The expense of living away from home, training, coaching, equipment, costumes, and more was a huge burden on my parents. We may not have being able to continue skating had Dick Button not found both Peggy Fleming and us a sponsor.

We trained 5 hours a day 6 days a week. I never wanted to take the one day off because I was so afraid of losing the stamina we worked so hard to get.

When my brother and I first started skating pairs most of the skating world thought our height difference would not work (Ron is 6’4”, I am 5’2”). It does put the girl much higher in lifts, but I learned to enjoy that. Coach Ludington used our height difference to good advantage by inventing some original tricks for us to bring into pair skating. We were the first pair to do a throw jump and a one arm overhead lift in competition.

By the 1968 Olympics, we were so prepared and ready. We were more nervous but tried to visualize it as just another competition. Unfortunately, during our long program we fell and ended up in 5th place. I remember being more upset because I felt we had let down our parents and coach for all their sacrifices throughout our career. Just two weeks later we skated our best ever in Worlds in Switzerland and got our 3rd place back. Because of money we decided not to train for the next Olympics and joined Ice Follies in 1969 skating in that show for three years. I have been coaching other skaters for 37 years. I will always wonder what it would have been like to achieve an Olympic Medal, but the next best thing was being inducted into the United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1995. I never got to go to a high school prom, football game or have friends in school, but my friends were all over the US and the World and I was able to see and experience life in Europe, Russia, Japan and elsewhere. Because of that experience I will always cherish my life here in the US and the blessings that we have as Americans. This is the BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.

Will you be glued to the television for the next two weeks, watching the best of the best compete in their sports? In the entire world of sports, and despite occasional controversies, the Olympics still represent the true spirit of sportsmanship, competition, and the brotherhood of nations as it should be. The opening ceremony is Friday night. It will be hard for Vancouver to exceed the stunning spectacle of the opening of the Beijing Summer Games in 2008, but no matter the theatrical presentation, it is always a thrill to see the parade of athletes proudly accompanying their countries’ flags.

We here in Bend will be rooting for Tommy Ford in the alpine events, Chris Klug in snowboarding, and Torin Koos in nordic skiing. Our community is well represented by Olympians past and present who call Central Oregon home for at least part of the year: Justin Wadsworth and Beckie Scott, Ben Husaby, Dan Simoneau, Cindy Marshall, Pat Weaver, Suzanne King, Rich Gross, Jay Bowerman, Frank Cammack, Dick Hunt and Kiki Cutter.

Kiki Cutter has been generous enough to write a guest post about the Olympic experience, sharing what it feels like to be competing in the Games. We hope you enjoy her eloquent comments in the post titled ‘Kiki Cutter Shares the Olympic Experience’.