Chapter 1: The Jeff Halpern Story. In short, why I started keeping a journal and thinking about a book, based on the true-life story of Jeff Halpern, Jewish NHL player who also attended Princeton. I hit 4 pages and stopped. But some of that content is in here. [done, but weak]

Chapter 2: Number 8. The real story of the whole snowman riff, my fascination with the number 8, Willie Stargell, and youth sports. [done]

Chapter 3: A Great Miracle Happened There. The 1980 Lake Placid Olympics “Miracle on Ice” story, as told by a high school senior who was forced to spell “Czechoslovakia” once a week and cheered when the Czechs got pounded by the Americans. Numerous Hanukah references included. [done]

Chapter 4: Hobey’s Rink. Playing hockey in the shadow of Hobey Baker, Patty Kazmaier, Laura Halldorson, and Coach Bruce whose last name I now forget. How ignorance of tradition isn’t fatal, especially if it forms a story of its own.

Chapter 5: An Expensive Afternoon. What happens when your wife tells you to entertain the kids for the day, and you end up at an ice skating rink, with Devils season tickets and a Stanley Cup picture in the mix. A near-death experience involving Bubba yelling at Philadelphia fans creates dramatic tension.

Chapter 6: Today I Am An Adult. Why I started playing hockey again even though all of my equipment was encrusted with mold. Skating with a bunch of Jewish guys on a team named the Saints, and why that was less humourous than the picture of an asthmatic stallion on our jerseys.

Chapter 7: Travel Hockey. My indoctrination to the life of a travel hockey parent. Literally having the snot frozen out of me, but thinking it was OK. My first ever hockey tournament, and why silver cups are important.

Chapter 8: The Hagiography of Saint Patrik. The life and times of our favorite Devil, Patrik Elias, and how Lord Stanley’s Cup ended up in New Jersey one more time.

Chapter 9: The Physics of Hockey. Yeah, really, physics like melting points and inelastic collsions. But also what holds teams together, and why I’m thrilled to come home at 1:00 AM with rink stink and bruises.

Chapter 10: A Two-Way Game. Our first lesson in the school of hard hockey knocks, involving a nickname and scoring on your own goalie.

Chapter 11: Beer League. Playing on Friday nights, Sunday nights and in between with men of my own age but far better skill. What happens in the locker room, and why Cheap Trick sucks.

Chapter 12: Love Covers Pain. We go to Lake Placid but there’s no Miracle on Ice. It happens on the car ride home. [done]

Chapter 13: Welcome to Management. My life in the scorekeeper’s box where time is malleable at the press of a button. How to prevent locker room disasters with 10 year olds: the facts of life, Santa Claus, and who brings the bad donuts.

Chapter 14: A Poem In The Cards. The life and times of my entire pasteboard empire, from sticking baseball cards in the spoke of my bike to discovering that I was tied to an NBA player’s son through a Topps card given to me by my grandfather. Inspired by Cory Doctorow’s short story Craphound. [done]

Chapter 15: Silver Anniversary. 25 years after the Miracle on Ice, another form of silver enters our house courtesy of the NJ state hockey playoffs.

Chapter 16: Snapping My Twig. Jewish men, their sports equipment, our Russian heritage, and why Scott Niedermeyer’s stick changed my life.

Chapter 17: A Great Miracle Happened Here. Yes, it’s a dreidel joke. It involves Lake Placid again. [done]

Chapter 18: Finding Pops. Return of the son of the snowman, in a different form. What the book should have been about from the very beginning. [done]

So the book has a beginning, middle and end. It could qualify as a novella, if there was continuity and context provided. I consider this my meta-writing exercise for the day, if i write about writing maybe I’ll be stimulated to write my 500 word allowance. But for now, the day job is calling.

Slickest item up this year: Quinnipiac College men’s team had special black and pink jerseys created, and the entire set is up for auction. Most of the women’s jerseys are autographed – here’s a chance to pick up some ink from players who will be skating in Vancouver and getting ink of their own in exactly a year.

Today’s coolness: I’m on my way to San Francisco, in Newark airport for a flight delay that is now just about as long as the flight itself (hey, mid-day thunderstorms will do that, no harm, no foul on this one). At this point I’m unclear as to whether I renewed my airport lounge membership, or what affinity card works where. So I tried, was given a polite “no”, and then the guy in line next to me says “He can be my guest, he’s a fellow hockey guy.” All because I’m wearing my favorite “Miracle on Ice” t-shirt, attempting to channel a bit of the spirit of Lake Placid to our athletes in Beijing (wrong season, wrong sports, right idea).

Turns out my line-mate of the random rotation plays (more seriously than I do) in Chicago, is equally delayed here in Newark, and was just being nice. You want the antidote to air (or road) rage? Play more hockey.

I’ve also been looking for the “story” of these games. For years, I’ve tried to balance the horrors of the 1972 Munich Games, which left a deep impression on this 10-year old kid, with the 1984 Los Angeles Games, ones I watched as I packed my things to move, at last, out of my childhood home into my first “real” apartment. Mary Lou Retton proved that in a world of infinite possibilities, sometimes the impossible happens. Summer events since then: doping in track, a USA basketball team that seems to play only when it feels like it, with no sense of playing for something more valuable than a contractual bonus, and baseball’s denouement as an Olympic sport.

The Olympics has also intersected my job as Sun is providing online infrastructure for the 2008 Beijing Games. I’ll be tracking the more obscure events online, both to follow the sports where the unknown athletes (and countries) compete and also to make sure the online experience remains one of which Sun and NBC will be proud.

Bottom line: I’m looking for a hero or heroine. I want to cheer for our gymnasts, watch Michael Phelps prove that the Chinese fixation with the number eight is well-placed (it works for this snowman), and hope that the USA basketball team demonstrates that professional athletes can have an affiliation with a power higher than money: national pride. My personal hope that figure skater turned triathlete turned cyclist Kathryn Bertine would compete at these games ended when Bertine failed to qualify as a cyclist, a two-year training and travel odyssey that she documented wonderfully for ESPN’s E-ticket. Read all 13 parts; it’s a novella-length story with all of the Greek drama you can digest. And of course I’ll follow the Israeli delegation, competing in gymnastics, sailing, judo, and the steeplechase, among other events, because hearing “Hatikva” played at the medal ceremony pushes 1972 further away.

Why all of the fuss over the Olympics? Why would anyone want to train for years, travel halfway around the world, and compete under duress with a billion Internet viewers watching? It’s not like there are endorsement deals for medalists in sailing – Americans want their heroes to play sports that are accessible and recognized, the precursors for commercialization. But that hits the distinction between a professional athlete and an Olympic athlete (with all due respect to hockey players, who are among the few who carry both roles with respect): Olympians are trying to prove they are the best, in the world, at what they do, and do so carrying their country’s shield and colors, not those of their team, college, or corporate sponsor. Everyone has had that longing, at one time or another, to be the undisputed best, whether in sailing, judo, basketball, selling Internet infrastructure, or writing short stories. When it comes down to matters of our own mental and physical facilities, we all dream.

Despite not making it to Beijing, Kathryn Bertine conveyed the moral of her mental and physical voyage quite simply: “Above all else, we owe it to ourselves to show up for our own dreams.” And the Olympics remind us to take that advice to heart, every one of the other 1,420 days between staggered torch lightings.

Flying into Montreal, it’s easy to pick out the 1976 Olympic venue: at 175 meters, the inclined tower is the tallest of its kind. Along with the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas, it’s one of the few buildings you ascend via an “inclinator” rather than a purely vertical elevator. The stadium sports a permanent cover, making it look something like a piece of Tupperware encasing something that has run afoul of your refrigerator. Original architectural plans for the Olympic venue included a retractable roof, pulled up like a magician snatching a tablecloth from under a full place setting. However, the roof wasn’t finished in time for the 1976 Olympics and after several design failures that resulted in ripped, torn, and unusable stadium covers, the current lid was put in place with a vengeance. In only thirty years, the Olympic stadium suffered structural failures, lost its primary tenant (the Montreal Expos) and now sits as a stark (and tall) reminder of bad long-term design. Quebec residents still feel “sustainability” of a different sort, as tobacco taxes fund the remaining financial burden of the stadium.

Conversely, the spectacular Basilica of Notre Dame is now nearly 200 years old, has survived a fire and several reconstructions, and operates as a tourist and religious center on a daily basis. Partly, I believe the difference in long-term perspectives is due to the differences in the communities responsible for the buildings. The Basilica dates back to the founding of Montreal in the 1640s, and has had a strong community interested in its upkeep, structural integrity and long-term existence. Looking up at the ornate ceiling, completely supported by the exterior walls, I was reminded of Danny Hillis’ discussion of the very long-term planning for the 14th-century era College Hall at New College at Oxford. Having a community commitment to anything, whether a building or a wiki, greatly improves the odds that thing survives in functioning form for more than a (technical) generation.