Snowman On Fire

I travel quite a bit for my day job, and I’ve developed certain hotel preferences over time. In the course of managing my son’s hockey team, I’ve also booked large blocks of rooms for tournaments and have seen the entire range of customer service. In the past week, I’ve lived at both ends of that spectrum.

This morning I checked out of the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, FL. Sometime around 3:30am, the fire alarm tripped and woke up the entire hotel. Upon checkout, the front desk manager gave me a discount on last night’s lodging rate, as compensation for getting all of about 2 hours of sleep. I didn’t have to ask, I didn’t have to plead my case, they just took care of their customer. Guess where I’ll be staying next time I’m in the Ft. Lauderdale area? This is how you build a brand. It’s one reason why I’m loyal to Hard Rock Cafes (consistently good quality anywhere in the world), and now I’m loyal to their hotel chain as well. Not surprising when you consider that the idea of rock memorabilia at the HRC started with the London cafe hanging Eric Clapton’s guitar over his favorite bar stool as a measure of permanent hospitality.

Rewind a week to a hockey tournament in the nation’s capital, where I was hosting 15 families in a Marriott Suites hotel. In the course of three days, we had families assigned to smoking rooms (with 11- and 12-year old hockey players in them), contradicting the rooming list I had been given. The phones went unanswered more than half of the time. There was no bell service to be found, so the lobby became a collection of hockey bags and orbiting parents and siblings. Typicallty, when you land a large group at a hotel, the hotel’s sales manager sends a token “thank you” for your business - a fruit basket, some chocolate, something low-cost and high-carb to say “We value your business.” What I got was arguments from the front desk about room assignments; what I didn’t get was any contact from someone in a position of authority or sales. I’ve waited a week to hear back from the hotel, and the silence isn’t just deafening, it’s indicative of a brand problem.

What Marriott told me, implicitly, is they could care less about my business. Perhaps this is a result of Marriott franchising their hotels, instead of owning them outright; perhaps it’s merely a local management problem over a holiday weekend when the hotel was oversold. No matter the cause, the effect is the same for me: My loyalty to Marriott has gone negative.

Olympic hockey has been anything but predictable. The early favorites have early exits, the early disappointments have Turined up the heat, and more than a few people are left scratching their heads.

Chalk it up to global growth and interest. Chalk it up to blatant nationalism that the Canadians and Americans discount Scandanavia and TRFKAC (the republics formerly known as Czechoslovakia) as hockey hotbeds. But it’s great fun to watch, and I’m now waving my little Czech flag as a sideline fan. Should the Czechs medal, I hope someone picks up a medal to go for Patrik Elias. It was Elias who skated Petr Sykora’s jersey around with the Stanley Cup in 2000 after Sykora was injured in the finals. He deserves Olympic-sized props for that.

Here are my observations on today’s quadrophenia:

Elias is on his way out of Torino. The good news is he’ll have a solid 10 days to let the ribs heal up before the knock’em sock’em Eastern Conference schedule resumes; the bad news is that he went through a lot of travel and personal wear and tear to play in one Olympic game.

So much for filling up on home-style Italian cooking. Time to come back to that local Italian place where he’s frequently spotted. It’s widely rumored that Elias is a locker room prankster, but this isn’t the kind of ribbing he should get in return.

Patrik Elias took a hard hit to the ribs in the Czech Olympic team’s opener, and sat out last night’s game versus Switzerland. We should have surmised something was up when Patty didn’t get a shot off after the first period of the opener, and at first I attributed his omissions from the game stat sheet as a lack of data from my new work diversion.

The cover of the latest USA Hockey magazine (free subscription with any USA Hockey registration) has some of the USA team members seated at a table that is about as Italian as Billy Joel. Here’s an idea - take Gio, Patty, and Ralphie, seat’em at that table for real, and fill them up with some serious Mama Leone. They could all use a little meat on the ribs. At least that’s the Jewish mother’s cure for a few days of rough hockey.

Just how cool is Angela Ruggiero? Talk about picking a good time to score a goal in the Olympics. What she did today — picking up the puck at the goal line, skating coast to coast, finding a seam in the defense and snapping a shot to put the US ahead of Finland, 4-3, was the kind of leadership about which books are written. She kept her head up and just executed. If you didn’t know there were a handful of Finns in front, desperate to not play Canada in their next game, you’d have sworn you were watching a practice drill courtesy of the smoothness with which she ran the play.

Reminds me of….Scott Stevens. Number 4. Blueliner. Leader. Big goal when needed most. And a regular person — before the Olympics I emailed Angela, and got back a prompt (but short) reply.

If anyone on the Canadian women’s team was smiling as the US went down 3-1, they should be equally terrified at the way our team fought back. Maybe this is worthy of making the Hockey News list of power players. In the words of a famous rabbi, if not now, when?

I’m almost afraid to admit it, but 8 Days, 8 Nights has a full outline. 23 chapters worth, not counting front matter and a potential epilogue. I like to find stupid omens in whatever I can, and I’ll take “23″ as a good sign, for it’s Scott Gomez’s jersey number (and Gomer has a real-life cameo in the book).

Finishing the outline was only made possible by exactly one person: my wife Toby. She’s gotten me to think about other things (like our somewhat insane cardiologist friend and the purely insane number of hockey jerseys I own, each of which tells a story), many of which could turn into books. Knowing that there’s something beyond “the hockey book”, the source of my car ride and shower time obsessions for the past three years, means that it’s safe to finish writing it. I think writer’s block isn’t about knowing what to write now, it’s about worrying what you’ll write next, and the horrendous fear that the current good idea is your last. And just to be sure that the current good idea gets done, Toby just knows when I’ve been up too late writing and would benefit from a large Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee sitting on the kitchen counter, saving me a trip down the street with one eye open.

That, hockey fans, is the definition of true love.

The locomotive cheer is one of the oldest college cheers. dervied from a pre-Civil War Army cheer. It’s forever ingrained in my Princeton experience, not just from four years on campus but through countless reunions and sporting events, in which a locomotive signals a job well done, a sign of respect, and conveys a thank-you for the phrase coined by Woodrow Wilson, “Princeton in the Nation’s Service.”

Here’s a big locomotive for Michelle Kwan, who withdrew from the Olympics today. She proved that you don’t need a gold medal to be a champion. She demonstrated that you can participate in a sport you love and respect without it being the sole thing that defines you, and without the media’s insistence that you further define the sport. She was eloquent in her speech but more elegant in her deeds.

Having suffered through a torn groin I can vouch that it is excruciatingly painful. Walking hurts. Stairs are torture. I can’t imagine skating or jumping. Muscle tears are accidents, they’re emotionally painful, and they have ended more than a few hockey players’ careers. This likely ends Michelle Kwan’s Olympic career, and she’ll depart without a gold medal.

But go to your local rink early on a Sunday morning, and watch the young skaters, and ask them about their idols and heroines. You’ll hear Michelle Kwan’s name emerge as a cheer. The Olympics are about pagaentry, and human drama, and tradition. Today the human element rose above the others - but the tradition, once started, lives far longer than the memory of medals and podiums.

You read it here first, people.

Michelle Kwan might punt on the Olympics. After she arrived Torino. After she marched in the opening ceremony and got way too much TV attention (hello, NBC, how about the women’s ice hockey team?)

Here’s a suggestion for Michelle: Set an example for all of the young skaters who worship you and hang up the skates before you get hurt (physically or mentally) on national TV. You’ve won Olympic medals - is the possibility of adding a gold medal enough to tarnish your career?

Looking forward: Princeton’s men’s hockey team is making a run for an ECAC post-season berth. With 6 games to go, the Tigers are only 5 points out of a playoff spot. It’s mathematically possible, and certainly within the realm of possibility as well. The Tigers have reeled off four straight conference wins, over nationally ranked opponents, and are unbeated in their last 5 ECAC skates while picking up 9 out of a potential 10 points in the standings.

Princeton holds the distinction of being the genesis of both the Hobey Baker Award and the Patty Kazmaier Award for excellence in collegiate ice hockey. It’s nice to reward players post-season, but it’s even nicer to have your own players in the post-season. Princeton, Forward to late March

I’m pumped for the Winter Olympics. 1980’s “Miracle on Ice” stimulated my late-blooming rebellion into a hockey player, and getting to see some of our favorite NHL players don the national jerseys for two weeks in February is more fun than the traditional All-Star break.

Here’s a prediction: Watch the Czech team. With Patrik Elias replacing the slightly broken Petr Prucha, and Tomas Vokoun in net, the Czech team will be stingy on defense and lightning fast on offense. Sure, I’m cheering for the United States, and will be watching the Canadians with one eye, but this promises to be a fun competition to watch. The US could use Jamie Langenbrunner up front, as he’s faster and a better shot than some of the guys wearing the stars and stripes, but Jamie has only turned up the scoring heat in the last few weeks.

Jamie’s omission doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the inclusion of Michelle Kwan on the women’s figure skating slate. Kwan didn’t compete at nationals to earn her spot, precluding one of our up and coming skaters from getting Olympic experience. Sorry, but I think Michelle is injury-prone and not nearly as exciting to watch as some of the skaters who gave their all in St. Louis. Take a page from Steve Yzerman’s book and excuse yourself in the best interests of representing your country. Hollywood loves to portray hockey players as being tempered by figure skaters (Cutting Edge and Ice Castles leap to mind), but the puckheads have put the logo in front ahead of the name on the back this year.