Watchdog

By the way, Todd Zeile (see below) is married (still, as far as I know) to former Olympic gymnast Julianne McNamara. I don't know whether Robin Ventura's wife has a background in gymnastics.

I never have covered the Olympics, unless you count reviewing NBC's coverage in '06 from wherever the Winter Games were held back then. I did cover the Arctic Winter Games in Yellowknife, NWT, in March of 1984.

It's like the Empire State Games, but for people from Alaska, the Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories, which I think since have been broken up into three separate territories.

I was invited to drop the opening puck at the men's hockey final between Alaska and NWT and tried to slide into center ice wearing workboots and fell on my tush in front of a packed house of 1,500 or so, which was a significant chunk of Yellowknife's adult population.

John Hill, Alaska's center, looked down at me and laughed. I think he still coaches the team at the University of Alaska at Anchorage, a Division I program in the WCHA. Have I told this story on the blog before? I don't remember. Maybe I'm repeating myself.