Swimmers practice Friday morning at Dimond Park Aquatic Center for the Alaska Swim-Dive Championships. Photo by Rosemarie Alexander.
Juneau-Douglas High School girls are the winners of the swimming and diving state championships held Friday and Saturday at the Dimond Park Aquatic Center. They edged Anchorage’s Dimond High School by three points.
On the boys’ side, Dimond High swimmers are repeat state champions, with Sitka High School coming in three points behind to take second.
Both competitions came down to the last race – the 400 freestyle relay.
More than 300 high school athletes, representing 25 high schools competed in Juneau this weekend in the statewide championships for swimming and diving.
Juneau’s new 8-lane, Olympic-size pool at the Dimond Park Aquatic Center made it possible for the capital city to hold a state meet, traditionally held at Bartlett High School in Anchorage.
Isaiah Vreeman is the State Championships Director for the Alaska School Activities Association.
Bartlett’s been the only facility in the state to be able to host state championship swimming ever, so to have another facility to come on line, being in Juneau, it’s very exciting.
The possibility of building a park in Juneau specifically for off-road vehicles is still fuzzy.
City Engineering Director Rorie Watt on Tuesday presented four possible sites to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee. The two most appealing sites for both homeowners concerned about noise and ATV and motocross enthusiasts were out the road.
The two sites are next to each other near Echo Cove. The city owns one site at Mile 35. Goldbelt Inc. owns the other one. It’s a quarry that’s already popular with enthusiasts – who trespass.
Developing the city-owned site comes with a hefty price tag estimated at $3 to $12 million. That would be an extraordinary expense, Watt said.
“I don’t think in the ordinary city budgeting process, three to $12 million is at all likely. The funds are just not available easily for that scale of a project.”
The park at Mile 35 would also likely facilitate and exacerbate trespassing issues at Goldbelt’s quarry nearby, Watt said. And Goldbelt is already suffering from public safety and property issues spilling over from the city’s Echo Cove boat launch.
Watt said it’s unclear if the Native corporation is amenable to making a deal for public access to its land. If it were, the city estimates the cost of developing the site into an off-road vehicle park at less than $250,000.
After Watt’s presentation, the advisory committee heard public testimony on the park proposals. There were two camps: North Douglas residents in opposition to an off-road vehicle park specifically at the city’s Fish Creek quarry, and riding enthusiasts in support of any site.
“I think you guys need to keep in mind that we might seem like a small voice because everybody is very vocal about their trail walking, and their snowshoeing and their berry picking,” said Mendenhall Valley resident and rider Red Langel. “They have the opportunity to do that anywhere in Juneau. We don’t have the opportunity to do our stuff, really, legally, anywhere.”
Sixteen people testified in total. Seven were riding enthusiasts, nine voiced North Douglas noise concerns.
The advisory committee will take up the issue and hear public comment again at its Dec. 3 meeting.
At 12:30 p.m. Pacific time, Powder Magazine’s count showed 4,024 votes for Eaglecrest, and 3,894 votes for Mount Washington, B.C. Voting stopped at midnight. That means Juneau’s ski area moves on to the Sweet 16 in the Ski Town Throwdown.
Original story:
Beautiful Day at Eaglecrest. Photo by Rosemarie Alexander
It’s time for the second round of Ski Town Throwdown. Juneau’s ski area is paired with British Columbia’s Mount Washington, a ski resort on Vancouver Island.
In the first round of the Powder Magazine competition, Eaglecrest beat Whistler/Blackcomb Ski Resort near Vancouver, B.C.
Second round voting is Thursday only. If Eaglecrest gets more votes than Mount Washington, it will be entered in the Sweet 16. The Powder Magazine contest is a bit like March Madness basketball, with U.S. and Canadian ski areas lumped into four regions, battling from Sweet 16 to Elite 8, Final 4 and at the end the Great White North champion will go against the Big East.
Eaglecrest is in the Great White North region. Voting ends at 11 p.m. Alaska time. Vote on the Powder Magazine or Eaglecrest Facebook pages.
Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Koji Uehara points to the sky as he and his teammates celebrate their World Series victory Wednesday. Rob Carr/Getty Images
The Sox won the best-of-seven World Series in six games.
With the headline out of the way, here’s a cheat sheet for those of us who need to be ready with something to say about this year’s Fall Classic:
— Big Papi Was Amazing. Boston’s David Ortiz (known as “Big Papi”) was named the Series’ most valuable player. His batting average over the six games was .688 — the second-highest ever in a World Series. Only Oakland’s Billy Hatcher, in 1990, hit higher (.750) according to Baseball-Reference.com.
As NPR’s Mike Pesca says, fans might have to start calling Ortiz “Huge Papi” after his heroics.
— From Worst To First.CNN notes that the Red Sox are only the second team “to win a World Series one year after finishing in last place in its division. The Minnesota Twins first accomplished the feat in 1991.” The American and National leagues split into divisions in 1969.
— 1918 And The Bambino: The Red Sox have now won the World Series three times in the past 10 years. But the last time the team clinched a championship when it was playing at home was in 1918 — when a guy named Babe Ruth was pitching for Boston.
In 1919, the Sox traded Ruth to the New York Yankees. The “Curse of the Bambino” was born. With the win Wednesday at Fenway Park, has it now truly been dispatched?
— The St. Louis Fizzle. “Their bats went missing over the final three games of the World Series,” writes St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz of the Cardinals, “the same way they inexplicably vanished during their staggering collapse over the final three games of the 2012 NL championship series. … In this World Series, the Cardinals fur-balled a 2-1 series lead by scoring only four total runs and batting .194 over three consecutive feckless defeats.”
— Boston Strong. The city’s year began with tragedy — the bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. “There are no perfect endings after life and limb are lost,” MLB.com writes, “but this was the best thing this great American city could hope for Wednesday night. The Red Sox won the 109th World Series, beating the Cardinals in six games, and [the city] took the next step in a healing process that followed the Patriots’ Day bombings at the Boston Marathon.”
The tiny ski area Monday proved to be more popular in the competition than Whistler/Blackcomb Ski Resort near Vancouver, British Columbia.
Whistler/Blackcomb is huge by comparison, but throughout the day Eaglecrest was a couple hundred votes ahead in the contest, conducted on Powder Magazine’s Facebook page. The magazine paired the areas.
The magazine divides the ski areas into geographic regions, the Great White North, Far West, Rocky Mountain West and the Big East.
Eaglecrest snow sports director Jeffra Clough says the Ski Town Throwdown has six rounds, just like the March Madness basketball championship.
“There’s the second round and then they call it the Sweet 16, the Elite 8, the Final 4 and then the finals,” Clough says. “And so the Great White North champion goes against the Big East champion on December 2nd and 3rd.”
The second round is Nov. 7th, when Eaglecrest will be paired against Mount Washington in British Columbia. The Vancouver Island ski area is the winner of Tuesday’s Powder Magazine competition against Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, also in B.C.
With hockey season well underway, the Juneau Douglas Ice Association kicked off a series of skills development camps designed to help players interested in playing any position, including goalie. Thirty-four kids stormed the ice Sunday afternoon for one hour of instruction and some friendly competition among themselves. All photos by Steve Quinn
Neal Chapman, right, pulls double duty as a student and teacher as a group of goalies work on their game during a JDIA skills development camp.
Goalies come in all size as they listen to instructions from coach Matt Noreen.
JDIA Coach Matt Boline has some fun with Ilya Wallace during a puck handling drill.
Gage Cooney, right, chases down teammate Gabe Miller during a drill at JDIA’s skills development camp.
Minta Schwartz, left, and Mac Brna chase down a puck during a drill at JDIA’s skills development camp.
Matt Noreen works with a small group of goalies during JDIA’s skills development camp that attracted nine goalies.
Aspiring goalie Colton Johns gets ready to stop an on-coming puck during JDIA’s skills development camp that attracted nine goalies.
JDIA Coach Matt Boline prepares a group of 25 skaters for their next drill. The camp attracted players ages 5-18.
Goaltender coach Heather Strickland works with Anna Dale during JDIA’s skills development camp that attracted nine goalies.
Goaltender coach Heather Strickland chats with player/coach Neal Chapman, who is a varsity goalie for Juneau Douglas High School.
JDIA Coach Matt Boline demonstrates a shot to a group of players attending the association’s skills development camp.
Zack Stagg gets set during a drill where shots could be coming from any direction as the puck gets passed among a group of shooters during JDIA’s skills development camp that attracted nine goalies.
Goaltender Coach Matt Noreen works alongside Jax White during JDIA’s skills development camp that attracted nine goalies.
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