The Treadwell Ice Arena closed out its 10th year on Sunday. And with that, so too closed out another season of Juneau Adult Hockey Association action. Competition starts in September and lasts until late April. This makes adult hockey one of Juneau’s longest running year-round amateur adult sports. Here is a collection of photos from games, many with championships at stake. All photos by Steve Quinn.
Sports
Bethel native sets several US powerlifting records
Bethel Regional High School graduate, Natalie Hanson, is now the American powerlifting record holder in three of the sport’s biggest events. At 23-years old, Hanson set the official record for bench press, squat and total weight lifted for her age group and size. As of now, no one in the USA under 23-years old weighing under 75 kilos has ever officially lifted as much weight as she has.
“I’m in shock,” says Hanson about her record breaking performance, “it still doesn’t feel like that.”
Hanson broke the records at the Alaska State Championships for Power Lifting held in Anchorage, an event sanctioned by the USA powerlifting.
Hanson set the records in the Junior Division for ages 20 – 23.
She smashed the US squat record by 18 pounds after squatting 297 pounds. She also pushed past the bench press record by 5 pounds with a 197 pound press.
Those weights are added to her dead lift to give a total weight. Added together, Hanson lifted 827 pounds, 27 pounds more than the previous record.
Making it more unbelievable is the fact that Hanson didn’t even train for the events. She’s instead been training for cross-fit competitions, which focuses on a broader range of strength and flexibility. Hanson says a friend noticed her natural abilities could put her in immediate contention for the national records.
Hanson was born and raised in Bethel but now lives in Anchorage. She’s the daughter or Rick and Kathy Hanson.
Hanson will move onto the USA Powerlifting National Competition in Florida on July 20.
Snow postpones Little League ceremonies
Friday’s surprise snow is delaying Gastineau Little League opening day.
It had been set for Saturday, which is expected to be another wet day with snow possible in the morning. (Click here for forecast).
First pitch festivities and games are now scheduled for Saturday, May 4th at Adair Kennedy Field in the Mendenhall Valley. Opening Day ceremonies will begin at 10 a.m. with the entire league in uniform on the field. The young players will recite the Little League pledge then Chief Umpire Tom Karpstein will throw the first softball and baseball pitches of the season. He’ll have two young assistants – Youth Catchers Michael Cesar and Sophie Hultberg.
After the ceremonies, Little League teams will take to various fields throughout Juneau for their first games.
More than 500 Juneau youth have signed up for 47 baseball, softball and tee ball teams this season. They’ll be led by 244 coaches, managers, and administrators, who are all volunteers. Katpstein has volunteered with Gastineau Little League for 42 years.
Big Night For Big Men In Round 1 Of NFL Draft
One year after glamour quarterbacks were the big story, NFL teams mostly opted for big, beefy, bruisers during Round One of the 2013 NFL draft Thursday night.
The first seven picks, starting with the Kansas City Chiefs’ selection of Central Michigan offensive tackle Eric Fisher, were offensive or defensive linemen. As NPR’s Tom Goldman tells our Newscast Desk, the first round “was a celebration of players who anchor both sides of the line of scrimmage.”
A quarterback wasn’t taken until the 16th pick, when the Buffalo Bills chose Florida State’s E.J. Manuel. He was the only signal caller chosen Thursday. The Bills even “traded down” to get their man — another sign that 2013’s quarterback crop wasn’t impressing scouts the way 2012’s did. Buffalo sent the No. 8 pick to St. Louis in exchange for more picks later in the draft. Then the Bills used the No. 16 spot to take Manuel.
Last year, quarterbacks Andrew Luck (chosen by Indianapolis) and Robert Griffin III (by Washington) were the first two choices. A year later, quarterbacks Geno Smith of West Virginia and Matt Barkley of USC — who had been talked about as likely first round choices — will still be on the board when Round Two gets under way tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET (ESPN will be broadcasting).
Also not selected Thursday: Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o, who saw his once-bright draft prospects dim in January when word emerged that a supposedly dead girlfriend of his never existed. Te’o has said he was the victim of an elaborate hoax.
Meanwhile, if you’re a fan of unusual names, Thursday was a big night for you. Defensive linemen Ziggy Ansah of BYU and Barkevious Mingo of LSU were taken in the No. 5 and 6 spots.
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Assembly upholds gun range permit
Juneau Veterans for Peace says it will not appeal the Juneau Assembly’s decision upholding a Planning Commission permit for a gun store and shooting range near the airport.
In a 6 to 2 vote late Monday night, the Assembly ruled the Planning Commission properly issued the permit last December. The veterans’ group appealed the Juneau Mercantile and Armory permit just after it was issued, arguing the Planning Commission did not properly consider public health and safety, or the CBJ Comprehensive Plan.
Veterans’ for Peace Chapter President Phil Smith is not surprised by the decision. The group will not take the appeal to the next level, which would be Juneau Superior Court.
“The decision makes it fairly clear that there is an enormous amount of deference that is given to municipal bodies by the courts, and plus it would cost a lot of money,” Smith says.
The appeal to this point has consisted of his time and not much expense, but a court challenge would require a lot more.
“We would need an attorney; it would be, I think, extraordinarily expensive, time consuming and ultimately futile,” he says.
But Smith says Juneau Veterans for Peace will “watch wearily as the development goes in and continue to see if there are things we can do to make our community a little gentler and kinder.”
Mayor Merrill Sanford and Assembly members Mary Becker, Jesse Kiehl, Jerry Nankervis, Carlton Smith and Randy Wanamaker voted to uphold the Planning Commission. Karen Crane and Loren Jones voted with the appellants.
Jones was hearing officer for the case, which was heard by the Assembly on April 1st. He says the Planning Commission did not have a sufficient record regarding health and safety.
For example, he says, during a Planning Commission hearing on the permit, there was testimony that armory shooting instructors would be certified, “but nobody asked who’s doing the certification. What are the credentials of the people doing the certification? Was it a national certification, a state certification, a private certification?”
Jones has similar questions for training and safety plans that were noted in the permit record.
“Nobody on the Planning Commission asked for copies of those, nobody asked who approved those plans, whether the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms with the feds had to approve it, who wrote them,” Jones says. “I felt that their reliance on simply saying this was a land use and zoning issue as opposed to a potential safety issue in the borough just didn’t wash with me.”
But Assembly member Jerry Nankervis says the question before the Assembly was narrow.
“We’re sitting in a quasi-judicial role and when we review an appeal of a Planning Commission decision what we’re looking at is whether the city and the Planning Commission followed the rules the city has in place for the city,” he says. “And it’s not about whether I like the project or I don’t like the project, it’s about whether the process was followed.”
Nankervis acknowledges the Planning Commission’s discussion on safety at the gun range was thin.
The 13,000 square foot facility on Crest Street would offer semi-automatic, automatic and assault-style weapons, which Smith calls guns of war.
Nankervis – a former Juneau Police Officer – believes the new Juneau Mercantile and Armory will be a safer place than Juneau’s outdoor shooting range.
“I’ve been at the gun range, Hack Harmon, before, sighting in my rifle for deer season and had people show up with automatic weapons and shoot there, and I believe, based on my experience on what I’ve done for a living, that having that done in a supervised range is safer than having it done at an unsupervised range,” he says.
One of the things Juneau Veterans for Peace hopes would grow out of the appeal is a community conversation on gun safety. But Smith knows it would pit “those who think any discussion of public safety along those lines is somehow an attack on second amendment rights. Then there are those who sort of more agree with Juneau Veterans for Peace that it’s just smart to have that conversation. It’s smart to determine whether it makes a lot of sense to expose children to automatic weapons and all that entails. It’s smart to tone down the level of rhetoric.”
Neither Assembly member Jones nor Nankervis believe the Assembly would get behind a public discourse on guns, though Nankervis says it might be a cathartic conversation. The state of Alaska – not municipalities — regulates gun use.
Alaska racers describe scene at Boston Marathon
Several Alaskans were near the finish line of the Boston marathon when two bombs exploded in the crowded finish area. No Alaskans are known to be among the three people killed and the more than 100 others who were injured.
Forty-one Alaskans were registered to run Monday’s race and many had family members there to cheer them on.
Anchorage resident Heather Aften finished the race about 15 minutes before the bombs exploded. She was just a few blocks away when she heard the explosions.
“And right away I knew something was wrong. It was the kind of sound where you knew it was big and I instantly knew something was wrong. I thought of 9-11,” Aften said.
It was Aften’s dream to qualify for the Boston Marathon, which only allows runners with fast marathon times to enter. She said she felt elation for 15 minutes after she finished, but everything changed the instant she heard the first explosion.
“My trip down those 26 miles was just one long party and so many people put everything they had into it. And it’s just so heartbreaking and I guess because of that, I’m just feeling anger and rage at the whole thing,” she said.
Sixty-four year old Kodiak resident Howard Valley finished his race roughly 40 minutes before the blasts and said he was walking away from the area when he heard the explosions.
“It wasn’t like a propane tank or anything that goes off in Kodiak sometimes, or anything else; it was quite obviously a large explosion of some type. But I didn’t know what it was until about maybe a half an hour later when I got inside a hotel and was watching the TV,” Valley said.
He said it took him about four hours to get out of the city to the Newton, Mass. bed and breakfast where he was staying. He had to use alternate train and bus routes because transportation was shut down near the race course.
Juneau physician John Bursell finished the marathon just 39 seconds under three hours.
He and his wife Jamie had returned to their hotel room about five blocks away, when she heard the explosions and arriving emergency responders.
Bursell said they were asked to stay put in their hotel Monday night.
The forty-nine year old specializes in rehabilitation medicine and has participated in Iron Man events, but this was his first Boston Marathon.
Forty-six year-old Brent Cunningham of Sitka crossed the finish line about a half-hour before the explosions.
He said he and his wife and daughter were just a few blocks away.
Cunningham said all of a sudden it was madness. He said thousand of runners were unable to finish the race. Everyone who finishes the Boston Marathon gets a medal. He gave his medal to a woman who never got to the finish line.