REACH 2012 SKATING CAMP July 19, Day 1

I am here in Blaine, MN at the National Sports Center.  I have to admit I had ZERO clue how AMAZING this facility is.  The skating director, Jane Schaber, picked me up at the airport.  I was blown away when we arrived at the "compound."   First of all there is a soccer tournament going on.  Uhm, yeah, there is about 14,000 people in for that!  I got a tour of the 8 SHEET FACILITY!!!  You read that right, 8 sheets!  One rink is dedicated to this young club that is gaining a ton of momentum from the efforts of Jane, all the coaches, and club members.  After seeing the rinks, indoor massive weight training facility, awesome off ice ballet/zumba/yoga room, we hopped on a golf cart to tour the rest of the grounds!  Puma is a large sponsor of this soccer tournament and have some cool displays around the area.  I got to see the convention center with a room that had all the media guys with sweet video cameras to create who knows what kind of awesome stuff!  From there we passed a few soccer fields, a velodrome (circular race track ramped on an angle) and ended up at the dorms for lunch in the cafeteria.  From there I got to see the awesome indoor soccer fields, and finally back to the rink.  There is a great group of kids here for the camp that I will hopefully have more pictures tomorrow to share!  Until then, off to bed and an early 6am tomorrow!