NSA vs Albany

By Mattia Laudi

National Sports Academy Mountaineers played on Friday  26th at Albany versus the Albany American, recently reinforced by adding 6 Swedish players to their roster, for their 17th game of the 2011-2012 IJHL season.

The Americans started really strong from the opener drop with a physical play, taking advantage of their good size, and skating realy hard in the offensive zone.

Albany Americans logo

A good work in the defensive zone allows the Mountaineers to respond with quick counterattack thanks to the speed of their forward, allows the NSA team to tie the first period 0-0.

The second period starts better for the Mountaineers, with a better approach in the offensive zone and a good forecheck that procures a penalty for the Americans, well exploited by Tyler Watts thet scores the first goal of the game at 28:31.

After six minutes later a deflection of Kevin Valenti on a shot from the point of Tyler Randig brings the score 2-0 for the Mountaineers.

At 16.31 the Americans get closer with a power play goal scored by Jens Karlsson, that gives energy to Albany to try the comeback, but the second period ends with the score of 2-1 for the NSA, that can go to rest in the locker room with a little advantage.

The third period starts positive for NSA that after 4 minutes scores a goal with Kevin Valenti that snipes from the top of the circles and brings the Mountaineers ahead with two goals of discrepancy.

Patrick Heyes, NSA forward

Other two goals for the NSA by Tylor Widenmaier and Patrick Heyes abate the game, with an important W for the NSA that still leads the conference with 31 points and 17 games played.

After the game coach Simmons seemed pretty happy for the victory but he gave some advices to the team:” That’s a good W for us” he said” but we have to start playing our game and our system since the first minute of the game.”

Next game for the NSA against the Eastern Kodiaks, is going to be a big challenge for the players, that have to protect their leading status.

Act at NSA

Cross and Smith showing their love for the ACT

Acceptable College Testing?

By: Kelsey Lynch

LAKE PLACID, NY--- At the National Sports Academy, many high school seniors anxiously await their ACT results that may ultimately determine their future.

American College Testing, or the ACT, is a standardized test that is said to measure how prepared a high school student is for attendance at a college or university. The test consists of four multiple-choice sections: reading, English, mathematics, and science. The test takes about three and a half hours to complete. 

Some students struggle because of the long timed sections. One NSA student has actually fallen asleep during the ACT leaving 50 questions blank.

All NSA students are on a tight schedule that consists of school and training everyday. Considering this, the amount of free time is limited and with other schoolwork, studying for the ACT is generally not a top priority.

As I sat down with two of NSA’s seniors, Maggie Cross and Martha Smith, their faces were anything but thrilled when I brought up the three letters ACT. Their eye rolling gave me the impression that they didn’t want to relive their ACT experience.

As it turned out, my suspicions were right; they didn’t want to relieve the experience; however, they were willing to give some feedback on how the test went and what they liked or disliked about it.

As a new test taker, Maggie Cross had a lot more negative things to say rather than positive.

As I asked her how the test went, Cross-fired back with, “ IT SUCKED!” She then continued by saying, “I don’t think I did very well, I didn’t prepare much and the timing threw me off.”

Although Maggie walked into the test without studying she was still fairly confident that she would do well, having experience taking the SAT. And even though the ACT and SAT tests are very different from one another, they intend to measure the same thing. After taking both tests, Cross says, “ I will never take the ACT again.”

Maggie also cracked a joke saying, “The only thing better about the ACT is that you don’t have to fill in as many bubbles before the test starts!”

Martha Smith is an experienced ACT test taker, who recently took the test for the 4^th time last weekend. Her feedback was not thrilling but more positive then I expected. As she walked out of the ACT room she felt as if she “did better” then her previous experience.

Smith has no experience with the SAT therefore; she has nothing to compare it to. I asked her if she thinks the ACT’ is an accurate test and she quickly responded “no.” She feels, as though, “you can be smart and not apply yourself or you can study for a long time and not take test well.”

NSA Boys Prep

NATIONAL SPORTS ACADEMY
 By: Sam Puckhaber

Heading into last weekend's action, the boys Prep Team had been off to an amazing start on the season with a record of 10 wins and 1 loss. Their only loss came by a margin of one goal, the score being 2-1. The team seems to have great chemistry as is being reflected in amount wins they have in the start of the season.

Prep Team goal celebration

Last weekend the boys Prep Team was off to a rocky start losing in a shoot out to the Northern Cyclones 2-3, with goals by Alex Kwok and Logan Hulse. National Sports Academy played a great game with a good effort, but came up short.

In the next two games the boys came up big, winning both games. Playing the Portland Junior Pirates team and winning 5-2 with goals scored by Alex Kwok, Blake Tarbell, Jack Buckley, and two goals by Josh Renaud.

In a very physical game, with ten penalty minutes for NSA and twelve penalty for the Portland Junior Pirates, NSA shined.

Then, in the next game playing the Massachusetts Mariners, the boys Prep won once more defeating the Mariners with a score of 6-1, with goals by Fredric Eineren, Blake Tarbell, Danny Vistor, Matt Roberts, and two goals by Jack Buckley.

The two game winning streak came to an end in the Semi-Finals by a loss of three goals to one. The lone goal was scored by Tommy Barnes, the teams youngest member, and not only the youngest on the Prep team but also the youngest in National Sports Academy.

Tommy Barnes

When Barnes' was asked how he felt the chemistry on the team is going he says: “Good we're like a family, and bonding happens everyday.” Although the chemistry seemed to be subpar during two of the four games, they still came out big with two great wins.

The boys have had 12 wins so far this season and hopefully will continue their winning streak, and will venture out to Montreal this coming weekend. Hopefully the chemistry that is said to be that of a family will reflect in the on coming games. Having spoken with Tommy Barnes he tells that he is very excited for the oncoming weekend.

Barnes had also given insight to how his experience is going at NSA, when being asked what his favorite part about NSA was he says; “I really like the high level of play, hockey here is great.” Barnes tells that he truly enjoys NSA and all the kids in it. When asked what it's like being not only the youngest on his team but in the entire National Sports Academy community he fires back “Sometimes I get picked on because I'm so young in comparison, but everyone is always friendly.”

Athletic Results: Boys Hockey

Mountaineers Remain In First Place

By: Emily Laurenzi

Lake Placid, NY--Last weekend National Sports Academy’s Varsity Men’s Hockey team went 2-0-1 in three games against the third place team in their division, the New England Stars.

NSA center Erik Hallin

As the top team in the IJHL, the Mountaineers know they have to show up to play every game. “It’s not always easy being the top team,” Erik Hallin said, “You have to learn not to play down.”

On Friday night NSA came out strong with a 6-3 win, never once giving up their lead. Brandon Patraw and Erik Hallin were star players for the Mountaineers each having two goals.

The second game didn’t start as well as the Mountaineers would have hoped. The Stars came out fast and caught NSA off guard. By the end of the first they had scored two goals leading the game 2-1.

Once again in the second period NSA came out slow and the Stars took advantage. By the end of the second NSA was trailing 5-4. Play was steady for most of the third period, until with only 2:49 left in the game, Zach Dymock buried the puck ending the game in a 5-5 draw.

NSA goalie Jakob Rasmussen

“The Stars must have gained some courage after Friday nights game,” said Mattia Laudi, “They came out really hard on Saturday.”

The final game of the weekend came to a start and NSA knew they had to come out harder then they had the previous game. Four minutes into the game, NSA took the lead.  The game remained 1-0 until only 40 seconds remained in the second period when Tyler Watts put one away to make it a 2-0 lead going into the third period.

Two more goals in the third period for the Mountaineers helped them on their way to a comfortable 4-1 victory. Jakob Rasmussen, NSA’s number one goalie, stood on his head, facing thirty-one shots and was able to keep the Mountaineers in the game. 

After each game one player is awarded the “hard hat” for outstanding play on the ice. This weekend the “hard hat” was given to Erik Hallin, Taylor Widenmaier, and Jakob Rasmussen.

The varsity team knew they didn't have their best weekend, however, they pulled through and still remain the number one team in the league. 

Performance-enhancing in sports

by Mattia Laudi

By this time, most professional sport is for cheaters, people who don’t care about health or fair play.

This is a problem with regard to all those guys who really want to be a professional sportsmen, but they are not willing to use drugs and endanger their lifes.

In fact, currently, most part of professional sports, from soccer to football, is dominated by players on drugs, because they can have more strength, speed, cardio endurance, then every other clean player.

Steroids effects

A research conducted by Sports Illustrated in 1997 faced some athletes in front of two different scenarios: the first one was the choice between use or not use drug knowing that you will win every competition and you’ll never be caught, and one hundred and ninety-five choose to use drugs, three said no.

In the second scenario you were offered to use a banned performance-enhancing knowing that you will not be caught and you will win every competition for the next five years, and then you will die from the sides effect of the drugs. More then half of the athletes choose to use drugs.

This study shows how people are willing to use every kind of stuff to gain reputation and get an agreement with a professional team or a sponsor.

Often the associations like the International Olympic Committee say that they are doing a lot of testing on athletes to avoid the abuse of steroids, but I think they are not actually doing their best, otherwise the most part of the dugs abusers would be caught.

The real reason why they don’t do enough controls is that the business around drugs and sports is too much important to care about the health of thousands of athletes that endanger their lives to reach fame and their dreams.

Lance Armstrong

The athletes get their drugs through gurus specialized in the purchase of performance-enhancing. To procure steroids gurus goes to local doctors or in Tijuana, Mexico and they use smart techniques to avoid drug testers, like altering chemically the drugs, because each steroid has its own signature, but if you change the chemical composition it’s harder to be caught.

Usually afford the price of a monthly program is around $3000, but also athletes with little money can have their steroids, buying drugs chemically altered with simple components, obviously, less effective.

Gurus’ role is not just to sell drugs to athletes, but also make sure that steroids are administreted properly, with right dosage, in the right moment before a competition.

Whereas these alterations are adopted for the most part of  the steroids used by athletes, find some contermeasures could take a little time, but really it has to be done to give the chance to everybody to get into professional sport, and to avoid most part of death that are happening in hockey and football.

Column: Dirty Dorms Done Differently

My Marvelous Mayhem

By: #18, Defenseman

Should high school student’s rooms have to be perfectly clean? What if that room belongs to an athlete who trains for three to four hours each morning and then goes to school in the afternoon? What if the room belongs to a student on honor roll? Well, what if the room belongs to a student who trains for three to four hours each morning and then goes to school at night and maintains honor roll?

Dorm Room

I believe that with achievements should come freedom. Every morning my roommate and I wake up at the crack of dawn to do an intense off ice workout followed by an equally hard on ice workout. By the time our morning is complete we have to rush back to school to shower and get ready for school plus eat lunch before school starts at 1.

School is in session from 1-6:15, after school there is a hour and 45 min period that is our only free time all day. But we do not always have this time; sometimes it is filled with dinner, meetings, extra courses, kitchen duty or homework. Starting at 8 is study hall which lasts until 9. After study hall we are expected to have all of our homework complete and have lights out around 10:15.

My roommate and I both maintain honor roll, so imagine our shock when we were kicked out of our room during the 8-9 study hall and were forced to study downstairs in a monitored study hall. The reason: our beds were not made and our room was not perfectly clean. The room is ours to do as we please; we both enjoy studying on the floor so sometimes our books are on the floor.

Also, after being physically tortured all morning through doing stairs, running fast laps and skating suicides, we need to rehydrate. To do this, we drink a lot of Gatorade and bottled water. Due to our green outlook on life we recycle these bottles. After drinking and before recycling, they sit in a stack on our dresser.

Messy Room

I don’t think that it is fair to punish people who don’t have the cleanest room if they are keeping their lives together in all the other aspects. Maybe some people function better when they don’t have to worry picking up books after finishing homework or hanging up a sweatshirt that they just took off.

Not only is it not fair but it is fairly unrealistic. In the schedule I described please look and tell me where there is time to go and spend 20 minutes cleaning, sweeping and dusting a room on a daily basis. On multiple occasions my roommate and I have proven that we have the ability to play hockey at a high level and keep our marks up in the classroom.

Given this information, haven’t we demonstrated that a little mess does not affect our lives or what we accomplish, haven’t we shown that we deserve a little freedom? Sometimes perfection is not the only answer, in fact, sometimes chaos helps life become more perfect. 

Column: Small School

By: Martha Smith

We here at NSA are a school of eighty kids.  We all live, eat, sleep and hang out in the same building as one another most of the time.  While that may create a nice, close-knit community, it also creates something else: a lot of really weird and unavoidable awkward situations.  Here at NSA that is the exact problem we have. 

For example, try walking by the Exeter Room: Every time someone walks by the room they look in to see who is there.  And generally it’s not just a quick glance either. They really take a look in there, check the table or the windows, and if they are coming from the right direction, the cubbies.  But if someone is in there they look away, quick, because they inevitability make that incredibly awkward eye contact.

No one knows what to say, so everyone is just staring.

Both parties experience this because the people in the Exeter Room always take a quick look out the doors as well, and make eye contact.  And of course this makes the person in the room feel just as awkward, so they quickly look back down at whatever it is that they are “working” on, and try really hard to look busy.

Sometimes a student gets lucky, and there is no one that they can make eye contact with on a quick stroll by, but if the student is one of those really daring people they actually take a few steps into the room.  That trek into the room almost always ends in the walker feeling like a complete idiot.

Let me explain this for you, they begin walking by the Exeter Room and they slow down as they cross the doors in the hallway.  Quick peak in, and it looks like the room is empty.  Score.  They take a few steps in, glance around, not obviously though, because who knows who could somehow see them in that “empty” room, and walk to the windows.  Take a look outside, see if anything interesting is going on, so maybe they can go join that because the Exeter Room stroll really isn’t all that interesting.  Sure enough there is something going on.  TT and Sarah are outside throwing/catching grapes.  They watch for a little, and make the decision to go outside.  They think they are all in the clear and then they turn around to leave and wham, there is one of the skiers sitting in the corner on the computer.  And of course it isn’t one of the skiers they have actually had a few conversations with, it’s the one they hardly know.  Out of the school of eighty and the one person in the room is one of the few they’ve never said a word to.  Awesome, nice and awkward.

The skier looks up right as they are awkwardly standing in the middle of the room.  It’s time for the phone save.  Pull out the phone from the pocket, dramatically, I might add, so they “know” there is a “real” reason for whipping it out of your pocket like that.  Open it.  Stare at the little screen for a few seconds, make it look like they really are reading a text, and casually walk out.  Perfect cover up. They just managed to avoid any type of conversation, which would of made the entire confrontation a lot more awkward and just in general they saved the situation from becoming ten times more awkward.

All in all theses situations are one of the best and one the worst parts of going to school at National Sports Academy.  A plus because you can always share with your friends your latest awkward moment, and a minus because you are constantly on the lookout to avoid the awkward moments.