Blogs

Recently, I learned that one of the players on my hockey team was Tweeting negative statements about another player. He claims he though that only the other player could see it. We discussed the situation with him, told him it was unacceptable, and asked him to remove the Tweets and apologize to the team. He started out by saying to his teammates,  "I was told I need to apologize for Tweeting," and then promptly quit. Wow, talk about lack of sincerity or honesty.  The incident offered several "teachable moments", which we will take advantage of as we work through this issue. 

Since my blog on my interview with April Justin last week I have received many emails, tweets, Facebook comments and phone calls with suggestions, comments, questions and advice on all sorts of things, especially on what my blog should be focused on in the future.

The majority of the mail has been positive, congratulating me on taking the time to answer the question many had after watching the Landon Collins video - what was his mother really thinking. Some, of course, has been critical, both for reporting what April Justin told me were her reasons at all, or for the way in which I reported it, or both.

A couple of weeks ago a team and league management technology provider and a neurocognitive testing company announced a partnership to provide online testing for athletes. The announcement prompted emails to MomsTEAM from parents asking for my opinion on how and where to have their children's baseline neurocognitive tests done, and whether they could do them at home.  While I have been fielding similar e-mails for years, the uptick in emails prompted me to do some digging to come up with an answer.

I have tried to understand how Sarah Burke's freestyle ski injury actually ended up resulting in her death this week. The information, at first, was pretty sketchy.  Ultimately, we learned that, when Sarah's head snapped back in her fall, the whiplash caused a tear (dissection) of her vertebral artery, which cut off the blood to her brain, causing her to go into cardiac arrest and resulting in irreversible brain damage.

We at MomsTeam are deeply saddened by the passing of Sarah Burke, Canadian freestyle skier and a pioneer of the superpipe event, who died January 19th from injuries she received in an accident nine days earlier while training for the upcoming Winter X Games at Park City Mountain, Utah.

Sarah was a freeskiing pioneer, six-time X Games gold medalist and beloved wife, daughter, sister and friend; an athlete whose star shone brightly well beyond her sport; a star whose light has now, tragically, been extinguished, forever.  We join in expressing our condolences to her family and at the loss of such a remarkable young woman.