It's been a long time since...

It's been a long time since I blogged last. I've been really busy in class though.

So our the past few weeks I've been in touch with Mr. Dave Hanson who said I could interview him through e-mail. Well I sent him a copy of my questions that I wanted to get more information on, and received an e-mail back with all the questions at least some type of answer with it.

After my e-mail interview with Mr. Hanson, I e-mailed my coach and asked him if I could just send him my interview questions and he could answer them that way. He agreed and I got an e-mail back from him with the questions answered. He said he didn't have exact numbers, but he would pass the questions onto someone (Jill Harman) and get more answers, and possibly numbers. So a couple days later I received an e-mail from her. She sent me answers to questions as well, and she sent me charts that show numbers for youth involvement and team involvement.

These interviews have helped me a lot. It helped me finish off my notes (which were horrible until I obtained this information from my interviewees). Now all I have to do is do my Literature Review and I'll be set for next year.

So long for now.

Nathan

Notes

So I'm noticing that some of my foundation questions can not be answered by my sources because I can't find anything online for the statistics. I think that my interviews will help me out a lot on this situation because they should be able to give me a lot of information.

For now,

Nathan

Interview Questions

Today I started to write my interview questions. So far they are mostly about the influence the Penguins have had on youth and the rates of youth involvement. I've saved my questions to my flash drive for now because I'm going to work on them this weekend so I can get my interview(s) done by the end of next week (my e-mail one) and hopefully get together with my coach and interview him (face to face). Nothing is really new with any other work. I'm just going off of what I have right now, and hopefully I'll have more information in the next week to week and a half.

Nathan

Interview/Notes

So yesterday we started to talk about taking notes for answering our foundation questions. I just looked over my foundation questions, and they seem like they're fairly spread out throughout my topic.

Also we started talking about answering these questions, and finding someone to interview. I am thinking about interviewing my coach. I've already talked to him at tryouts and he agreed that I could interview him, so I'm getting ready to set up a meeting place so I can interview him and gather information to help me answer my foundation questions. I was thinking about interview someone else as well. Dave Hanson (General Manager of the Robert Morris Island Sports Complex). I think if he agrees to some type of interview that I could gain valuable information because he is a former professional hockey player, he coached a Pittsburgh Hornets AAA team a few years ago, and he manages the complex, so he should know about youth involvement in our area.

After interviewing both of these guys, I will put their information to use by answering my foundation questions, with the information that I have already gathered through some of my research.

For now,

Nathan

Today

Today I started to write my proposal. I know it's do tomorrow but I've been working on my action plan chart that goes along with my proposal. I'm almost done writing my introduction, and I think the rest of this paper is going to be easy to write once I'm done writing my intro.

Till tomorrow

Nathan

Finally

Everything has been overwhelming to me. There is so much work given to me at once, and then its due in a week or two. How am I suppose to remember all these things? I'm so proud of myself for getting everything done and turned in on time.

So now onto new things. We have to do our Pre-write for our proposal. It doesn't seem that hard, but I know that I'm going to make it harder than it really is.

Today started to do my pre-write but didnt get much done since I left school earlier to go take a placement test. But I used my time wisely and actually got something done

For now,

Nathan

Did you know...?

•Did you know in 1984, when Mario Lemieux came to Pittsburgh there was only eight ice rinks in all of Western Pennsylvania, now there is over 25.

•Did you know youth involvement in the Pittsburgh area is up by two percent. “Our numbers are up. In the Pittsburgh area, we’re at about a two-percent growth, which is good for us. It’s reminding us of the days of Mario [Lemieux]. Only we’re better positioned for it today.” (Paul Day)

•Did you know PIHL (Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey League) has gained 15 more teams, which is a ten percent increase from last year. “Sidney has spurred so many different things to happen. We have 15 more teams this year than last year. That’s probably a 10 percent increase. I am anticipating a 10 percent roster increase as well. Sidney’s influence and attitude have been unbelievable.” (Ed Sam, PIHL Commissioner)

•Did you know the Pittsburgh Penguins have teamed up with the Hockey in the Hood program to get boys and girls between the ages of 5 – 18 out on the ice for free

•Did you know the YMCA Junior Penguins have had a forty-percent increase of participants in its second year of operations.

•Did you know Sidney Crosby went to the same high school as Ryan Malone and Zack Parise, for his sophomore year, and he took that team to the 17U Tier 1 Nationals and won?(Shattuck St. Mary’s)

•Did you know Sidney Crosby is the youngest player to score over 100 points in his rookie season?

•Sidney Crosby is the youngest player to win the Art Ross Trophy (most points in the regular season), Lester B. Pearson Award (best player as voted by his peers), and Hart Memorial Trophy (MVP in the NHL) in the same year. He won these all at the age of 19.

•Sidney Crosby is the youngest player (age 19) to be named Captain in NHL history.

•Sidney Crosby is the youngest player to be voted to play in an All-Star game (at the age of 19 years 207 days)

My topic and essential question

So today I had a nice little chat with Mrs. Savido. We talked about how hard it was going to be to find information on my essential question of: What age should kids start training for hockey so they can play at the highest level of play? (AA, AAA, Juniors, College D1, Professionally)? After that she brought up that she talked to a few of the other facility members on my floor about it, and they came up with a few ideas with me to think about. One of these ideas was How does a winning professional hockey team effect the growth of youth involvement in that city, and the complexes to promote the game? I know very little about this topic, so I decide to switch my essential question to this question. With this as an essential question, she asked me what rink I play at, and all of the ice rinks that I travel to around the area of Pittsburgh, and further out. Then we started to get into the question of how does it effect the youth in the area (the Pens and how they are winning)?

So with these, she said I still have the start to everything (with the training, and the keywords). Now I just have to take it a step further and find out information on how winning professional teams effect youth involvement in the sport.


Nathan

I'm getting a little lost

I've been looking for stuff on my topic and essential question, but I haven't really been finding enough resources. I have only found two sources, that say the same thing. This is really frustrating me since I cannot find another else on this. I've been thinking about changing my topic to engineering (since that's what I'm looking to go into once I go to college), but then I wouldn't know what to do as an essential question.

Grr.

I guess I'll talk to Mrs. Savido about this.

Nathan

My first one!

Well this is my first time ever writing a blog. I dont know any person in the past that has actually graduated and completed their project, but yet again I never really talked to the upperclassman until this year (unless it was at work, but still we never talked about grad projects).

For my grad project I know that I want to do something based around hockey. But what I do is basically foucsed on if I get to take calculus next year or not. If I take calc then I know that I am going to want to go out on the ice and help out kids with the basics of the game. If I don't get to take calc next year then I'll end up doing something based on how hockey players train during the off season, and how it affects them. I just know that I want to do something based on hockey. I've talked to Ms. Savido and she gave me some more ideas to build upon these ideas that I just stated.

I do have concerns about my grad project. I know that I'll probably procrastinate since I'm a huge procratinater. But I've been making promises to myself to just get it done and over with, and work on it every time I get a chance. I just hope I get to do what my first idea is, and start working on it right away.

For now,

Nathan