From the USA Luge Team:

USA Luge’s final international racing squad, and eventually its 10-member Olympic team, will begin to take shape with a series of race-offs beginning Wednesday, Oct. 21, in Lake Placid, N.Y. The second race-off on the 20-turn, mile-long Mt. Van Hoevenberg course is slated for Friday, Oct. 23.

Following the two races and the first round of cuts, the race-off series will move out to Park City, Utah, where the team will be pared down again following a November 6 race-off. The final cuts will be made on November 15, during a week of international training in Whistler, Canada.

In the end, USA Luge’s fall 2009 team will feature 15 athletes (four men’s singles, five women’s singles and three doubles teams). These 15 athletes will then use the four World Cup events as qualifiers for the 2010 Olympic team. Athletes who miss making the squad will have the option of training in Lake Placid for the bulk of the remaining fall, winter and spring sliding season.

SPOKANE – Jenny Potter says it’s a mistake to read too much into the 5-2 spanking Canada gave the U.S. women’s hockey team Friday night at the Spokane Arena.

At first glance it would seem the Americans’ loss coupled with their Oct. 5 loss to Canada in Victoria might indicate that the balance of power is shifting north once again.

But Potter, a veteran of all three U.S. Olympic teams, says fans should pay closer attention to the calendar than the scoreboard.

“There is no medal after this game,” Potter, 30, said. “Just pride.”

Last month Team USA asserted itself as the dominant team in the rivalry by beating Canada twice in four days to win the Hockey Canada Cup at Vancouver’s GM Place, the hockey venue for the Feb. 12-28 Winter Games.

Friday in Spokane, the Americans say they lacked the intensity they needed to beat the two-time defending Olympic champs.

“We got outworked,” said U.S. forward Natalie Darwitz.

That was evident from the start, when Canada fired three shots in the opening 90 seconds. Goalie Jessie Vetter stopped them all but it was clear she was going to be in for a long night.

Canada scored first when Meghan Agosta broke free for an uncontested shot with 2:13 to play in the first period.
The U.S. tied the score during a power play with 54.3 seconds to play in the first period when forward Gigi Marvin of Minnesota flicked in a shot from her knees with her back to the goal.

The crowd erupted, but the celebration was short lived. Seconds later U.S. defensemen Caitlin Cahow of Connecticut lost her stick giving the Canadian’s “NCAA line” all the opening it needed to reclaim its lead.

The Canadians call it the “NCAA line” because all of the players attended U.S. colleges.

Harvard’s Sarah Vaillancourt, thanks to assists from Minnesota Duluth’s Haley Irwin and Ohio State’s Tessa Bonhomme, scored with 19.4 seconds left in the period to give Canada a 2-1 lead.

“We lost the momentum there,” said U.S. coach Mark Johnson, a member of the 1980 U.S. gold medal hockey team.

Canada took advantage of power plays in the second period to add two more quick goals. Caroline Ouellette scored both.
The Canadians pushed the lead to 5-1 at the 16:24 mark with a goal by defender Catherine Ward.

Potter backhanded a shot past Canadian goalie Shannon Szabados at the 18:35 mark of the second period. Neither team scored in the third period.

Canada and the U.S. will play four more times before the Olympics. The next match is Dec. 12 in Denver.

“We play these games to learn and get better for the Olympics,” Potter said. “… It’s better to lose now then when it matters.”

NOTES: U.S. forward Karen Thatcher, a 25-year-old graduate of Providence College, lives in Blaine. She moved to Blaine four years ago. … Attendance was not announced after the game, but less than half the seats in the 10,000-seat arena were filled. Team USA drew 9,137 fans when it played China in Spokane before the 2002 Olympics. … Team USA picked its current 23-player roster on Aug. 24. The team will be trimmed to its 21-player Olympic roster in mid-December.

From the Associated Press:

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. (AP) — Bree Schaaf only picked up bobsledding three years ago. John Daly had never scored such a big win against elite-level racers. John Napier is merely 22 years old.

They might not be up-and-coming anymore. On Thursday, that trio of U.S. sliders may have finally arrived.

Schaaf won the second of four women’s bobsled national team trials races, Daly finished atop the men’s skeleton standings for the day and Napier might have had the most significant result of his young career as a four-man bobsled driver — each putting themselves into position to secure spots on the U.S. World Cup team and have the inside track at berths in the Vancouver Olympics.

It was a day filled with surprises at chilly Mt. Van Hoevenberg, where Day 1 of the national team trials was dominated by veterans. On Day 2, the tables started to turn.
“It’s a huge deal,” Schaaf said. “I woke up this morning, ready to rock. I daydream constantly about the Olympics. It’s been the driving force for this season, the driving force for a while now. I cannot wait until February, and I feel like everything is coming together for that purpose.”
Schaaf was a skeleton racer until 2007, then persuaded coaches to give her a shot at driving a bobsled.
Good move.

Teaming with Michelle Rzepka, Schaaf’s time of 1 minute, 54.74 seconds was the day’s best by 0.22 seconds over Day 1 winners Erin Pac and Elana Meyers. There’s only three sleds in the women’s bobsled trials, competing for two available spots on the World Cup roster, where they’ll be joined by 2006 Olympic silver-medal winning driver Shauna Rohbock.

The standings are complex, with a point system in play and skeleton racers having the chance to throw out their worst race, so nothing will really be decided until the trials end in Park City, Utah on Oct. 24. One thing is certain: Daly, who won Day 2 by 0.04 seconds over another relative surprise in Stokes Aitken, won’t be throwing out his Thursday result.

“Yesterday was a downer,” said Daly, who was seventh in Day 1. “Today was the bounceback. I got luckier.”
Day 1 men’s skeleton winner Eric Bernotas is out of the trials, excused with an injury. He’ll be one of four men going to Whistler for international training in late October and, unless his strained right leg doesn’t heal, will be part of the U.S. roster when World Cup racing begins next month.

Zach Lund was third in men’s skeleton Thursday, still struggling with a sore hamstring.

“I’ve got a few days now to get better,” Lund said.
Napier has had a few years to get better.

He comes from a sliding family; his mother was the race secretary Thursday, charting all the times and placings. He’s been in a sled since he was 8 and is hoping his win in the four-man race — his team was 0.16 seconds ahead of the sled piloted by veteran Todd Hays — is the sign that big things are looming.

“It feels good,” Napier said. “The experience is a plus for me, because it’s only going to get better and stronger and faster. I hope that’s the case. I pray that’s the case.”

The only part of the trials that is starting to look like a runaway is women’s bobsled, where former world champion Noelle Pikus-Pace won for the second straight day, 0.17 seconds ahead of Rebecca Sorensen — who also finished second in Day 1 competition.

Pikus-Pace set a personal-best time of 55.92 seconds in her first of two runs down the Lake Placid course Thursday. Brimming with confidence, she heads home to Utah on Friday, now a huge favorite to win the trials since Park City is her home track.

“I’m bringing some momentum to Park City,” Pikus-Pace said. “I jumped off the sled on my first run and just started screaming, like I had the perfect run. It’s been a long time since I had one of those. So it couldn’t have been a better finish here in Placid.”