Hockey players celebrate the Fourth

Many prospective members of the U.S. women's Olympic ice hockey team experienced their own fireworks of sorts as kids on the Fourth of July.

Jenny Potter recalls getting pelted by rainstorms on her way back-on a bike-from her town's fireworks display. Hilary Knight didn't miss an Independence Day celebration at home until last year, and plans to celebrate away from home again this year. And Caitlin Cahow paints a vivid picture of lying on a boat deck and watching the sky fall as the fireworks rained down.

If there's one holiday that members of the U.S. national team are bound to celebrate, it's July Fourth. Until recent years, when their rigid hockey training programs took center stage, many Team USA players had never missed an Independence Day celebration with their families.

For many of the players, their family these days is their teammates. And their home is in Minnesota, where some spend the year training.

Several Olympic hopefuls are training throughout the summer in Coon Rapids, Minn., where Rob Potter hosts his annual eight-week rite of passage for highly motivated, elite-level players. With several players at his camp having played on multiple Olympic and national teams, there's little doubt that the summertime training program has proven effective. But for some, it means having to give up the Fourth at home.

Helen Resor, for example, is training with Potter's group of a couple of dozen men's and women's players. This year will mark the first time she will celebrate the Fourth away from home. Her plans include a day on Lake Minnetonka with relatives who live in the Twin Cities.

"It's pretty sad," Resor said with a laugh. "I don't like to leave home that much. It was a fantastic holiday growing up. We'd get about 25 family members and friends to watch the fireworks (in New Canaan, Conn.). It's a holiday I always look forward to."

But if Resor can't be at home, being in the State of Hockey ranks a close second.

"I love being around hockey, and it's so nice in Minnesota that you're surrounded by it," said Resor, a defenseman who at 20 was the second-youngest player on the 2006 U.S. Olympic team that took bronze in Torino.

Knight, a top 10 finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Award as a sophomore forward last season at the University of Wisconsin, spent her formative years in Lake Forest, Ill. She now calls Hanover, N.H., home, but those fireworks celebrations in Illinois have had a lasting memory. For the second year in a row --- and for just the second time of her life --- Knight will be away from home on the Fourth due to training.

"We had a lot of family dinners and watched the fireworks on the beach," she said. "Everyone was still at home. None of us were off doing our own thing yet."

With the 2010 Vancouver Olympics on her mind, Knight has passed on airline tickets from her parents the past two summers to come home on the Fourth.

"My parents always try to fly me back,'' Knight said. "I declined the opportunity last year, too, because I was out here [in Minnesota]. It was pretty tough because that was the first time I had ever been away for the Fourth. We always planned family gatherings around Christmas and the Fourth of July, and sometimes Thanksgiving.''

Jenny Potter, meanwhile, will help the players recharge their batteries on the Fourth after a month of working out under the tutelage of her husband, Rob. Potter, a team veteran who is aiming for her fourth Olympic appearance in 2010, grew up in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina and is the team's resident expert on the Twin Cities.

Potter figures she'll have plenty of teammates lending a hand to whatever plans develop on the Fourth.

"I'm not sure what will happen, but my kids are pretty excited for fireworks," Potter said. "Some of us will get together and do a barbeque, get to a movie sometime over the weekend."

But one thing is certain: Don't expect any bikes to be involved. Growing up, Potter had her spirits dampened-literally-after more than one fireworks celebration.

"Our parents were real big on not taking the car anywhere, so we rode everywhere on bikes," Potter said. "On the Fourth we always rode our bikes over to the Edina pool and watched the fireworks. I remember it always seemed to rain after the fireworks were done, so then we'd be on our bikes going home and have to hide under tree branches or find cover somehow."

Cahow has come to grips with the fact that she won't be on a boat in Branford Harbor, Conn., on Independence Day.

"The Branford public fireworks were a serious, serious highlight," said Cahow, a member of the Team USA back-to-back world championship teams. "I used to love the Fourth growing up. It was one of my favorite holidays. We had a boat, and my family would anchor in the middle of this cove. They would shoot the fireworks up in the harbor, so we'd be right underneath them. My earliest memories were lying on the deck of a boat with my cousins, looking up and feeling like the sky was falling."

"My cousins lived near the cove, so we'd anchor by their house and run a rowboat back and forth bringing food and stuff. It was a lot of fun, a great way to spend the Fourth."

Like her fellow East Coast natives who have landed in the Midwest for the summer in the name of training for the Olympics, Cahow has made some memories in the land of 10,000 brats, err, lakes.

"When I came here to train after my freshman year [at Harvard], that was my first time to miss the Fourth," she said. "But I was staying with a teammate in Edina and we went to the Edina parade on the Fourth. It was a little different than what I was used to. I had my first brat that day, so that was exciting."

Don't expect Cahow to throw together any beer-battered versions of the delicacy. She's already volunteered to put her seafood cooking skills to work on the Fourth.

"I hear (Hilary) Knight threw me under the bus, and I'm going to be cooking, so that's fine," Cahow joked. "I love to cook. I'll do a fish dish and leave (Potter) in charge of the meat. She makes unbelievable meatballs, brats. And a mean turkey burger."

Karen Thatcher, a record-setting forward at Providence College who also helped the U.S. to consecutive world championships, spent last summer in Toronto. It was also her first time away from home on Independence Day. Once was plenty, as she'll be taking a July Fourth weekend trip to Boston to visit family.

"It was my favorite holiday growing up and it still is-no pressure, no presents,'' Thatcher said. "Just hang out and have fun. Last summer was hard, which was why I was happy to see it's on a weekend this year."

Thatcher's typical Independence Day celebration included a trip to the family ski condo in Stowe, Vt. First came the parade, then a trip to the town skate park, followed by fireworks. Those hot days at the inline skate park were tough to beat.

"It had street hockey, an alpine racecourse, ramps, rails, and three huge half-pipes," she said. "The summer when I was 8, I finally made it to the top of the half-pipe, and it was the highlight of my year."

That was then. This is now, and Thatcher and the rest of her teammates hope to create their own fireworks and highlights next year in Vancouver.

Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc. Dave McMahon is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of the United States Olympic Committee or any National Governing Bodies.