Former Olympian Silver Medalist of the US Women's Ice Hockey Team, Kelli Stack will be making her debut as one of several nominees for the "Athlete of the Year Award" in Northeast Ohio on February 10th. The Greater Cleveland Sports Commission is proud to announce that Mike Tirico, will host the 2010 Greater Cleveland Sports Awars on February 10, 2011 at the Renaissance Cleveland hotel.
Kelli has been attending Boston College for the past 4 years as a member of the Women's Ice Hockey Team. She is a very successful player of that team and managed to break away for a year to get herself geared up for the Winter Olympics 2010 up in Vancouver, Canada. Prior to that, she went with the US Women's Hockey Team to compete in several nationals where the team earned several Gold Medals each year. During the year of the Winter Olympics, the women's team was playing very strong against each opponent and faced some tough competition last year from the Women's Canadian Ice Hockey Team which earned the US Women's Team a Silver Medal. Kelli made several goals and assists during her time spent in the Olympics.
Kelli Stack is a native of Cleveland, Ohio where she started out at the age of 2 with Ice Skating. When she reached the age of 4, she leaped at the chance of learning how to play hockey and now here she is today. I can recall when I just graduated from high school how that young girl with a blonde pony tail came up to me and informed me that she was going to be in the Olympics. This was the first time that I got to see my younger cousin a little more grown up than when I had first met her as a younger child.
Since that time, I would hear many great stories of her accomplishments of every single game that she ever played by a few of my other relatives. One day, this relative managed to contact me and asked me to look at the first article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about this young woman. I understood that for awhile, there were not too many schools offering Ice Hockey lessons for girls and was informed that Kelli at one point joined an all boys team just so she could learn to play and she had the chance to play very well. Then she managed to find an all women's team where she would travel out of town very often for her practices.
So last year amidst the rough economic times within the US and throughout the world, Kelli Stack along with Brianne McLaughin had the opportunity to participate in the 2010 Winter Olympics. I can recall visiting with Kelli several times just to get the opportunity to see both the Gold Medal that she had earned prior to her first Olympic game and then the Silver Medal that she had earned during the Olympics with the rest of her team.
She also had the opportunity of appearing on the Ellen show with her teammates, the Sports Dug out show here in Cleveland, gave a presentation at her alma matter school, Cuyahoga Heights, and a chance to throw a pitch at a baseball game with the Cleveland Indians last Spring.
When I watched her receive her fans at this baseball game for photo autographs, both Kelli and Brianne were very welcoming and down to earth with their fanbase which I feel is a very important quality to have as well as good sportsmanship.
For anyone who would like to attend, here is your opportunity. For anyone who would like to request an autographed photo of Kelli , I can be reached at dskonier@hotmail.com.
