En Garde For Charity: A Special Night For Fencing And Right To Play at the Barneys Penthouse in NYC

Olympic Fencers are teaming up for a very special photo exhibit and auction to support the charity Right To Play on May 13th, 2010 at the Barneys Penthouse in NYC!

Olympians Cliff Bayer (’96 ’00), Keeth Smart (’00,’04’08), Peter Devine (’96), Erinn Smart (’00,’04,’08), Jason Rogers (’04 ’08) and Tim Morehouse (’08) along with fellow Benefit Committee members Scott Buccheit, Jackie Astier, David Clay, Linda Rizk, Matt Snatnick, Sam Hamadeh, Wendy Doyle and Dana Sydney invite you join us as we get, “En Garde For Charity”.

We will have exclusive never-before-seen photographs of fencing from famed photographers Nigel Barker and Howard Schatz, some of the best works from Serge Timacheff and pictures seen in the media throughout the years by great photographers including David Burnett, Joe McNally, Gigi Stoll, Chiun-Kai Shih, Phillip Moy and Patrick McMullan.   

There will of course be cocktails, hors d’oeuvre, great media coverage and plenty of fun surprises!

Tickets are $150 and space is limited.
http://righttoplay.akaraisin.com/Common/Event/Home.aspx?seid=3115&mid=8

New York Fencing World Cup: Update #2

Information for fencers wishing to attend the New York World Cup Can Be Found Here: http://usfencing.org/pages/9231

I’m getting  more information about spectators, PR and other things related to this world cup this week. 

Stay tuned!

Quick Quiz: How Much Money Did NBC Lose on the Vancouver Olympics?

NBC lost $250 million!

I was a little surprised by this considering how popular this Olympics seemed to be, but apparently they had a lot of production expenses and the $820 million cost to buy the rights to the Vancouver Games for TV and online means that they had to do REALLY REALLY well to make a profit.

Rating did  improve 14 percent from the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, but that wasn’t enough to make it profitable for NBC. 

Fencing Club of the Week: Mission Fencing Center. An Old Bowling Alley Becomes The Coolest Fencing Club in the USA!

Mission Fencing Center in Rocky Point, NY (Long Island!) is located in a former bowling alley!   How cool is that?

It dubs itself, “The Largest Fencing Center In The Nation” and it’s certainly the largest fencing club I’ve ever seen!   Coaches Jeff and Jennifer Salmon have done a great job turning this place into a really exciting and fun fencing club.

Two huge open spaces where the bowling lanes used to be now have fencing strips running along the same wooden floors used for the alleys.   There is a weight room, pools and results are projected on the walls, numerous banners tout the results of their students, there is an equipment store, a food shop (with soft-serve ice cream), a designated medal podium for tournaments, plenty of seats for spectators and they even engrave their own medals!

I also must say that they also have a very enthusiastic and kind group of fencers and parents! I felt very welcomed at Mission.

My only problem with the place? That Jeff and Jennifer didn’t leave at least one bowling lane available for some occasional bowling!    The name of the club, “Mission” came from their original location which was an old monastery!  

Moral of the story is that old bowling alleys convert nicely to fencing clubs!   (Wonder what kind of cool/funky space Jeff and Jennifer will convert  next ? How about the old TWA Terminal at JFK?)

Check out Mission: http://missionfencingcenter.com/
Check out the full Album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2098524&id=9804644&l=2e6228d79d