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John Russell

John Russell's sports column appears Sundays in Steamboat Today. Contact him at 871-4209 or e-mail jrussell@SteamboatToday.com.

Steamboat Springs — I wonder how people would react if Avalanche right winger Milan Hejduk showed up at Howelsen Ice Arena one afternoon and asked if he could play in a drop-in hockey game?

My guess is that the locals at the arena would surround him, hound him for autographs and photos before they picked up their cell phones and called every friend, and a few people they didn't know, to spread the word. By the time Hejduk escaped the rush, the game would be over.

You might expect Steamboat Springs residents to react to sports stars like any other town in America, and that's why guys like Hejduk normally have press agents to schedule appearances. I'm sure the hockey fans at Howelsen would swamp Hejduk. However, I'm also sure that Steamboat isn't like every other town when it comes to how locals treat professional athletes.

I was standing in the Nordic offices in Howelsen Hill last week, talking ski jumping with a few coaches, when American Nordic combined stars Todd Lodwick and Johnny Spillane casually walked past me into the wax room.

The room was full of young athletes preparing for an afternoon of training at Howelsen, but there was no mad rush. The two stood there for several minutes talking with coaches, and not once did a single autograph hunter interrupt the flow of their words. I was standing a few feet from a world champion and one of the greatest names in U.S. Nordic combined history, and nobody in the room seemed to notice.

It's funny to think that in a year, these two skiers will be representing the U.S. Ski Team in Vancouver, and both skiers have proven they have what it takes to bring home the gold medal.

They are the Hejduks of their sport, but in Steamboat, most people know them as Todd and Johnny.

The other skiers in the wax room have grown up in their shadows, a few of them are friends and almost all of them have jumped off the same hills and pursued the same goals.

The young skiers in the room respect them; they might even want to be them some day, but you have a better chance of finding an Olympian at Howelsen Hill than you do of finding money in a bank these days.

There's a good chance the coach is a former Olympian, or that they might pass a medal winner in the hallway if the timing is right. The truth is that it would be unusual if you visited Howelsen Hill and didn't see an Olympian.

That's one of the cool things about living in Steamboat. It's funny to think that next February, thousands of people will pack Whistler Olympic Park, and millions of others will crowd in front of their TVs just to get a glimpse of Lodwick and Spillane. But in Steamboat, we can do that on just about any afternoon when these guys are not on the World Cup circuit, and we don't even have to fight the crowds to get close.