Freezing doesn’t describe how cold I was watching the U.S. Women’s Hockey team practice. I watched players like Julie Chu and Jessie Vetter work up a sweat while I paced back and forth hoping I could join in. Since my mini ice hockey lesson with Angela Ruggiero, I realize that despite the freezing ice rink temperatures, these women want that gold medal come February.

In preparation for the 2010 Winter Games, the U.S. Women’s Hockey team put their hearts to work, both physically and mentally. In a two-hour practice, they monitored their heart rates to see how hard they push themselves during practice. The practice consisted of quick sprints up and down the ice, one-on-one scrimmages, three-on-three mini games, and overall agility drills. Bumping and crashing, diving and sprinting, I was burning calories just watching.

And why do they do all this? Why are they working so hard, burning thousands of calories and training daily? Yeah, maybe it is for a gold medal or because they are really competitive women. Yet I can’t help but think that when the day is done, it must be really worthwhile to sit down and enjoy what Jessie Vetter and Julie Chu call monkey bread!

It’s apparently the team’s favorite snack. The ingredients include fried dough, butter, sugar and cinnamon. Apparently it’s a pretty heavy snack to eat on a regular, but if you’re burning over 1,000 calories at practice, I think it’s okay to indulge once in a while. Whatever their reason is for working as hard as they do, Julie and Jessie are both anticipating eating a lot of monkey bread after they come home with the gold in the 2010 winter games.

-Sarina