DAVE JARRETT (DJ)
Former Olympic Nordic Combined Skier & Coach
jdjarrett@athleticrepublicteam.com
1998 Winter Olympic Games were in Nagano, Japan. The NC team was Tim Tetreault, Todd Lodwick, Kristoffer Erichsen, Johnny Spillane, Billy Demong, and me. This was the first time NHL players were allowed to play in the Olympics and the hockey games were awesome! It seemed like most teams and players stayed in the Olympic Village in Nagano and it was cool to see, stand in line with, and occasionally eat with players like Gretzky, Jagr, and Avalanche players like Sakic and Deadmarsh.
When our events were over, we took advantage of the free tickets and took in as many games as possible. In fact, Tim and I scored tickets to the Olympic final between the Czech Republic and Russia. It was a great game with the Czech taking gold. After the game, we were supposed to be at the closing ceremonies the only problem was we didn’t have a ride. Somehow when we were walking out, we ran into a group of CBS people who invited us to the CBS closing ceremony party which was located at the closing ceremony arena. Problem solved!
They escorted us in the party and plenty of CBS stars were enjoying the Olympics. After mingling with the crowd, we ran into one of the biggest stars there, Chuck Norris! He was super nice and took a picture with us. To this day when I tell people, I met Chuck Norris most people don’t believe me, so I have to show them the photo evidence. An even more serendipitous addendum to the story here was the person who took the photo said his Dad had a house in Steamboat and he would mail us the photo. Before all the modern communication channels we have now, we tried to get our photo with Chuck but couldn’t track it down. It was only until we were telling Greg Poirier this story and he said, “I’ll get it.” Turns out our friend at CBS was Greg’s sister, Barb’s, brother-in-law!
Credit Greg for getting the goods!
Small world!
3 Comments
Dave Jarret, great story and experience. There was a Sundance Film Festival film that you can stream entitled “Chuck Norris vs Communism”. True story about Chuck Norris and impact of movies behind the iron curtain in Romania. You might enjoy the film. Thanks. Vic Method
Sounds like an interesting movie, I think we’re going to have to check that one out too!
Big smile on my face as I read this retelling of our experience. I didn’t remember all the details, but still recall when you shook Chuck’s hand you jokingly feigned pain from his too-strong grip and sincerely apologized…not getting that it was a joke. Good times.