Counting Down to 2034: Olympic-Themed Family Activities for School Breaks

Why I'm Doing This

The risk with our generation of kids growing up in PC is that the Olympic legacy stuff becomes wallpaper. They drive past the K90 and K120 jumps every week. They've ridden the chair at PCMR a thousand times and don't remember that the snowboard giant slalom finished where they get off. The Utah Olympic Park is just "the place with the slide" to Beck. I want them to know the venues, the events, the legacy athletes, and most of all to see the operation up close before it's their version of the games.

The other reason is that 2002 is the chapter of my life I most want to relive. I cannot, but I can build something close with my kids. That is reason enough.

The Activity List, Year by Year

Year 1 (this year): Walk-arounds and exposure

For Liam's 10th birthday this June, the plan is the Utah Olympic Park bobsled run. They run a summer comet sled and a winter bobsled, and the comet is open to kids 8+. Liam has been ready for this since he was 6. He will scream the entire way down. We've done the free walk-around at the park three times now — climb up to the K90 jump platform, look at the medal display, hit the museum, watch the freestyle skiers do their water-ramp practice in the summer pool. Free. The biggest cheap activity in PC.

Year 2: U.S. Speedskating practice viewing at the Oval in Kearns

The Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns is the fastest ice in the world — almost every long-track speed skating world record was set there because of the altitude. U.S. Speedskating practices there. You can buy a $5 public skate session some days, and on training days you can sit in the bleachers and watch national-team athletes do their work for free. Pick a PCSD professional development day, drive 45 minutes down the canyon, sit in the bleachers with snacks, watch Olympians warm up. Liam is going to lose his mind.

Year 3: Freestyle moguls demo at Deer Valley

Deer Valley hosts the FIS Freestyle World Cup moguls and aerials event every winter. Tickets are far cheaper than people assume — and there are free-viewing zones along the course. We've gone twice. Liam wants to be a mogul skier now, which is a new and expensive development I am not encouraging, but watching the World Cup live is the kind of thing that lights a fire I can't argue with. The aerials night session under the lights is the best free entertainment in town in February. Bring chairs.

Year 4: Soldier Hollow biathlon

The venue I worked in 2002. Soldier Hollow Nordic Center in Midway is still active and still hosts World Cup-level cross-country and biathlon events. They do a public biathlon try-it day every winter where for not much money kids can shoot a real biathlon rifle (low-caliber, supervised, totally safe) at the targets. Liam will be 12 by then. Yes, we're doing it.

Year 5: Olympic Cauldron Park, Rice-Eccles

The Olympic Cauldron Park at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake is small, free, and surprisingly moving if you remember 2002. The cauldron itself is preserved, the museum has the torches and uniforms, and there's a wall with every athlete's name. We'll go on a quiet PD day. Forty-five minutes total. The kids will roll their eyes. They'll remember it.

Years 6-9: Building toward 2034

By the time we hit Year 6, the venue construction will be visible, the volunteer applications will be opening, and the kids will be old enough to apply themselves. Liam at 16 will be exactly the right age to be a Field of Play volunteer. I want him to do it. I am going to be insufferable about pushing for it. Tyler has been warned.

The Through-Line

The thing 2002 taught me — and the thing I want to pass to the kids — is that an Olympic Games is a community thing more than it is a televised thing. The volunteers, the bus drivers, the local high schoolers handing out programs at the venues, the families that put up athletes' relatives in their basements — that's the actual operation. PC kids are going to grow up in the middle of that for 2034 and I want them to walk into it knowing what it means. We have nine years. The activities above are how we get there.

Cost Note

Almost everything on this list is free or under $20. The one exception is the bobsled run at UOP, which is genuinely expensive — we're framing it as a birthday gift, not an everyday outing. The walk-arounds, the practice viewing at the Oval, the Cauldron Park, the freestyle World Cup viewing zones — all free. As ever, this is the Hatch family pattern: gear and access we already have, instead of paid tickets we don't need.