• Pa. minor-league team installs 'urinal gaming system'

    Lehigh Valley IronPigs

    A urinal gaming system is coming to the men's rooms of Coca-Cola Park in the Lehigh Valley.

     

    By Vince Lattanzio, NBCPhiladelphia.com

    PHILADELPHIA — A steady stream will help Lehigh Valley IronPig fans stay entertained and learn about prostate health while answering nature’s call at the ballpark.

    The Phillies’ AAA-minor league team will introduce the first “urinal gaming system” when the season kicks off at Coca-Cola Park next week.

    Screens installed above urinals will display the game, which is a downhill snowmobile competition. The user’s flow controls the virtual snowmobiler as he tries to hit penguins on the route — directing the stream left or right will move the driver in that direction.

    “It’s just like a joystick on a video game,” said Brian Downs, Director of Media Relations for Lehigh Valley Health Network. The health system will be advertising on the game’s screens.

    Downs says his team had a few laughs when they were approached to be a sponsor, but quickly decided it would be a great way to educate men about prostate health.

    “You kind of have a built-in audience and an opportunity to create an awareness about the importance of prostate health,” he said.

    The game screens will display information from the health system when the urinal is not in use. When a guy walks up to use the urinal, the information will go away and switch into game mode.

    “There’s a lot of ways you can market different programs and healthcare. In this case, it made a lot of sense,” Downs says.

    A urinal gaming system is coming to the men's rooms in a minor league baseball stadium in Pennsylvania.

    In the U.S., prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among men, behind lung cancer. One in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society.

    IronPigs spokesman Jon Schaeffer says the "pee" game will be installed in four men’s rooms inside the 10,100-seat ballpark — one per restroom. Anyone using the urinal can play the game and it doesn't cost extra.

    Players will be given a score at the end of their game. The high scorers will be displayed in real-time on video boards inside the ballpark. Players will also be ranked and recognized on the team's website.

    "Our fans are always looking for the next big thing and these 'X-Stream Games' are another example of our commitment to providing an unparalleled entertainment experience in all aspects of Coca-Cola Park, including our restrooms," IronPigs General Manager Kurt Landes said in a statement.

    The urinal gaming system is already in use at bars in the United Kingdom, but has never been installed in a sporting venue.

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    The system will debut with the downhill snowmobile game, but that six to 12 others will be swapped in as the season progresses. Schaeffer says the team has gotten a huge response from fans so far — even before the system's debut.

    “The feedback that we’ve gotten, it’s been overwhelmingly positive," Schaeffer said. He added that the team's Twitter feed has been blowing up over the announcement.

    Aside from the fun, Downs hopes the system will remind men to get a checkup and hopefully save lives by catching cancer early.

    “The idea is that you see the health network and remember to talk with your doctor, especially if you have issues. And at least keep it in the back of their mind.”

  • Ex-Marine Angela Madsen on her journey from homelessness to the Paralympics

    Retired U.S. Marine Angela Madsen once lived out of a locker at Disneyland. But the 52-year-old paraplegic turned her life around and has since rowed across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. She's now competing for Team USA at the Paralympic Games in London.

    By Jamieson Lesko, NBC News

    LONDON -- Angela Madsen's journey to the London 2012 Paralympics is nothing short of extraordinary.

    Complications following a back injury she sustained while serving in Marine Corps at the age of 20 led to her becoming a paraplegic when she was in her 30s.

    Bound to a wheelchair, she fell into a deep depression. She lost her job. Her marriage dissolved.

    "I lost my house ... I ended up homeless, kept my things in a locker at Disneyland. Happiest place on earth, right?" she told NBC News at the USA track-and-field training camp at RAF Lakenheath, near Cambridge, England, last week.

    But the native Californian missed surfing, so she set out to find a way back to the water, determined to turn her life around.

    Some of the hottest tickets at the London Paralympics are for wheelchair rugby. The sport is so violent and fierce, that it has been dubbed "Murderball."

    "I started taking responsibility … and started making the changes and decisions to move positively forward in my life,” she said.

    Now, her definition of a disabled person is "somebody who doesn't believe they can and doesn't try.”

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    She competed in the 2006 world surfing championships and then fell in love with rowing.

    She turned this hobby into history by rowing across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

    Ahead of the London Paralympics, L.A. Galaxy midfielder David Beckham spent a day learning blind soccer from Team Great Britain.


    "I didn't row across my first ocean until I was 47,” she said with a laugh.

    "I have six Guinness World Records for rowing oceans. I've circumnavigated Great Britain ... I've been places on this planet that no human being has ever been before. A thousand miles from land in any direction ... it's been a pretty amazing life."

    Read Angela Madsen's profile at the Paralympic Games' website

    Next year, she plans to row solo across the Pacific Ocean.

    Madsen rowed for Team USA in the Beijing Paralympic Games, narrowly missing the podium. "I missed the medal rounds by 7-hundredths of a second.”

    Centra "Ce-Ce" Mazyck, who was paralyzed during a parachute jump with the 82nd Airborne in November 2003, will compete in the javelin at the London Paralympics.

    In the London 2012 Paralympic Games, the 52-year-old is trying her hand at track and field events, competing in the women's shot put and javelin.

    "I don’t have any regrets about anything. If I could go back and change anything I wouldn't, except for the amount of pain I have with the rods in my back,” Madsen said. “That could definitely go. But I can’t foresee change in anything. I'm very, very satisfied with the life that I have now."

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  • Bad neighbors for Team USA? Occupy protesters face eviction from park near training base

    Alastair Jamieson / msnbc.com

    Jim L., left, and other members of the Occupy Mile End protest group at their camp in east London on Thursday.

    By Alastair Jamieson, msnbc.com

    LONDON -- An eviction notice has been served on dozens of Occupy protesters who have set up camp in a park next to Team USA's Olympic track and field training base.

    About 50 demonstrators are occupying Mile End Park – two miles from the main London 2012 site and next door to a sports stadium where American athletes will prepare for events in July.

    The park is also visible from the priority traffic lanes that will be used to whisk VIPs and other participants from central London to the Olympic Village, which is located to the east of the U.K. capital.

    The protesters say they are part of the anti-capitalist Occupy movement, which has seen sit-ins and clashes with police in cities including New York, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Oakland.

    An Occupy London camp was forcibly removed from the grounds of St Paul's Cathedral by police at the end of February, resulting in 20 arrests.

    Local authorities have now secured a court order to close down Occupy Mile End, which began five weeks ago and includes about a dozen tents, a campfire and makeshift toilet facilities.

    Police evict Occupy London protesters from camp

    Tower Hamlets Borough Council applied for the order following complaints from local residents. The manager of a nearby nature reserve also accused camp members of damaging important trees by taking branches for firewood, according to a report in the East London Advertiser newspaper.


    One of the protesters, who gave his name as Jim L., told msnbc.com the group had agreed to leave the site voluntarily on Sunday.

    "This is one of Britain's poorest boroughs and we don't want to take council resources away from things like schools and hospitals so we have agreed to vacate the site without costing the council a penny," he said.

    Mark Taylor, spokesman for the Mile End Residents' Association, said locals were "looking forward" to a "constructive and companionable relationship with Team USA."

    He said: "We are very pleased that the council has secured a possession order to reclaim the park for its intended purpose. It's very sad that trees had to be pulled down for firewood and children's activities disrupted before the council acted."

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    Council officials insisted that nobody from the United States Olympic Committee, Team USA or the London 2012 organizers had expressed concern about the Occupy protest on their doorstep.

    A spokesman for the council told msnbc.com: "The USA track and field team will be training at Mile End Stadium during the Olympic Games. They have funded extensive improvements to the stadium, and will be providing a variety of community benefits including free coaching sessions and opportunities to watch the team training.

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    "We are working with the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) on security issues, understandably these issues are sensitive and therefore we are not able to comment in detail, but we do not anticipate that these will impact on the local community."

    The council said it would go to the High Court to have the protesters moved if they did not leave the site, which is owned by a private trust on behalf of the council for use as a public park.

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    Jim L. said the Occupy camp would move to a new, unidentified, site on Sunday. He added that there was little chance of protests targeting the Olympic Games.

    "It would be impossible because of the security, in my own view," he said. "We're not against the Olympics as everybody likes a bit of sport, but I believe it is just one big advertising event for the benefit of corporate sponsors."

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    He said the camp location had been chosen to highlight the issue of poverty in Tower Hamlets and not because of the proximity to Team USA's stadium.

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    Oda / Getty Images

    From Wimbledon to Wembley Stadium to The Dome, a look at the venues for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

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    "There are huge problems here -- lack of affordable housing, unemployment and poverty," he said. "This is not so much a protest as a process, which is why we've come here – to listen to people and gather support. There isn’t much point in trying to occupy private land in order to disrupt the institutions of capitalism.”

    American competitors at the Games will have several bases across London for different sports. Other sites include the University of East London campuses in Docklands and Stratford.

    Langdon School, in the nearby Poplar area, will be home to the Canadian Olympic team.

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