2020 Athlete Bursaries available, nominate a deserving athlete before May 31

by Kathy Stahr | Apr 30, 2020 | Member News

DEADLINE TO NOMINATE IS MAY 31, 2020



1. Dave Murray Bursary

2. Bob Parsons' Memorial Fund Bursary

3. Ski Canada Bursary

Recognize a Volunteer, Official, Club, Event, Resort; Goldie nominations open

by Kathy Stahr | Apr 30, 2020 | Member News

DEADLINE TO NOMINATE IS MAY 31, 2020

1. Club Development of the Year

2. Event of the Year

3. Mountain Resort of the Year

4. Zone Official/Volunteer (North, Coast, Kootenay or Okanagan)

Congratulations Gemma Bexton & Dylan Timm, 2019-20 FIS BC Cup Winners

by Kathy Stahr | Apr 30, 2020 | Member News

Tait Jordan, BCST, 2nd place in 2020 FIS BC Cup points – PHOTO CREDIT: Derek Trussler

*See amazing recognition video messages on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/BCAlpine/videos/228515708481853/ 
 

*See amazing recognition video messages on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/BCAlpine/videos/661724537707914/

Canadian Alpine Ski Team’s Sam Mulligan recalls 2020 Hockey Night In Wengen

by Kathy Stahr | Apr 27, 2020 | Member News

Hello fellow screen people! Recently I’ve been spending some time on my own, watching a lot of things, hearing a lot of news, seeing a lot of memes, basically just consuming content at an unprecedented pace. My poor little brain is just vacuuming information, and like my bedroom, I’m not storing things in a way that is efficient or that makes sense.  It’s actually gotten to the point where I’m starting to forget who I talked to and about what, or where I heard that joke. I could have sworn Jim from the Office was the anchor on The National last night. My brain is like one of those DJ Earworm “united state of pop” mashups (might need to be born in the ’90s for that I dunno), and I’m just trying to piece everything together. 

That being said, hard text message evidence suggests that Roger asked me to write something two weeks ago, and I don’t think claiming to lose track of days of the week is a good excuse. I guess I’ve been busy. No, I haven’t. Truth Is, I haven’t FELT LIKE IT! Not everyone can make sourdough AND master everything AND do the perfect push-up. Well, I’m writing it now, and I know you guys are still around so what was the big rush anyway Rog? If your attention span was long enough to weather that intro, here’s a story from a night in Wengen. I’m pretty sure it happened, but who knows these days.

WENGEN. A quick google search will tell you “It’s a Swiss Alpine village in the Bernese Oberland region, known for its timber chalets and belle epoque hotels.” Sounds cute! It’s also home to the longest downhill in the world, featuring jumps through rocks, cat-tracks, a tunnel (wtf!?) speeds over 145km, and a bottom section that can crumple Steven Nyman’s legs and make Brodie less handsome (Steve’s Handsomeness is intact don’t worry). What most people don’t know, is that nestled in this town of timber chalets, you will find the field of dreams of outdoor rinks. After the dust of Saturday's big race settles, an international field laces up for the biggest friendly competition of the year, it’s Hockey Night in Wengen. 

Saturday night, 8 pm (or so): After fueling up with cheese and dessert, negotiating the street party, and finding a pair of skates that sort of fit, here we are! 

Teams are arranged by shirt colour, and these men in black become my ride or die. My teammates include French Man-Rocket Blaize Giezendanner, US team doctor (known as Doc), and Cameron, who apparently is just learning how to skate (but did come 19^th in the ski race). Team White/Grey is a bunch of hacks, lead by “FIS Mike” (whose rules don’t apply here!). Mike is backed by supporting acts like Jack “I played Hockey with McDavid” Crawford, and Daron Rahlves’s kid, who I could totally beat up if I could just catch him. There was also an unknown Swiss man in a fully matching neon green outfit with green shin guards and hat. I think he was assigned to the white team. 

8:15 (wild guess) puck drop: It's ON. Jack has the puck (this would become a theme). Ping! Puck in our net. Big smile on Jack's face, everyone makes sure to not congratulate him or acknowledge the goal.

I realize I was tired before we even started. I don’t skate to be efficient, I skate to win. I also skate poorly. After a rough start, we bounce back in a BIG way. Turns out Blaize played hockey growing up. He sheds a layer to reveal a Calgary Flames shirt. He starts putting his body on the line and quickly becomes the snowiest person on the ice. Grit. Selfless. A true black shirt. The whole team feeds off this energy. We start flinging pucks aimlessly, and the bench erupts: “get pucks deep!” The puck eventually finds the stick of our cherry picker Cam, wide open! The whole place is going nuts, we’re about to go bar down on these dorks! Cam winds up… and misses by a shockingly large amount. I keel over in laughter. If I wasn’t dehydrated I might have peed myself. 

TWO HOURS LATER (Spongebob voice): GAME OVER! There were no periods, or time, or any way of knowing when the end would come, but I’m glad it did. There was no official score, but based on the smiles on all faces and level of exhaustion I’d say it was a TIE. The Doc is already handing out prescriptions, and an American coach is finishing up the last of his sports drink (red wine). Jack informs us he scored 13 goals or something. Still not sure if he expected us to believe that OR be impressed (Ah I miss you Jack!). We then limped back to the hotel to grab a drink, make up more stories, and share a few more laughs. I slept well that night.

Looking back on this season already seems like a blur. I think that’s a good thing because we should live in the present anyways. When I look back though, the things I remember the most clearly are the moments I get to spend with people I enjoy being around, doing my best no matter how pointless the objective is, and laughing at how ridiculous this all is. My life might be a DJ Earworm mashup, but it’s a banger!

~ Sam Mulligan (CAST)

PHOTO CREDIT (ski image above):
GEPA pictures/Harald Steiner, Mar 6/20 in Kvitfjell, Norway

Brodie Seger shares details of one crazy week on the FIS World Cup Circuit

by Kathy Stahr | Apr 9, 2020 | Member News

Brodie Seger World Cup Blog

The White Circus. Most of us have heard that term used at some point as a nickname for the FIS World Cup circuit. But where does it come from? Sure, it’s the big dramatic show featuring all the stars of our sport. It’s the title of Ken Read’s book on ski racing through the eyes of a Crazy Canuck, but if I’m honest I’ve never read it and don’t believe that’s where I first heard the term. In fact, I never really gave it much thought aside from it being about what you see on the TV (if you’re lucky enough to live in a country where they air ski racing). This season may have been my first real eye-opener regarding where that name comes from. It was my first season on the full World Cup program and despite having some previous experience, I still felt there was a lot to learn about surviving almost four months straight on that schedule. There are probably a lot of moments I could write about to give some insight on the craziness, but I thought I would choose a roughly one-week period in mid-December as it involved a few new experiences for me. Oh, and some diarrhea. Can’t forget about that.

It’s mid-December, and we’re about a month and a half into the season — well only three weeks into the race season but by this time we’ve been on the road since the beginning of November. We’ve raced Lake Louise and Beaver Creek, then went back to Lake Louise for the Nor-Am week. It was then time to jump over to Europe for my first experience in Val Gardena, a track I was looking forward to as so many teammates had told me it was a blast. Now at this point, it doesn’t sound like we’ve really done much so far in the season; we’ve only really had three weeks of racing, but it’s a pretty busy and stressful three weeks that leaves the body inevitably feeling a little worn down. Throw in a couple of flights, airports, and a 9-hour time change and you’ve got a good recipe for getting sick. Sure enough, shortly after arriving in Italy, I could tell my gut wasn’t feeling totally right. No big deal. We made it to our hotel and had a day off to recover, followed by a day of GS training in the rain. Although we were being fed lots of pasta and other delicious Italian food, I found myself having to force it down for lack of appetite. I was a little worried about keeping my energy level up, but so far I was feeling alright.

Time for the first training day on a new downhill course. Although the weather wasn’t looking promising, the forecast was only looking worse as the week went on so we knew we could expect them to push hard and get the run off. This likely meant we were looking at a lot of time sitting around in the lodge because of program delays — some great news for me seeing as how my gut had taken a turn for the worse since the previous day. We inspected the fully salted downhill course in the rain and sure enough, found ourselves hanging in the athlete hospitality not long after. They announced the first delay. Then they lowered the start. Then another delay. Meanwhile, I’m in the lodge staying activated by running back and forth from the bathroom far too frequently. As they keep delaying the start time, I’m thinking to myself, “This might be the only training run so I can’t miss it. Please just let me hold it together for the two minutes or so when I’m on course”. As luck would have it, they ended up cancelling the training run and I was gifted one more day of recovery.

The following day we had some more delays because of fog, but eventually, we got the training run going and I was feeling a lot better about my ability to be away from a bathroom for an extended period of time. The conditions certainly weren’t ideal for running a World Cup downhill, but I have to say I still had a great time on that course. It felt like a roller coaster where you spend more time in the air than on the ground. I made my fair share of mistakes, but above all, I was excited to get another crack at it on race day. But first came the Super G. Once again we found ourselves facing wind, fog, a little rain, and a lowered start. The race started and so began a cycle that lasted the next five hours. They would send a few athletes, then the fog would roll in and they would call a course hold. It would clear up a bit, they would send a few more guys, then another hold. I sat in the athlete hospitality watching live timing with all the other later bib numbers, joking amongst ourselves about when we would get to race — if ever. Around 2:30 pm, they posted a final decision time and based on what we could see out the window we all thought there was no way the race would continue. Most of us packed our bags and got ready to head down the gondola. To our surprise, against all odds, they announced the race would continue. This caused a bit of a scramble for everyone to unpack their bags and once again get suited up to race. About ten minutes after I thought my day was over, I found myself standing at the start getting warmed up as the light faded. I made it all the way into my skis, buckles done up, watching the guy in front of me about to push out of the gate when the starter grabs him and calls another stop-start. I was standing right next to the clock outside the start tent. It read 3:25 pm — a bad sign. I did my best to keep my head in the game, but sure enough, minutes later they announced the race was over. My heart dropped. I had never experienced such a roller coaster of a day just to have it all taken away at the last second. I wanted the opportunity so badly, and all I could do was watch a bunch of guys score points that I didn’t even get the chance to earn myself. Thankfully, one of those guys was my teammate, James Crawford, who earned himself a personal best result and gave us something to celebrate. But that also left me feeling like I knew I could have done it as well. It didn’t feel like a fair day, but that’s the way sport — especially an outdoor sport — goes sometimes. I resolved to put that energy and frustration towards attacking the downhill course the following day.

It seems my shot at redemption was also not in the cards. We woke on the downhill race morning to fat, wet snowflakes hammering down on the whole valley. The race was cancelled before we even got dressed to leave the hotel. Another little punch in the gut (just figuratively this time). I thought that would at least mark the end of my circus of a week, but it turns out that wasn’t the case either. The plan up until this point had been to head one valley over to Alta Badia after the downhill race, meet up with the tech boys and get my first World Cup GS start the next day. Following that, I would have flown back home for Christmas and skipped the Bormio World Cup. With the cancellation of the Val Gardena downhill, they decided to tag a second downhill on to the Bormio series, making it a larger opportunity to miss out on. By this point I had had enough of missing opportunities, so we discussed changing the plan in order to stay in Europe over Christmas and through Bormio. The coaches agreed that was probably the best course of action. Cool, I’m doing my first World Cup GS and going to Bormio for the first time.

A couple of hours later I’ve gotten all my bags packed and loaded into our physio’s van to be driven over the mountain pass to Alta Badia. Pavel is in the tuning room prepping my GS skis for the following day. Suddenly he comes out to the lobby and says, “What happened to the GS race? You aren’t doing it anymore?”

“What do you mean? My stuff is packed and I’m just waiting to leave.”

“I just heard you guys changed the plan and you’re not doing that anymore.”

Alright… that’s news to me. I went to find the coaches and sort it out, and sure enough, they tell me if I’m staying for Bormio now I won’t be doing the GS race because the priority is to get some rest. Makes sense, I just wasn’t aware that was part of the change of plans. Time to go re-pack all my bags into a different van.

Obviously a lot of things didn’t go as planned during that week, but I was holding on to the few positives. Mainly I was looking forward to one day going back there and getting to ski that super fun downhill again. I ended up spending Christmas and my birthday in Europe for the first time, and the GS in Alta Badia turned out to be another nasty-looking race day in rough conditions which caused a few notable injuries. The week in Val Gardena felt like a bit of a gong show, but I think one of the lessons is how that’s one of the simple realities of our sport. We’re at the mercy of the weather, and at the World Cup level, we’re also at the mercy of the TV viewership as that’s where the money comes from. With big money on the line, you have to expect that occasionally unexpected things will happen, whether it’s a rearranged schedule or some questionable decisions to run or cancel a race. You don’t have to like it, but you have to learn to manage yourself throughout it so you can stay focused and perform when you get your shot. I definitely still have lots to learn about that, but hey, that’s part of the journey. ~ Brodie Seger

PHOTO #1: VAL GARDENA,ITALY,19.DEC.19 – ALPINE SKIING – FIS World Cup, downhill training, men. Image shows Brodie Seger (CAN). Photo: GEPA pictures/ Thomas Bachun

PHOTO #3: VAL GARDENA, ITALY – DECEMBER 18:  Bad weather cancels the race during the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Men's Downhill Training on December 18, 2019 in Val Gardena Italy. (Photo by Alexis Boichard/Agence Zoom)