February 5, 2010 E-MAIL PRINT

Take time to watch a local snowsports event

by Tony Chamberlain/

Bode Miller schmoozes with the crowd after his winning national championship run at Sugarloaf. (photo: Tony Chamberlain)

Bode Miller schmoozes with the crowd after his winning national championship run at Sugarloaf. (photo: Tony Chamberlain)

In honor of the Olympic Games about to open in Vancouver — with some very competitive U.S. skiers with names like Vonn, Miller, Ligety and Mancuso — I have a modest proposal: Once, just once this winter when a ski or snowboard event is taking place at a resort you’re visiting, stop for just a little while to watch the action. Top athletes flying down a slope with grace and control, or exploding out of a halfpipe to perform acrobatics in the air, is an infectious joy to watch.

Especially if the athlete you’re watching can teach by example a pointer or two about how you’re performing in your chosen discipline. Pathetically.

I never quite understood the disconnect: look at a major golf tournament and you see fans by the thousands cramming every fairway, even in this currently Tiger-less era. But, except for very top competition such as Olympics or World Championships, it’s hard to find snowsports fans ready to stand for an hour and watch a top flight competition.

I always admired how Tom Cochran was able to amass a crowd in the stands at Waterville Valley to watch World Cup action (last area in New England to hold a World Cup). They were not disappointed in 1991 to see Maine’s Julie Parisien beat the world’s best in a giant slalom.

But I wonder how many spectators there would have been if Tom had not, A) imported the student body of Holderness School, B) shut down all Waterville lifts during race time, and C) given out little American flags to wave.

Now, as a one-time ski race parent I would not sentence anyone to stand around in the snow for very long watching a bunch of 13-year-olds go through gates. It’s not fun, unless your kid wins. You’re standing still in the cold. You want to go skiing. I know all that.

But around New England every winter there are a number of really top-flight ski and snowboard events, and these really are worth investing an hour of your time (usually less).

Several times in the last decade, Sugarloaf has played host to the U.S. Ski Team National Championships. There, between runs down Kings Landing on a perfect bluebird March morning, we stopped at the side of the Narrow Gauge race course to watch Bode Miller scream the headwall at 80 mph, making a sweet right-footed compression, then resumed our own pathetic efforts to, um, ski.

At Attitash a couple of years ago, the best college ski racers in the country competed for the NCAA championship, and we could stand amid the competitors to watch Dartmouth skiers prevail for the first time in decades. Then, again, resume our own runs. Sunday River hosts a NorAm every January.

And at Stratton, the best snowboarders in the world gather every March to compete in the U.S. Open Snowboard Championships, with names like Shaun White and Kelly Clark — Olympic gold medalists — putting on their amazing world-topping magic show in the pipe.

Doing just a little spectating at the top snowsports events does not take much investment in time, it’s absolutely free, and again, it may even have something to teach us. Besides the fact that, compared to championship-level snow athletes, most of us really are pathetic.

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