Fantasy league: Fulfill your dream of being a ski racer this winter

Racing gates at Okemo in Vermont. (Okemo Mountain Resort)

You might not be able to glide through a Super-G like Ryan Cochrane-Siegle or have the technical ability to turn on a dime like Mikaela Shiffrin, while still possessing the need for speed. But you can also still think of ski racing as bowling night on snow.

It’s an opportunity for adults to let the competitive juices flow, often followed by an après scene that the kids can’t match. Leagues can range from competitive to social and can be as part of a team or going solo. And one doesn’t need prior racing experience to jump in and compete.

Mountains with night skiing near urban centers tend to have robust participation in racing leagues as skiers can head to the slopes on a weeknight after work for a couple slalom or giant slalom runs, then relive those runs at the bar for the post-meet rewards ceremony.

Wachusett Mountain — which claims to be the largest, organized, weekly race league in the country with about 500 participants — Nashoba Valley, and Pats Peak are only a few of the smaller mountains that set gates most midweek nights over the course of the winter.

The Wachusett Race League uses teams consisting of four-to-six skiers (at least one must be a woman) on the NASTAR course on the Challenger trail, with racers getting a run on each side of the dual giant slalom course.

The mountain offers leagues Monday through Thursday nights and an additional Wednesday during the day. The season runs over January and February with awards presented weekly before the Good and Great Race Championships in March.

Nashoba Valley offers three nights racing of four-member teams with the top three racers counting toward the team standings.

As part of its registration, Pats Peak asks about the type of competitiveness and skiing ability. The Henniker, N.H. mountain has racing four nights per week with teams of up to seven members.

Adult racing isn’t limited only to mountains near the masses. Loon Mountain has the Loonatics racing program on Thursdays, while Stratton runs a program on weekends.

The amount of competitiveness varies. Not everyone is wearing racing suits or had previous racing experience. Much like softball or bowling leagues, the camaraderie aspect is just as important as the competition.

“It’s very social,” said Craig Stimpson of Wachusett. “They come up Thursday nights, it’s hopping in the bar after they do their two runs, and they talk about them for two hours.”

Wachusett provided the entry point into ski racing as an adult for Matt Matsis, who raced as a high school student. He enjoyed his experience with the weekly league so much that he started getting involved with the New England Masters, a league of individual races throughout New England that is also associated with U.S. Ski and Snowboard.

“On the competitive side, I’d say Masters racing is the next notch up from night leagues or beer league racing,” said Matsis, who is also the president of New England Masters. “It’s a bit more competitive, the courses are a little bit longer, they tend to be on slightly more-challenging terrain. If you can ski a night league course, you can ski a Masters course.”

It doesn’t need to be one or the other. Matsis said there are plenty from the group of about 300-350 Masters racers that do a night league – or two – in addition to Masters racing.

While the idea of a league might mean needing to show up at every event, Matsis said the average racer will participate in four races during the season.

The series moves throughout New England each week beginning in mid-December at Stowe. The highlight of the schedule is the Hochgebirge Challenge Cup, first contested in 1933, is the oldest, continuously-run ski race in North America. It taks place Jan. 21 at Cannon Mountain (Mittersill). The overall points leader for the men and women will claim the Sise Cup. Last season, Matt Dodge took home the honors on the men’s side for the sixth-straight year and seventh time overall, while Kerry Finch claimed the top spot for the women for the second-consecutive year.

Some of the top competitors will take part in Nationals with racers from the other 10 Masters chapters across the country at Mammoth Mountain in California in late March.

It may be more focused on individuals, as opposed to team racing, but the social aspect of the program remains the same.

“The après part plays a really big role in what we do,” Matsis said. “We love the social atmosphere of it. We hold after-parties, awards after every race. We like to settle up at the bar at the mountain or a restaurant nearby and share a pint and some food, have a few laughs, and give out some schwag and prizes.”

After a couple seasons of curtailing the post-race shenanigans because of the pandemic, Matsis said he is looking forward to returning to the way it had been before anyone ever uttered the word, Covid.

“We did pretty well throughout the pandemic. Obviously, it’s an outdoor sport,” he said. “We picked up some new people that knew about us and gave us a shot and stuck around. Hopefully they’ll be back. But they never really got a chance to see the social aspect to it outside of the racing. We did a little of it where we could outside…but it was a little out of our control.”

While it may have a bit more of a competitive side, it doesn’t require you to go out and get a World Cup-ready speed suit for the occasion.

“A lot of people wear them, but you don’t need one,” Matsis said. “Just come out and have a good time. I guarantee if you come to one, you’re going to have a good time and you’re going to come to another one. Some people will show up, do a couple in one year and the next year they are doing six or seven. It’s a great group.”

Registration is currently ongoing for many of these programs.

Wachusett: https://www.wachusett.com/Racing-Clinics/Racing-Events/Night-Race-League.aspx

Nashoba Valley: https://skinashoba.com/product/adult-team-racing/

Pats Peak: https://www.patspeak.com/Things-To-Do/Racing/Adult-Corp-Racing.aspx

New England Masters: https://nemsracing.org/