Club and Academy Newsletter

January 24, 2008-Volume 2-07/08

Merrick Joyce at Copper Mountain

Table of Contents

• CEO Corner
• Academy Corner
• Alpine Corner
• Snowboard Corner
• Freestyle Corner
• Development and Communications Corner
• Upcoming Events and Competitions at Waterville Valley

CEO Corner-From the Desk of Peter Stokloza

• The venues for our Snowboard, Freestyle and Alpine athletes are the best we have seen in years. Over the past week the mountain and its crew have been reshaping the snowsports park as well as putting the finishing touches on the half-pipe.  While our full-time riders and freeride athletes have had to migrate north to use Loon’s park this week, we all are gearing up and look forward to getting back on our home hill and getting the Waterville advantage.  The mountain and our BBTS coaches are also in the process of building a boarder and ski-cross venue on True Grit that will serve as the course for this weekend’s home event.  We hope this will be the future venue for the first inaugural skier-cross competition to be held at the beginning of March. I wish the best of luck to all our competitive freestyle skiers and riders in their upcoming competitions. I would like to congratulate Allison Lee for qualifying for the US Freestyle ski team! We are very proud of your achievement.

• On the Alpine side, our club and academy athletes have been finding success on all the various racing circuits.  The highlight has to be Brett Stein’s performances on the telemark World Cup tour.  Brett has been skiing to no less than 4 top-fifteen World Cup finishes on the tour!  We look forward to having him back next week and hearing about his experiences traveling through Europe and Scandinavia. Athletes and coaches from the Mitey Mites to the Masters are all enjoying terrific conditions, training and excellent coaching from our professional and experienced staff.  The on-hill staff and the administration have been working hard to provide the best learning environment and experience for WVA and BBTS athletes and their families.  If you have a chance to come and watch a training session or stop in to say hi at the Academy please do so.  We would love to see you and you are always welcome!

• So far this season we have already held over 10 on-snow competitions.  I have to gloat by saying we hold some of the best competitions in the east if not in the country.  I take so much pride when we hold a race or freestyle event that is safe and successful.  We can only hold these competitions with your help so please take the time to see where there is help needed in the upcoming events and sign up for a position. Visit our website at www.wvbbts.org to view the sign up sheets for alpine and visit the Competition Center to view the sign up sheets for freestyle.  I am very excited and energized to have the USSA Alpine Junior III Olympics coming in March.  I hope that many of you will help with this event to provide the best experience for the east’s best young alpine skiers.  I think it will be a very rewarding experience for all of us!  

• If you have the time please get out to ride and ski this weekend.  The conditions at Waterville Valley Ski Area have never been better!

All the best,

Pete

Academy Corner-From the Desks Gary Benedix

• The Academy has just finished the first term!  Report cards and progress reports are being compiled at this time and will be in the mail later in the week.

• The admissions process for next year is underway and those who have an interested should contact Kim Berman at kberman@wvbbts.org for more information.

Q

Alpine Corner-From the Desk of Tom Barbeau

• We are always speaking about sportsmanship and teamwork. It is great to see it in practice. At the Qualifier at Gunstock, Ben Pearlmutter and Aje Julian were warming up when Ben took a bad crash. Coach Todd Harris was going to follow Ben and the patrol to the infirmary and have Aje go to the start for his race run. However, Aje said he wanted to stay with his Buddy and missed his first run (fourth in the second run). Ben is a lucky fellow. Firstly, he is fine and secondly, he has a friend for life. Cheers to Aje.

• We are also happy to see Eliza Cowie is okay after her spill on the “little slammers”. Eliza went from pretty to not so pretty to pretty again in a 24 hour period. It’s great to be young and to have fast recovery powers.

• Dan Lannan gets the “inventor’s award”. Dan did not have pole guards for training so he duct taped his sneakers to his poles. His hands were not sore at the end of the day. Good job.

• On another important note, the coaches have noticed some well meaning parents are coaching their children on the side. As Leigh Quinn says, 60% of coaching hurts athletes instead of helping them. This is with pros and coaches who are with the athletes consistently. So not knowing what the racer has been doing or what their progression has been will do more harm than good. We are all anxious and want the athletes to do well. If a parent does not like the child’s effort then call them on it. If not, let them do it and have faith.

• Results: (I missed some of our athletes’ results last time. Very sorry. It is going to happen because I am not always sure where everyone is. If I miss you, please give me a call and we will get it in the next newsletter).

·         2008 World Cup from Montchavin, France

o   Brett Stein had an 8th, 6^th and 7th in the 3 races. Tops for the USA

·         Bretton Woods

o   JV Girls – Gigi Quimby 1^st, Hannah Bancroft 4th

·         Dan Cardillo

o   JV Girls – 3^rd Anna Foley, 4^th Nicola Katz, 7^th Charlotte Hadley, 8^th Gabrielle Quimby

o   JIV Girls – 1^st Grace Glennon, 2^nd Macaela Wright, 4^th Jeanee Crane-Mauzy8th Christina Smith

o   JIII Girls – 3^rd Alice Anastasia, 4^th Kerry Daigle, 8^th Annie D’Elia, 9^th Eliza Cowie

o   JV Boys – 2^nd Ryan Schmidt, 4^th Pate Campbell, 7^th Ted Soper, 9^th Jack Keane, 10^th James Rowe

o   JIV Boys – 1^st Henry Tomlinson, 5^th Colby Wilcox, 6^th Peter Fucigna

o   JIII Boys –3^rd Garrett Quimby, 4^th Brian McLaughlin, 7^th Mike Sampson, 9^th Mike Bancroft, 10^th Chase Ennis

·         Schneider Cup

·         JIV Boys – 4^th Colby Wilcox

·         Stan & Dan

·         JV Boys – 4^th Jack Keane, 8^th Chris Bertram

·         JIV Boys – 2^nd Alex Katz, 7^th Clark Macomber

·         Minahan Memorial

·         JV Girls – 3^rd Jillian Salvucci, 5^th Nicola Katz, 8^th Risa Mosenthal, 9^th Anna Foley

·         JIV Girls – 1^st Teagan Mosenthal, 2^nd Maceala Wright, 10^th Annie Utzschneider

·         JV Boys – 1^st Ryan Schmidt, 2^nd Pate Campbell, 5^th Chris Bertram, 7^th Walker Huff, 8^th Ted Soper, 10^th Alex Lash

·         JIV Boys – 3^rd Alex Katz, 4^th Clay Soper, 5^th Peter Fucigna, 6^th Max Lash, 7^th Andrew McCrossan, 10^th Jay Kraunelis

·         J3 Division Qualifier Loon

·         JIII Girls –Kerry Daigle 5th, 2nd & 3^rd, Lindsay Todaro 6^th, Alice Anastasia 4th, Jordan McSherry 10th & 8th, Eliza Cowie 6^th, Maggie McGovern 8^th, Shannon Quinn 10^th

·         JII Boys – Brian McLaughlin 5^th, 6^th & 5^th, Drew Stefanic 6^th, 3^rd & 4^th ,Mike Bancroft 7th, 5^th & 6th , Charlie Bloomfield 9^th, 9^th & 7th, Garrett Quimby 1^st, Aje Julian 6^th, Chase Ennis 10th

·         J3 Division Qualifier Waterville Valley

·         JIII Girls –Kerry Daigle 7^th & 7th, Lindsay Todaro 9^th, Alice Anastasia 2^nd, 6^th & 4^th, Annie D’Elia 7th, 8^th & 8^th, Shannon Quinn 4^th, 4^th & 2^nd

·         JIII Boys – Garrett Quimby 1^st, 3^rd & 1^st, Brian McLaughlin 5^th, 5th & 3rd, Mike Bancroft 6^th, 7^th & 4^th, Aje Julian 4^th, Mike Sampson 10^th, 6^th & 5^th

·         J3 Division Qualifier Gunstock

·         JIII Girls – Kerry Daigle 2^nd,  1^st and 2^nd, Annie D’Elia 5^th, 5^th and 5^th,  Lindsay Todaro 6^th, 6^th and 6^th, Jordan McSherry 9^th, Kelsey Wilcox (back from 2 injuries at the same time) 10^th, Maggie McGovern 8^th and 9^th.

·         JIII Boys – Brian McLaughlin 1^st, 3^rd and 3^rd,  Garrett Quimby 2^nd, 1^st and 1^st, Drew Stefanic 3^rd, 2^nd and 2^nd, Chase Ennis 6^th, 8^th and 7^th, Mike Bancroft 8^th, 7^th and 6^th, Charlie Bloomfield 8^th and 9^th, Mike Sampson 10^th.

Below is Head Coach Jack Bailey’s report on the J1/2 results:

• December brought record snows as well as some stellar alpine racing results throughout WVA/BBTS.  Here are the highlights.

·   The first men's Eastern Cup Race Series at Sugarloaf, Maine saw Nate Bryant (PG) move from the 70's to 26th in the slalom.  In giant slalom, Brendan Smith (91) moved from the back of the pack up into 59th. 

·         At the women’s Eastern Cup Race Series at Sunday River, the WVA women stacked the top 30 in the first slalom race with Maddie Packard (90) placing 15th, Erin Fucigna (89) in 18th, Amy Mclaughlin (90) in 23rd and Abby Fucigna (91) in 30th - 3rd for the JII's.  In the second slalom of the series, Erin progressed into a nice top ten finish (8th).

·         Meanwhile in New Hampshire racing, at the first giant slalom at Attitash, Brendan Smith (91) finished in 12th, Drew Quinn (PG) in 18th, and Kali St.Laurent (92) moved from 55^th place to 21^st to score a fine race from 990.  At our own Pat Harty slalom races, Brendan Smith again lead the BBTS pack with a 6^th place finish and Ryan Symancek (90) finished in 7th.  

·         In the Christmas Open at Attitash, Tom Sampson (PG) skied to a top 15 result.  Over the Christmas holidays, Lenny French (90) had two 3rd place finishes at both Gunstock and Cannon.  In addition, Ryan Symancek finished 5^th at Gunstock and Drew Quinn finished 5th at Cannon.    

·         The first win of the season went to Maddie Packard at the Cannon slalom.  BBTS stacked the field at Loon on the 31st with Julian Jacobson (89) in 2nd, Stacey Bolger (91) in 3rd, Nate Bryant in 4th, Drew Quinn in 7th, Tom Sampson in 8th, Doug Herring in 11th, and Thomas Lampert, fresh back from Norway, in 12th.  Pacing the women were Abby and Erin Fucigna in 2^nd and 6^th places, respectively, and Amy McLaughlin in 4th.  

Great job to all our athletes and coaches!

(January Results)

• The FIS Girls group just finished a week of GS races. Two were at Sunday River and 2 Development FIS at Sunapee. Maddie Packard was 7^th the first day and Abby Fucigna was 10^th. The second day, Maddie Packard and Abby Fucigna bettered themselves to 4^th and 8^th places respectively. Erin Fucigna cut her bib in half both days and Kali St. Laurent got some valuable FIS experience.

• At Sunapee, Abby Fucigna was 8^th and 4^th and Erin Fucigna was 10^th the second race. The Men did a Slalom swing at Stratton and had some troubles finishing 2 clean runs. They all skied well in parts, but as everyone knows you must do it for 2 runs.

• At a recent Tec Cup race, Lexi Casale was on the podium in 3^rd place which qualified her for the Mac Cup. Congratulations.

Snowboard Corner-From the Desks of Bill Enos and Pete Thorndike

FROM BILL ENOS

• Hi guys – we are at Copper Mountain Colo. for the Rev tour, Cooper will also be hosting USASA Nationals in April. Cooper has a fun park, BX course and race hills, so this will be a very fun Nationals. We will be sending out info in weeks to come about Nationals, so stay tuned.

• We will be off to the second rev tour in Park city this week, everyone is riding well. We just have to do it in contests.

• Sam and I look forward to working with everyone when we get home.   Sorry this is so short,  I really didn’t have much time to write -

Bill

Injured reserve list

Merrick Joyce == Collar bone

Kai Wiggins ====Collar  bone

Back soon from collar bone injury-Ian Hart

FROM PETE THORNDIKE

• Greetings from a frigid Waterville! The wind chill was ten below today! Though not the most enjoyable weather to ride in, it is perfect for making snow. I spoke with the mountain staff today and they have about ten days left in the snowmaking budget and are making snow like crazy.

• Park director, Luke Mathison has had the snow guns blowing in the pipe for a few days now and by the time you read this he will be well underway building the Super Pipe. It should be finished for the weekend. Luke also said that he is going to be blowing more snow in the park so he can add in a few more features.

• Our USASA competitions are underway, and this coming weekend we have a boardercross at Waterville. As I have said before, this is a fun event and I encourage everyone to participate. We don’t get much time to train boardercross so I am going to do my best to convince the mountain to leave the course up for some training on Sunday.

• USASA Nationals seem like a long way out at this point but we need to get the travel plans started. Keep an eye on the snowboard forums on the BBTS website, www.WVBBTS.org, for nationals information and travel and housing tips and recommendations.

• Have a great week! I’ll see you all on Sunday.

Pete Thorndike

WVBBTS Weekend Snowboard Program Director

603-520-6406

Petethorndike@gmail.com

Freestyle Corner-From the Desk of Nick Preston

• Watch out World, here comes the big W…….WVBBTS!

• I’ve just returned from the Lake Placid FIS World Cup, where our young BBTS US Team athletes broke into the ranks of the World’s best. Highlighting the weekend was Dartmouth sophomore Kayla Snyderman. In her rookie season on Cup, Kayla earned her 1^st podium placing 3^rd in Friday’s mogul event, following up with a 6^th place on Sunday. Hannah Kearney skied her 1^st Cup since surgery finishing 7^th. Allison Treleaven skied in her 1^st aerial World Cup finishing an impressive 10^th in the world. 19 year old Dylan Ferguson competed well in aerials also. Dylan struggled with landing his double twisting triple flip finishing 17th. Not to worry, as Dylan has earned all his starts for the remainder of the World Cup season. Keep watch on all our US Team representation as the rest of the season unfolds. They are:

• Hannah Kearney, Moguls
• Dave Babic, Moguls
• Kayla Snyderman, Moguls
• Tim Preston, Moguls
• Dylan Ferguson, Aerials
• Scott Kiesel, Aerials
• Allison Treleaven, Aerials
• Allie Lee, Aerials

• Congratulations Allison Lee for making the US Team in Aerials in December due to your 2^nd place combined finish at the US Aerial Selection events in Park City.

• On the FIS Nor AM tour, WVBBTS has the following athletes:

• Reed Snyderman, Moguls
• Erich Berberich, Moguls
• Alissa Pinkoski, Moguls
• Matt DePeters, Aerials
• Hans Gardner, Aerials
• Paul Sullivan, Aerials
• Allie Lee, Aerials
• Ashley Caldwell, Aerials
• Clayton Vila, Half Pipe
• Dave Powers, Half Pipe
• Kyle Keating, Half Pipe
• Tyler Thistle, Half Pipe
• Brendan Wall, Half Pipe

• Clayton Vila, 16, broke onto the podium placing 2^nd at the Park City FIS Nor-Am Half Pipe following his 4^th place the day prior thereby establishing himself as the top junior in the country. Ashley Caldwell, 14, finished 5^th at the Mont Gabriel Aerial Nor-Am.

• In this winter’s USSA Eastern Divisional events, here are other result highlights:

• Stratton A Moguls
  • Bennett Roukema, 4^th
  • Eric Cole, 7^th
  • Scott Nelson, 9^th
• Okemo Slope Style
  • Kyle Keating, 2^nd
  • Dave Powers, 3^rd
  • Tiffany Davenport, 2^nd
• Sunday River Slope Style
  • Matt Pothier, 1^st
  • Tiffany Davenport 2^nd
  • Alexa Stein, 3^rd
  • Lindsay Mustard, 5^th
  • Maddie Baker, 6^th
• Preston Cup EQS Aerial/Aerial
  • Will Dresser 5^th Combined
• Bristol A Moguls Event 1
  • Nic Dziemian, 3^rd
  • Bennett Roukema, 4^th
  • Scott Nelson, 5^th
  • Nessa Dziemian, 5th
  • Bristol A Moguls Event 2
  • Cody Bohonnon, 4^th
• Bristol A Dual Moguls
  • Scott Nelson, 5^th
  • Nessa Dziemian, 5^th

• 10 weeks of competition await our hard working athletes. At home on February 8-10, we have Rosemary Bowl and Phil’s Hill which include 2 aerial events, moguls, half pipe, and slopestyle. On March 1^st, WVBBTS will host the 1^st in the East USSA Ski Cross and Eastern Ski Cross Championships, followed by a Slope Style Open. I extend a huge thanks to all our volunteers who contributed to a successful Preston Cup.

• Athletes, parents, volunteers and coaches, you have done an excellent job as we approach the half way point of the season. Let’s all stay focused, energized, and motivated to make the rest of the season fun, safe, and successful. I commend you all.

Development & Communications Corner-From the Desk of Sharon Schmidt

• Annual Giving Campaign Telethon Results in over $22,000 in pledges-Over 20 WVBBTS Club and Academy parents gathered at the home of WVBBTS members Jonathon Katz and Barbara Ito for our first Annual Giving Campaign Telethon of the season.  In just two short hours these parent volunteers obtained pledges in excess of $22,000 from fellow WVBBTS members and left messages for another 200+ WVBBTS asking for their support of the WVBBTS Annual Giving Campaign.  Thank you solicitors and donors for an extraordinaire performance on Saturday evening!
• Annual Giving Campaign Donor Card-If you have not yet made your Annual Giving Campaign donation you may do so by clicking here http://www.wvbbts.org/donate_card.pdf .
• J3 Junior Olympics Volunteers Needed-Please help us with the J3 Junior Olympics either in advance of or during the event which is taking place March 9-12.  Please contact me for details at sschmidt@wvbbts.org (or to sign up to work a race at J3 Olympics you can log onto our home page and click on the worker credit sign up sheet icon).

Upcoming Events and Competitions in Waterville Valley

• Saturday, January, 26-USASA Boardercross

• Saturday, February, 2-Tecnica Cup Slalom