Steve Schlanger’s Blog

The two week holiday period surrounding Christmas and New Year’s represents the quintessential ski period for alpine enthusiasts each year. The snow covered trees and lights strewn about stores, cafes and alpine homes makes this the time of year to be in a mountain town. Had they known it at the time, Mary and Joseph would have bypassed the manger altogether and the baby Jesus would have been born in a slope-side lodge within walking distance of the lifts. And instead of gold, frankincense and myrrh, the three kings would have brought the boy goggles, boots and a pair of Atomic GS skies so he would have been one step ahead of the Apostles when they hit the ski school. But hindsight being what it is…

Anyway, while most skiers are banking run after run with no school and scaled back work hours during this time, it is kind of the opposite on the World Cup Alpine circuit. The skiers actually lay low for a few days without a heavy schedule of racing and training to adhere to. There are some holiday traditions such as the men’s downhill in Bormio between Xmas and New Year’s and outside of a few training runs for that and some potential free skiing on the side, the Cuppers tend to use this rather brief break from competition to enjoy the holidays like the rest of us. The Americans largely stay in Europe and celebrate the holidays together in their central European bases. A few will scatter to rented apartments or the homes of friends – overall champion Lindsay Vonn spends Christmas at the home of one of her main rivals, German Maria Reisch – but the squads are mostly holed up together. Such is life in a winter sport that plays most of its games on European soil.

The unofficial “break” in the season offers up a chance to not only do the gift thing, but also take stock of what has transpired in the season to date. With a heavy racing schedule including some signature events on the calendar for January followed by the World Championships the following month, it is a nice chance to see where you stand as a skier and as a team before you ring in the new year. That, of course, is assuming you have enough races in the can to glean anything useful from. It has been another strange first two months with cancellations, postponements and schedule shifts. If you’re like Vonn and trying to defend a downhill globe, what do you make of the fact that you will only have one downhill event on the books by the time you arrive in Cortina on January 18th? Hard to measure your progress when there is nothing there to measure. Some of it is obviously weather, some just quirky scheduling, but still, you have to race to know exactly where you stand and I’m sure nobody wants to be unsure of anything once those January classics roll around.

The most interesting storyline of the season for me so far? The U.S. Men. Coming off an historic performance in Val Gardena when they put five in the top ten of a World Cup race for the first time ever, the depth and confidence of this team is starting to really show. They are no longer surprised by podiums. They expect them. And they are clearly feeding off the accomplishments of one another. Crazy how what is essentially an individual sport and can possess and thrive on the dynamics of a team environment. Even beyond the podiums and the top ten’s, other Americans are also earning their first World Cup points by charging from back in the field with the swagger of a top 30 starter. It’ll be plenty exciting to watch and see how this trend evolves.

Now, as far as the holidays themselves, I’m on record as saying that it’s my favorite time of the year. That being said, does it feel like Christmas is becoming more and more like a timeout in an otherwise wild shopping spree? I mean we spend some six weeks scouring the stores for gifts, engaging in hand to hand combat for parking spots at the mall and fretting over who to buy for and how much to spend. We take it right up to the brink with folks scrambling out of stores as the sun sets on Xmas Eve, only to return at daybreak on December 26th to start the equally daunting process of exchanging the unwanted. Somewhere in between we try to catch our breath and…oh yeah, celebrate the birth of Christ! It’s enough to make you wish Santa would do more than sit on his butt at the mall and actually gather up the gifts he is supposed to be delivering anyway.

Speaking of mall Santas, my four-year-old daughter posed a good question to the jolly old fella a few weeks back. When he asked her name and if she has been naughty or nice, she paused, wrinkled her forehead and replied, “shouldn’t you know that already”?

Cutting his losses, he didn’t bother asking what she wanted for Christmas.

Happy holidays.

I’m not talking about the best alpine skiers in the world here. This is about the finest mountain crews on the tour that allow the skiers the opportunity to do their thing. And they just happen to reside in North America, most notably, Beaver Creek. The enormity of staging a World Cup race cannot be overstated in the first place. The work that goes into preparing the hill, rolling out fencing, setting gates and marking the course while ensuring that it measures up to World Cup standards would be sufficient in itself to make it a huge undertaking. But factor in things like what happened early last week in Beaver Creek and the efforts of the crew becomes epic. When it started dumping in feet over the Rockies, the entire weekend was thrust into jeopardy. As it was, only the Thursday Super Combined had to be cancelled which was a minor miracle. Some 20 snowcats and hundreds of volunteers worked through the night to make sure that the marquee event of the weekend, the downhill, would go off as scheduled on Friday.

Think about this for a second. In other sports like baseball or football, you have a grounds crew that only has to maintain a flat playing area roughly a few hundred yards around and merely has to pull a tarp over the surface when bad weather hits. When it clears, they unfurl that tarp and we’re ready to play ball. Many surfaces are now made out of field turf, the synthetic blend of artificial turf and natural grass so the maintenance process is that much easier as well. Sure, a golf course has more real estate, but riding atop a lawn mower while soaking in 75 degress and sunshine could be worse. Not to belittle their work because there is also care that goes into maintaining the quality of these various playing fields, but the sum total of their workload does not even approach what mountain crews go through.

First of all, for speed events like a downhill, you are talking about a course that can be in excess of two miles long. TWO MILES! That’s over 35 football fields. I get tired shoveling my driveway, try clearing two feet of fresh for over a mile at 11,000 feet. Most courses are carved out of the trees on extremely steep slopes and with a lot of undulating terrain as well. And because they are at altitude, the weather can be more turbulent and unpredictable, not to mention changing at a moment’s notice. So crews like the one at Beaver Creek are up on that steep slope working in the middle of the night, in the biting cold, moving snow they can barely see and many are not even getting paid for it. As volunteer positions go, passing out flyers at the local polling place doesn’t sound half bad in comparison.

It’s one of the reasons that the Beav is so special as I pointed out in my last post. The folks there take great pride in staging some of the best races on the World Cup. It is a comprehensive community effort. Getting a mountain race ready is no easy feat in the best of conditions, but when mother nature strikes on top of it, only a few places on the circuit really respond with equal force. And for this, the Beav is the best.

By the way, I’ve unintentionally started this little routine of ending my posts with a total non-snow related observation. Don’t know exactly why I started really. Perhaps just too much time on the road and instead of running up the company tab with pay-per views in the hotel, why not ponder the little things such as…appetizers. I mean, it’s not like we have bigger problems in the world right? Oh, the economy may be crumbling, but don’t cry to me about bailouts when all I care about is finding a good calamari. Seriously though, why do we call them “appetizers”? By definition, that would imply that they increase our appetite. Get us hungry in the first place. So why would we be in a restaurant if we weren’t hungry already? Since when do we have to go there just to get hungry? And is a huge plate of chicken nachos really the recipe for jump starting someone’s desire for more food? They should just call appetizers what they are: more food. What, is it too embarrassing to order a plate of buffalo wings and a 20 ounce T-bone? We need to be lulled into thinking we are simply priming our palates for the main course? Please. Don’t be shy. If you’re hungry, eat. Only tell it like it is. Just as linguini is listed under pastas and lobster can be found under seafood, it’s time that giant stuffed mushrooms and cheddar cheese covered potato skins are relocated to a more appropriately labeled section of the menu.

I’m all for “MORE FOOD.” Just thinking about it is quite the appetizer.

The first week of December is, hands down, one of the best weeks of the alpine world cup season. That’s because it’s Beaver Creek week. And let’s just say, the Beav does it right. The accommodations, competition, atmosphere, après-ski and usually the weather are all top draw. The mountain is magnificent and the town itself both charming and first class. It truly embodies everything great about the alpine life. What’s more, this particular stop on the world cup calendar is generally one of the only four event sites. And that is something embraced by both spectators and skiers alike. For the skiers, it’s a chance to settle in to one place for more than a few days at a time and get into somewhat of a competitive rhythm with the hill. For fans, it’s the opportunity to create a week long festival feel around town. They also get to see a variety of disciplines and the full roster of skiers who are contesting them at the highest level. Most places hold either tech or speed races, but not always both. Here, you have a mix of events meaning that more of the world’s top skiers are on hand. Plus, the courses they are competing on are universally considered some of the best on the planet. “Challenging, but fair” is the way you’ll hear most of the athletes describe the Birds of Prey. It has all the elements of a truly great downhill track: steep, technical, jumps and just enough flat.

Of course, even with its early season slot, Beaver Creek is always a high priority for the Americans. And unlike the only other U.S. stop on the tour in Aspen, (women only now) BC has been kind to the home boys over the years. While no American has won in Aspen since 1981, the likes of Daron Rahlves and Bode Miller have won multiple times on the Birds of Prey. The U.S. team is always fired up to come here and expects good results. No matter what has happened in the first few weeks of the season, the week at the Creek is always a pick me up. It’s the only chance each season for the American men to compete at home so they come to town with everything dialed in and ready to rock. Never mind that this might be the last week for them to get a good cheeseburger or stay in a hotel where they can see back to back to back to back to back episodes of Law & Order. No, the comforts of home will not be a distraction for the focused U.S. squad.

So unless you’re waiting on the edge of your seat for our president elect’s next cabinet appointment, clear time for some of the best alpine skiing you will get to see all year and make sure you join us over at universalsports.com for all the race coverage.

Gee wiz, Beav, you’re the best!