(Release via Alpine Canada)

Calgary, Alta. (February 20, 2025) — The team representing Canada at the FIS Alpine Junior World Ski Championship in Tarvisio (ITA) from February 27th through March 6th was announced today and it is a team with a mix of veterans, eight returnees from 2024, complimented by five newcomers to the team.

The Canadian team is made up of 13 athletes, under the age for 21, who were selected using criteria that includes world ranking, world ranking by age, as well as performance in the Nor-Am Series, and is coming off a gold medal performance from Britt Richardson (Canmore, AB) at last year’s Junior Worlds. The eight returning from last year’s Junior Worlds are: Amélie Bourgeois, Andreea Nicolici, Estelle Martin, Gered Thompson, Kendra Giesbrecht, Oscar Park, Pierick Charest and Sascha Gilbert. 

“This is an exciting time for these young athletes and also for Alpine Canada with a number of these athletes having been involved in Project Excel and the CAST D program,” said Jeff Thompson, VP Domestic Sport Programs & Events, Alpine Canada. “We are proud of the impact Project Excel, the collaboration with the Provincial Ski Teams and CAST D have had in just a short time in helping our athletes elevate their development. And we are very proud of these athletes, their coaches, clubs and families who support them on their journey to the world stage.”

2025 Canadian National Junior Ski Team

The team is led by Marie-Eve Boulianne, Head Coach, Women CAST D, Urban Planisek, Head Coach, Men CAST D, and Jennifer Stielow, Team Leader, Project Excel.

Racing at the 2025 FIS Alpine Junior World Ski Championships starts with the men’s and women’s downhill on Wednesday February 27th. To see the full FIS Junior World Ski Championship schedule please click here. Live timing will be provided by the International Ski Federation (FIS).

Follow Canada’s Ski Team this season on Alpine Canada’s website, across our social media accounts and subscribe to our newsletter.

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For more information or media inquiries please contact: 

Mark Halliday
Alpine Canada
403 777 3204
media@alpinecanada.org

Jacket sizing is adult unisex sizing. Jackets are Karbon brand, “Transform light down puffer”. The back of the jacket will have a U16 Western Alberta Ski Team logo.

Must Order by March 11th, 2025 at midnight.

You must complete the form once per each individual jacket order.

Please ensure you enter your email address, NOT home address.

Jackets will be delivered to your home club the week prior to U16 Westerns Departure.

PRE-ORDER HERE: https://zone4.ca/register.asp?id=38264

Over $45,000 in prizes to be won

TWO Grand Prizes and TWO Early Bird Prizes with several amazing ADDITIONAL PRIZES in the final draw!

Alpine Canada today kicked off its first CANskiteam Sweepstakes in support of Canada’s National and Next Gen Ski Team programming. Alpine Canada, supported by partners, suppliers and key industry stakeholders, will launch a first-ever Sweepstakes with over $45,000 in prizes, including two grand prizes of a $15,000 Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing experience and a $10,000 redtag.ca vacation travel voucher. All funds raised will go towards supporting National and NextGen ski team programming in alpine, Para alpine and ski cross.

Grand Prize Deadline March 16 at 7:00 PM

Along with the two Grand prizes from Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing and redtag.ca , other prizes including early bird draws for VIP experiences at the 2025 PwC Tremblant World Cup and 2025 redtag.ca SKi Cross World Cup, a Sporting Life gift card, two 25-26 Season Epic ski passes and packages from HEAD, Nordica, Rossignol, Level and Helly Hansen.

Tickets are $25 for 20 tickets, $50 for 100 tickets, and $100 for 300 tickets. 

The 2025 NORAM GS ROC has been busy at work prepping the hill for the January 27 – 30 event. We are happy to report we have repaired all the damage from this year’s construction, secured a satisfactory summer inspection by FIS and the upper half of the surface has been laid down and is already bulled proof. Next formal step is the build and FIS snow control. Join us! In the lead up to the race and on race days.

The work started early this summer. Some may still have nightmares from the incident at last years U16 Western Nationals when the cable was cut by an excavator ten minutes before the race! Those breaks had to be identified and since the World Cup is on hiatus, the effort fell on a dedicated team including the Lake Louise Ski Resort, LLSC Chief of Timing Sean Johnston, the Chief of Timing for Lake Louise Mens World Cup Sharlene Hrabec and a small army of ski club volunteers.

Meanwhile, early in the fall the ROC hosted a venue inspection by FIS inspector and TD Jim Brewington. The installation of the new bubble chair necessitated an inspection and changes to the homologations. We walked the track top to bottom, making note of the changes and required alterations to our safety plan and course build. It was a monster day, as the Juniper venue was also inspected for a potential future FIS slalom event.

With the lift construction complete the last significant job was installing a new 50 pair cable across a half kilometer stretch between Pedestal 6 at Fall Away and Pedestal 5 at on Upper WiWaxi,  with a new pedestal being installed at Coaches Corner providing us with another interval and possible start location on the track. The team is happy to report that we are “live with wire” with just a few slight updates in the timing shack necessary to be perfect.

Alberta Alpine Ski Association is pleased to announce Mountain Fire Foods and GearUp Mountain Sports Rentals & Services as new sponsors!

Mountain Fire Foods is one of our new premier partnerships! Mountain Fire Foods provides fresh, healthy, and delicious meals right to your doorstep. They are located in Canmore and service Canmore, Banff, Exshaw and Deadman’s Flats areas. Please visit their website at: mountainfirefoods.ca

Mountain Fire Foods will be feeding the Alberta Ski Team and will be offering the Alberta Alpine Membership a 15% discount on all meals. Use code: AASA15. So when your team is training or racing in the Bow Valley Mountain Fire Foods can supply your meals right to the hotel.

GearUp Mountain Sports Rentals & Services will look after all Alberta Ski Team equipment tuning and service. GearUp will also offer all Alberta Alpine Members 10% off all ski/board tuning and all rental equipment. Use code: AASA 10. GearUp is located in Canmore at 1302 Bow Valley Trail.  Learn more on their website: gearupsport.com

Start: Wednesday November 13, 2024 10:00 AM MST
End: Monday December 16, 2024 12:01 PM MST

Alberta Alpine is holding our first annual Sleigh the Raffles event to help cover the costs of our Alberta Ski Team this season. They can’t express enough how much your support means to them and they hope to make everyone proud this season!

50/50 Raffle

Wine Raffle

Prize Raffle

Start: Wednesday November 13, 2024 10:00 AM MST
End: Monday December 16, 2024 09:00 PM MST

Event Location: Calgary, Alberta

Welcome to Sleigh the Bids 2024!

Alberta Alpine Ski Association (AASA) is a provincial partner of Alpine Canada Alpin, and the governing body for alpine ski racing in the province of Alberta. 

Alberta Alpine is holding our first annual Sleigh the Bids online silent auction to help cover the costs of our Alberta Ski Team this season. They can’t express enough how much your support means to them and they hope to make everyone proud this season!
 
A sincere Thank You for your support!

The silent auction is open to bids online.

What: ACA through the support of Mackenzie Financial will be providing $10,000 in support to females across Canada to financially support their on- going efforts to “level up” in coach education.

Start:

• Program will be launched December 1st, 2024
• All registrations up to and including March 2nd, 2025, will be considered for the subsidy
• Winners of the subsidy will be announced the week of March 3rd, 2025

How It Will Work:

• Any female that registers for a coaching course is eligible to get 50% of the cost of her course subsidized through this program
• Each PTSO will receive a pre established quota for the refund:
  • BC – 3DL/1PL,
  • ALB – 3DL/1PL,
  • Sask/Man/YK – 1 DL/1PL,
  • ONT – 7 DL/1PL,
  • QUE – 7 DL/1PL,
  • Atlantic Canada – 1 DL/1PL
• The PTSO’s will self manage the distribution of the subsidy and issue the refund – 50% of the course fee (as they are the ones collecting the money from the registrant). ACA will reimburse the PTSO’s the equivalent amount as per. their quota allocation. A random draw, executed by the PTSO’s of their female registrants will take place on March 3rd, 2025. Expectation of the PTSO is that they provide the name and information of the winners so that ACA/Mackenzie can send them a letter of congratulations and to collect testimonials.

Ski racing in Canada has a deep and rich culture, and at its core is the spirit of volunteerism. The true heart of the sport is its people, the volunteers who do their jobs in both winter and summer.  They see a need that matches their skills. They give freely of their time, the most precious resource of all. They inspire the team, they mentor newcomers, they sling net and pull wire in all the weather our mountains can produce.

One of the most dedicated but least known of that army of volunteers passed away in Calgary on October 27. Steve Mullen used the knowledge and experience gathered over a thirty-year career as a telephone lineman to establish a simple, reliable wiring system for race timing. He spent literally years of his retirement as a volunteer, traveling to ski clubs across Canada to help them install wiring systems that will provide stable, consistent service for many decades.

Steve’s legacy is buried under ski runs from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, and racers from kids at the Nancy Greene level all the way up to World Cup speed athletes receive results transmitted over the wiring he placed and terminated. He procured and maintained an extensive inventory of obscure components, saving clubs the effort of sourcing them individually. Just as importantly, Steve shared his skills, teaching many people the fundamentals and enabling them to maintain or expand their system independently.

We send condolences to Anne and thank her for her own service at Steve’s side in timing shacks across Canada.

Lake Louise, AB – When it came to supporting ski racing you simply couldn’t stop or slow down Gene Durand for almost 30 years. If something was possible, and he certainly didn’t shy away from testing the limits of that, he would insist, or just do what he felt was needed or required – often under the radar. And he kept on doing those things – as CRSRHOF member Rob Imbrogno points out, “he never stopped; when Geno signed up, it was forever.” 

Gene’s legacy began in 1981 when his sons, Jeff and Cam, started racing with the Lake Louise Ski Club. Volunteering was a natural fit for Gene and before long he was on the LLSC board of directors and became passionate in supporting races of the highest quality. Jeff remembers his dad rarely speaking about his volunteer activities, supporting Jeff’s racing pursuits from the “background”, not wanting the focus to be on him. Jeff recalls face planting in soft snow while racing in -28c temperatures at a Lake Louise Nor-Am Downhill. Shaken up and very cold, he slipped down the side and into Coach’s Corner where Gene was stationed, who wrapped his long coat around Jeff and provided encouraging words. Gene was always there supporting, literally from the sidelines.

Jeff had a terrible crash in 2001 at a World Cup downhill on the Hahnenkamm which Gene and his wife Cynthia were watching from the finish. It was tough to see his son hurt which drove Gene to try to make the safest and fairest tracks that he could. By focusing on what he could control, like making sure the slip-skirts were buttoned up nice and tight, or the B-nets had the correct spacing and lean, or come race-day making sure the ruts were kept to a minimum, it took his mind off any worries he may have had. It became his passion to help make things better and his contributions grew to all levels of racing, from local club races, western regional races, Nor-Am’s, World Cups and the Vancouver Olympics .

His peers, including Imbrogno, fellow Hall of Famer and leader of the Net Monkeys Randy Pruden and Bruce Hampstead, all characterized Gene: “Heart of Gold”, “didn’t put up with crap”, “brilliant”, “generous”, “gentleman”, “the Guy Who Made Shit Happen”, “relentless”, “all business”, “passionate”, “enabling”, “story-teller”, “debonaire”, “simple guy”, and an “overgrown imp”. They and many miss his loud, warm, and back-slapping greetings – he was an imposing individual, but physical size was only a part of that. He made everyone feel very special.

At the Nor-Am level especially, Gene felt that “Lake Louise is a tough race for their first and often only downhill of the year, but we’re going to make it safe!” Gene became a true “student of safety – the crashes, injuries, physics, and the nuts and bolts” to help make things better through his own actions at his level. He became “intensely interested in understanding the whys and how of things resulting in incidents, calling me right to the time of his passing.” Pruden also credits Gene for keeping him in his role for many years past when he considered moving on. “He was my champion, helped me achieve the best I could do, and he outright sold me to stay by making me believe that I was meant to do this, that they needed me, and in Gene-fashion, said that I couldn’t go!” Very important, given Randy’s huge impact at Lake Louise.

Gene had a deep rooted love for the Lake. He was happiest wearing his crampons, shovelling out the endless snow at the bottom of the big pitch on the Lake Louise Fall Away, something that continued years beyond when he was just not physically capable anymore. His work ethic was infectious and spurred on many younger Sled Dogs and course workers to try to keep up to his endless energy – he led by example but also knew how to turn the screws even harder with his quick and sharp wit. Nobody wanted to receive too much of that!

He was a crew-chief most years at the Lake but when needed, he stepped up to be the Chief of Race for the ’95 Women’s World Cup event when Bruce Hampstead had to pull out 90 days before the event – no problem for the incredibly competent Gene, though! In his later years there, he ran a crew that supported the start area – largely female, Gene was in his glory, empowering, teaching, and leading his “Angels” to take on tasks around the mountain that had been intimidating to them, before their main event started. World cup crew member, Joan Maguire, describes him as a good friend, mentor, forever loyal, and generous to a fault.  “And how could you ever forget that laugh of his? We had so much fun on course, whether we were digging to China or on our knees tying cookies. He was always smiling or laughing.” He really could do it all.

Gene had an eye for knowing what needed to be done, but he had a real knack for looking after the hardest workers who made the World Cups happen. He hosted countless dinners at the Station Restaurant and at Laggan’s Bakery and always was concerned that these crews, particularly the Net Monkeys, weren’t getting enough calories in the many weeks leading up to the races. When he wasn’t hosting, he was providing large discounts for them or helped to supplement food at the organized events – his volunteer lunches from Laggan’s were the stuff of legend. Pruden recalls that Gene’s dryland training was in large part carrying bags of cookies way up the downhill track before the snow came to where the Net Monkey’s were installing the large and complex ‘A’ safety net systems. Either that, or surreptitiously providing updates to Calgary-based Chief of Race Darrell MacLachlan!

The crews and volunteers were important to Gene, but the athletes even more so. Everything he did in ski racing ultimately, was to make things better for them. He served his ski club, on the Alberta Alpine Board of Directors, for World Cup both for Alberta Alpine and Winterstart Events, and in many other roles in the community – all to fulfil that goal. As generous as he was with his time and support from his Lake Louise businesses, the provision of his legal skills and professional time to these organizations and events was beyond impactful, bottomless, and of course in Gene’s style, unheralded. Much in our sport today is owed to this generosity.

For the athletes, especially at the Nor-Am level direct support came too in the form of highly discounted meals and store discounts – real stuff. One of Gene’s greater legacies for them and World Cup racers, however, was his intense interest in and passion for safety on the hill. His support for the athletes was unwavering. His advice to racers would be “to thank at least two volunteers everyday you race, act with integrity, work hard, and have fun”. 

With the help of Gene’s beloved wife Cynthia and son Jeff, last season the Lake Louise Ski Club recognized Gene for his decades of support by naming an in-house race “the Volly Race”. Gene had opposed the honour in his name while he was alive and refused to consider several awards including this very induction into the Canadian Rockies Ski Racing Hall of Fame. “Thanks, but F-you, fellas. I can’t get rewarded for something that has given me so much joy and fulfillment. That just doesn’t seem right. Over my dead body!”

We’re sorry that it had to come to that, Gene, but your contributions to alpine ski racing are so important to others, that your selfless acts need to be noted. We are less without you, but know your spirit lives on at Fall Away, probably chuckling how the new folks still can’t keep up with you.

It is a great honour to induct Gene Durand, our Honoured Official, into the 2024 Canadian Rockies Ski Racing Hall of Fame.

October 30, 2024

To our valued supporters, We would like to start by extending our sincere Thanks for your support of the 2024 Highest Peak Gala, and expressing our gratitude to all athletes, parents, friends, and businesses who have been working hard and providing donations to make this event a success.

We are pleased to be running the Silent Auction and Raffle fundraising online with great items. These will be shared in our newsletter, on our website, and on our social media platforms in the upcoming weeks. All support is truly appreciated.

We will hold an event to celebrate our honoured CRSR Hall of Fame Inductees at a later date, details will be announced when available.

Thank you for your ongoing support of Ski Racing in Alberta and the Alberta Ski Team.

Sincerely,
Alberta Alpine Ski Association

Alberta Alpine and the Selection Committee of the Canadian Rockies Ski Racing Hall of Fame are pleased to announce the Class of 2024 – dedicated leaders with an extraordinary commitment to the development of alpine ski racing in Canada.

The Class of 2024 will be honoured at the Highest Peak Gala on November 7^th at the Fairmont Palliser Hotel in Calgary.

Bill Irwin – Honoured Alberta & Canadian Team alumni – Bill Irwin carved his own pathway in ski racing, reaching the World Cup and representing Canada in Europe. Along with his partner Kelly Kryczka, the Irwin’s raised four children, all engaged in high performance sport (three in alpine ski racing, one in syncro swimming). From the 1980’s, over nearly four decades Bill could be found working with race organizers at every level, including the 1988 Olympic Winter Games Organizing Committee, World Cup at Lake Louise Nor-Am’s, ensuring safety was in-place, race quality and surfaces to proper standards and filling leadership roles from Race Chair to course worker.

The Canadian Rockies Ski Racing Hall of Fame event is a legacy event with the goal to support future champions in the province, with all proceeds invested into Alberta Ski Racing programs.

WHERE: Fairmont Palliser Hotel, Calgary

WHEN: Thursday, November 7, 2024

TIME: 5:00 pm

REGISTRATION INCLUDES: Cocktail Hour, Dinner, Entertainment, Canadian Rockies Ski Racing Hall of Fame Awards Presentation

TICKETS ARE LIMITED: THIS EVENT SOLD OUT LAST YEAR!