Hello all! It has been a busy and cold one recently. Ever since the new year kicked around, I have found myself racing non stop, which comes with a lot of ups and downs. In early January, Tora and I met Leslie out in Collingwood where we had a week of NORAM racing. Tora and I both had our glory moments, our grappling moments, as well as our eye opening moments. Once those were over, Leslie and I dropped Tora off at the airport as she needed to go back to studying the books, before we took a road trip to Quebec where I raced another week. As I slowly got over a sickness I was battling, results started to show.

After a frigid, wonderful week in Quebec we jumped on a plane to go back west. I got home early morning of the 16th, and raced Lake Louise from the 17th-20th. All I can say is that, yes being busy is draining, but when you’re doing what you love you never want to stop being on that ‘go go go’ program.

(Photo by: Mikey Stevenson Photography)

Before leaving to Jackson, Wyoming for another NORAM week on February 1st, we had 10 days for some training and down time at home. Unfortunately, during this time, Tora caught a bug so she couldn’t join Ashleigh, Leslie, and I down in Jackson. Down in the states, we had an amazing slalom training day and a few of the best powder days of our lives before racing got started. I was going into those NORAM races coming off one of my best days of slalom training, and I couldn’t have been more hungry to charge. However, when racing came around it was a completely different story. When I couldn’t perform as I wanted, I was frustrated. For some they strived and boogied, but for myself, I struggled that week. Despite not achieving what I hoped down in Jackson, AST walked away with some things to be proud of; one being that Ashleigh tied for 1st on a GS NORAM run which resulted in her best score ever (woohoo!!).

Shortly after we got home we headed to the west coast for the classic grouse and whistler races, where we earned a lot of hardware as a team, overcame some fears, and ingested probably way to many Chic Pea cinnamon buns (mmh). I picked up not only my first win of the season but my first GS win since u12, so I came home on a high note.

When we got home, I finally had some time off after a hectic but enjoyable 7 weeks of racing. We began skiing again at the beginning of this week at Nakiska, where we were lucky enough to train and watch some of our upcoming Albertan stars in the Canada Winter Games. It should also be mentioned that it was also super nice to have Tora back on the slopes with us after a tough sickness that kept her in bed for 4 weeks.

In the upcoming months, the team will split ways again, going in three different directions with some to vail, some to red, and some to NORAM finals, before being back as a team in northern Quebec for Canadian National Championships! Afterwards we go to Eastern Spring Series and then Western Spring Series before our final race at Nakiska to finish the 2018/2019 season…. Where did the season go???? Seems like it went by in a flash.

Also shoutout to Rob McCloskey, who has been working non-stop to help Alberta Alpine reach full potential. This includes applying for the Parks Foundation Calgary Grant, on behalf of AASA & 14 other Calgary-based member ski clubs, that awarded us with $150,000 and some Flames tickets to help us reach our goals. (Please go check out to see what they do:  https://www.parksfdn.com ). And too Gavin Preziosi, who has been in the forefront of putting on an awesome three days of racing at Nakiska Ski Resort for the Red Deer 2019 Canada Winter Games where U16 racers go head to head. Team Alberta had many podium results in all 3 disciplines.

Anyways, goodbye for now! Enjoy the snow while it lasts (can’t believe it is already March) Lets pray for some warmer weather !!!!!

Cheers,

Claire

Hey everyone!! Welcome to my second Athlete journal as a part of the team.

Over the last couple weeks the team split up with the boys going to Kimberley Mountain Resort,  to race the Dreadnaught speed series and a night slalom. The girls headed down south of the border to Snow King, Jackson, to ski in some NorAm teck races, with the exception of Tora who has been recovering from illness.

The girls success came, with Ashleigh, scoring a career-best FIS result in GS and finishing in 17th . Then, Claire backing it up the following day with a 16th place finish. The girls were able to come home with some NorAm top 20s,  in a very strong field of racers. It also, snowed like crazy while they were down there, and the girls got some serious powder turns, in the legendary Tetons.

[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”4″ display=”basic_thumbnail”]Meanwhile, the boys also had some great success,  with Andrew and myself both taking our very first fis wins! Mine was in the Night Slalom and Andrew’s in the Super G. Caeden brought home some hardware, third in the Night slalom, third in a Super G and a plethora of U-19 Medals of all colors. This was our biggest medal haul so far this season,  with 2 gold 4 silver and 3 bronze. We gained valuable experience and miles on our Super G and Downhill skis!

Up next for the Team, we have a couple slalom races in Grouse and some GS and Super G races in Whistler. It has been an excellent couple of weeks.  I look forward to having the full team back together for these upcoming races!

I would also like to Thank our sponsors for helping us out along the way it wouldn’t be possible without you guys! So thank you Sporting Life Canada, Western GMC Buick, Ortema/pro sport protection, Descente international, and Ski Big 3!

Thanks everyone.

  – Angus

After a hectic Nov/Dec racing schedule the Alberta Ski Team has been enjoying some high quality local training and racing in January.  The first couple weeks saw the majority of the ski team training locally at Nakiska, C.O.P., Lake Louise and Norquay.  We are so blessed here in Alberta to have so many high quality training venues and I would like to take the time to acknowledge the support of our local club coaches, program directors and ski area managers.  The Alberta Ski Team has taken the initiative to vary it’s training locations and to try and work with local FIS teams as much as possible and these clubs and ski areas have been great in accommodating that.

The racing season has been a mixture of successes and setbacks, as is normal in any sport endeavor.  As athletes and coaches we all want to perform our best at every opportunity, but in reality our plans don’t always go accordingly.  For the second year in a row Ashleigh Alexander sustained an injury early in the year.  Ashleigh took some time off over the Christmas break to recover, then slowly and methodically trained to get back to a confident level of skiing to be race ready.  This culminated with back to back victories at Lake Louise in the GS races last week.

After another 5 day training block the Alberta Ski Team is looking forward to the next series of races in Western North America.  These races will be a good mid season prep before travelling east for the National Championships, our largest event of the season.  I look forward to seeing our committed athletes achieve their potential in these series.  From Leslie, Jonas and I, as well as all the AST athletes I would like to thank you for your encouragement and support and please feel free to stop and say hello on the hill and even jump in for a lap on our course!

Darin McBeath

Hey everyone!

I hope everyone had a great time with your loved ones during the Christmas holidays and are now recovering from all the turkey dinners and festivities.  As we approach the New Year, our girl’s team will be heading out east to compete at NorAms. Unfortunately, I will not be joining them due to a crash in Panorama that left me with a concussion and a partially separated shoulder. I have been cleared of my concussion and am slowly getting back to 100% with my shoulder.  I want to say thank you to all my coaches (Darin, Leslie & Jonas), Rob McCloskey, Gavin Preziosi and the Gray family for being such a huge support and helping me while I was in Panorama following my injury. I also want to mention my teammate Claire Timmermann, who amongst all the craziness of racing, was a true teammate by taking care of me for the first few days after my crash and pulling out her first NorAm Junior podium on her 18^th birthday! Super proud of her!

I hope you all have a great New Year and I hope to see you guys on the slopes! I also wanted to thank our sponsors, Western GMC, Sporting life, and Bruce Legree with Descente for the continuous support! I would also like to thank my personal sponsors Bliz and Rossignol for keeping me safe, helping me ski fast and making sure I always look good!

– Ashleigh

Upcoming AST Women’s Races:

• Jan 2-3 @ Georgian Peaks (2x GS)
• Jan 4-5 @ Osler Bluff (2x SL)

Hey everyone!

The team just got back from our first race in Sun Peaks! All of us were eager to get back into racing and finally get this season rolling! Even with challenging conditions, all the AST athletes persevered and still had some great results. We are now back at home preparing for an extremely busy month of racing ahead. First, we had two slalom races in Norquay this past weekend and immediately afterwards we’re headed to Lake Louise for NorAms. Unfortunately, I won’t be racing in the speed events at Lake Louise NorAms, but want to wish everyone good luck! My eyes will be glued to live timing! After Lake Louise, we travel to Panorama for another NorAm series and finish December’s races competing in some more FIS tech races. The team has a full schedule all the way up until the holidays! Anyways, I want to wish everyone good luck in their upcoming season. Can’t wait to see everyone out on the slopes!

Thank you to our generous sponsors; Western GMC Buick, Descente and Sporting Life.

-Tora Hoshizaki

Hey everyone! After our first few weeks on snow at Nakiska, The Alberta Ski Team headed to Kamloops November 19th for our first races of the season in Sun Peaks. We’ve been training with high intensity and volume and pushing each other every day. The first few weeks on snow were about fine-tuning technical and tactical goals everyone was working towards in Saas Fee and getting ready to race!

On Nov 16th we received our team uniform and everyone is super happy with how everything turned out, I’d like to extend a huge thank you to Bruce LeGree and Descente for the gear as well as Sporting life and Western GMC Buick! Wishing everyone good luck with their pre-season training and the rest of their season.

The video I’ve done for my athlete journal comprises of pre-season training at Nakiska and dryland workouts at CSI-Calgary, Winsport.

Thanks,

Caeden Carruthers

OH Hey,

It’s finally my turn! I wanted to share with everyone in our community, a collection of daily 1 second videos of the AST, from the last few months. My intention by doing this is to give our world a glimpse of what it is like to be a part of the Alberta Ski Team. We really are a family, we have challenging moments, hilarious moments, a great deal of repetition, but what feels like zero routine. By no means can we capture all of the memories, but this is certainly a starting point. To overlay, our prep phase has consisted of 2 on-snow camps, 3 Dryland blocks, lots of sweat, tears, and determination….. oh…. and a ton of fun!

Check us out on Instagram @albertaskiteam for more adventures of the AST throughout the year. Our race season is quickly approaching as we are back on snow November 5th! It won’t be long before the athletes are pushing out of the start gate. 

Ciao,

Leslie