First, apologies to Lou Montana, who I incorrectly identified in connection with his photos last week. Hard to get good proof readers these days. Maybe I was thinking back to Leapin' Lou Fontinato.

Now, the last week of racing is upon us. And don't be late for dinner, while keeping time for some other excitement. Read on!

GDHL Awards Dinner

Saturday evening is the annual GDHL dinner and awards presentation in the Base Lodge. Tickets are now on sale through the Club website's members section or the front desk - $45 or $30 for GDHL racers under 35 and their guests, plus HST. The evening will start at 7 pm with cocktails and tapas. We'll do a few awards before dinner at 8, featuring live music. Then we'll do the rest of the awards, including recognizing the winning teams, and taxi and shuttle service will start at 9:30. And don't forget you can bring your own wine and just pay a $15 corkage fee. But, YOU HAVE TO BOOK NOW, so we can tell the caterer how many are coming. Avoid the risk of having your friends tell you what you missed by getting in touch with the Club right now!

Skiing Schedule

Race 7 of GDHL will be combined with the GS race from the Club Championships on Saturday morning. (The Fast & Female group is ready to race in the CC.) Starts will be by age group in accordance with Club Championship practice, and you will need to pick up a CC bib in the South Lodge on Saturday morning. If weather and course conditions allow, a second GS run will be held for GDHL participants only. It will not count for Club Championships, but the better time from the two runs will count for GDHL purposes. If a second run is possible, there will be a delay of 15 or 20 minutes after the first run, so that the Coyotes can complete their results for the Club Championships. The usual SL portion of the Club Championships will be held on Saturday afternoon.
The final gate training session of the nine week program will be dual paneled SL on Sunday morning at 9:30. Fast & Female will do the Club Championships as their final session, while Al and his Adult Tech group will have a session on Sunday at 9:30.
Sandy will be offering Friday GS training at 9:30 on Comet. Afternoon training will only proceed if there are sufficient commitments. We know how the sirens of Ladies Day may cause the poor gatetrainers to founder at lunch time! Contact Laurel if you want to train and are feeling sufficiently Odyssean. Sandy will also be offering GS training on the Monday of March break week and SL on the Friday. He is also willing to offer more weekend training if there is sufficient demand. Contact him directly or let Laurel know.

GDHL Race 6

Race 6 was only the second GS of the season, held on Big John. J-F Courville took advantage of a donated bib 20 to take an early lead (eventually finishing 19th), but was supplanted by Meghan Barber, who remained first woman throughout and finished 13th overall. Meghan remained in the hot seat until her teammate Jeff Sutherland squeaked a few hundies past, then the triple digit bib boys went to work. Greg Cavers was the first to break 32 seconds, and was tied by Scott McLorie soon after. Two racers later, Phil Ruffolo recorded a 31.21 that held up through the first run. There were few improvements made by those who took second runs, and Phil was looking in good shape after almost matching his first run time with his second. Sadly, Chris Barber, although reportedly quite tired, was kept sufficiently alert by the screaming orange of his brand new Volkl 196 cm 35 m radius GS skis (as if Men's Day wasn't punishing enough) to beat Phil by five hundredths, only to be immediately topped by Alec Libert, who broke into the 30 point somethings to take his first GDHL win of the year. Results were very tight throughout the top half of the standings, with finishers 14 through 25 all in the 33's and 26 through 44 all in the 34's. Among the day's big gainers over ranking were Warren McD (encore!), J-F, Brad McMullen (returning to old ways), Rich Lavery, Sarunas (although Carrie's forerunning time smoked him), Rob Bruce, Doug MacCon, Dougie Craig, Ed Barnicke, Elspeth Gaukrodger and Murray Sarafinchin.

Going into the final race, several of the individual races are locked up, but the team standings are very tight. Only 14 points separates second from fourth. And one member of the third place team is still carrying a ten point absence penalty, that can be overcome with an appearance on Saturday. Remember that it's important for all team members to show up, even if they have four good races, to make sure that members of other teams don't score more points by virtue of a smaller field.

Elsewhere

At this weekend's AOA Master's GS, Jeff Sutherland recorded the fastest overall time (not just age group), despite being only a week or two into what was to have been six weeks off skis. Jeff attributes his recovery to using cabbage leaves to reduce inflammation. Who knew Jeff was so attuned to natural remedies?

And also Marie-Michelle Gagnon took her second career World Cup win, although much of the attention seemed to focus on Lindsey Vonn competing despite what has now been determined to be a season-ending broken leg.

And Finally

Your GDHL committee is working very hard on putting together a great offer for North Face jackets for GDHL members at a very attractive price. If it all comes together, try on opportunities will be available at the GDHL dinner Saturday.

On more reason I'll see you there!

Cheers,

James Mathers