Leaving the ski hill at the end of the season is never easy. With the spring sunshine beating down on the slopes, it is hard to grasp the change of pace, from skiing every weekend, seeing your friends, racing on Sundays, and then suddenly, it stops. This year it was probably more difficult than usual. Even with lots of snow left to be skied, Craigleith, like all other non-essential facilities had to shut down.
It’s now isolation day 3, or 4, or 7… depending on who and where you are. No matter how you frame the tough decisions that have been made, shutting the Club down when they did was in the best interest of everyone’s health. There may never be another season like this, another world event like the one we are living right now, and its common to feel unstable during such tumultuous times. In an effort to provide some stability, we have another Thursday morning newsletter for you to digest. You will not be able to read this on your morning commute (unless you are an essential service, and in that case THANK YOU), but the content is not much different than other weeks.
Two weeks ago (nearly) we enjoyed an amazing banquet put on by the GDHL committee. Last week the traditional award winners were recognized in our email; this week you will find our more eclectic award winners. There is also a very important fantasy update below that will cause some fantasy team owners heart ache. For those who are trying to stay fit during their isolation period, you can find some work out ideas and inspirations for now and the off season. This week’s newsletter will finish off by rolling the credits on our season.
Brook and Peter Dyson, Winners of the Highly Coveted, Fastest Family Award
AWARDS: The Fun Ones!
When we plan our awards ceremony for the year, we have one goal; to keep everyone in the room smiling. Everyone loves to hear their name called to the top of the podium, but for many of us (your editor included) it does not happen often. So to ensure the GDHL appreciates race contributions from all types of athletes, we’ve created awards to recognize different kinds of exceptional performances. From our banquet night, the following athletes were recognized:
Fastest Family - Peter & Brook Dyson
An Athlete’s First Time Cracking Top 50 - Rob Peerenboom & Paul Petersen
The Family with the Most DNF’s - Doug and Steve Jarvis (2 each)
Fastest Old Guy - Scott McLorie, Scott then passed it onto his more senior equivalent, Greg Cavers
Mr Consistency - Mike D’angelis won for dislocating the same shoulder two consecutive years, in the same race weekend of the season
Best Start - Gino Gentile was awarded for his gracious face plant on the start ramp as he exited the starting hut
Best Dressed Athlete - Joey Hill (see pictures)
Joey Hill
Most Confidence Award - Tony Baldanza, who at the start of the Super G racecourse said the following: “I got this, I can do it. Now which way do I go around the first gate”
Spirit Award – Bob Callow for his consistent attendance record and unwavering support of our GDHL community
Who got mis-ranked the worst – Steve McDonald (we will get it right next year!)
The #IGotChicked Award - given to all the guys who Katie Farrow beat in the Comet SL:
Alec Libert, Gordie Bruce, Trevor Whitten, Joel Charon, Jon Kinsie.
It was great fun giving these awards out, congratulations to all the winners!
Joel Charron, Trevor Whitten, Jon Kinsie, Katie Farrow, and Alec Libert all celebrate Katie’s triumph! Missing: Gordon Bruce
Fantasy Update
What a great inaugural season for our Fantasy GDHL. Thank you to all who submitted teams, we hope you had fun tracking your progress weekly. As we progress into the off season, if anyone would like a more detailed breakdown of the athletes, their scoring per race, and advanced metrics, please reach out to gdhl@gdhl.org. We will happily make all data available to ensure you can build your winning team next year!
The Re Count. As you read last week, the final race had a missing racer in the finish details. This error skewed the results, and when the correct results were run through our program, we had new winners!
The final results on the season are as follows:
1st place: Paul Peterson #2 – 1,115 Points
2nd Place: Trevor Jackson – 1,097 Points
3rd Place: Anthony Ruffalo – 1,085 Points
As always, you can find all details on this google sheet here.
How to stay in shape:
No doubt about it, staying in shape while also trying to stay inside your 600 ft2 downtown Toronto apartment is not easy. Here are some inspirational workouts for you to try, hopefully they help you keep your sanity!
Leg Blasters
This workout has been around for a long time and is often cited as the only dryland training for some of the best back country skiers. It will break you if you are not careful. It is all body weight movement with a lot of squats, lunges, and jumps. Click through to read more
Mikaela’s Home Workout
For the slalom specialists in the crowd, this is a great collection of movements to get the legs burning. It includes a spin bike and chin up bar.
Aksel Lund Svindal’s Gym Routine
If you’re looking to bulk those legs up, here is your routine! This will be for your offseason (unless you have a full squat rack in your basement), when everything opens back up, and it is intense! It requires a partner, and lots of gym equipment.
A final farewell for now:
Thank you all for participating in a great racing season with us! Your weekly efforts on the ski hill are what inspire my writing and commentary.
Huge thank you to our amazing Coyotes who provided great, safe races all season.
BIG thank you to our coaching team led by Keith Farnhand
Our fearless Committee Chair, Marlene Jackson also thanks the exceptional contributions of the entire GDHL Committee who are:
Randy Dalton, Dave Henderson, Carrie Lenauskas, Julie Hughes-Workman, Jamie Coulter, Trent Winstone, Greg Cavers.
Depending on many external circumstances, including my isolation boredom, you may hear from me again in the near future.
-Doug Jarvis