The skiing is done, now onto the Apres…
In This Newsletter:
End Of Season Awards Party
Dual Slalom Recap
Results
End Of Season Awards Party
The GDHL end-of-season awards party is almost here! Whether you're anxiously waiting to find out the winning team or you just like an open bar, this is not an event to miss.
Saturday, March 7th @ 7pm in the Base Lodge
Tickets are $80 and include dinner (schnitzel, pasta, salad and more), cookies, candy bar, late night pizza + beer, wine, seltzers and shots of Fireball + a live band.
Dress code is retro ski. One-piece ski suits, spandex, neon and vintage sweaters encouraged.
This event is almost sold out so buy your tickets on the Craigleith Event Calendar today!
Dual Slalom Recap
Race #8 - Dual Slalom: The Epic Battle Continues
Guest Writer: Carrie Lenauskas
Well, it's been a rager of a season. Some people's hearts have been broken, others have been parading around like they just won an Olympic medal after placing in the top 120 for the first time ever. Sadly some people's seasons were dashed by early injuries - and then there is Rob Emery, who spent more time in the Patrol hut this year than anyone else on the escarpment.
This is a fun one to write... Only a few select members on the GDHL committee and myself know the results of the Dual and nothing below will reveal much. Side note: none of the people 'in the know' can be bribed, you can try, but will fail.
With 101 racers either choosing not to race, sunning themselves in Florida/Mexico or were confused that the race was indeed on Saturday and not Sunday, there was a ton of points up for grabs in this tight Overall Team race. The top 3 teams are within 8 points!! This is why you never miss a race - every added point helps!
Bill Barclay, the voice of Craigleith, decided to take the weekend off after accepting his Bowie Award and being speechless for the first time in 45+ years. So that left everyone to the mercy of Paul Peterson calling the race and myself in the finish corral for on-hill post-race interviews. While some relished in the post race interviews, others were horrified to have a microphone shoved in their face as they came out of the finish corral. I was told later that racers were at the top of the hill trying to think of their one line snippet so they were ready for me when they finished. A few also thought it was funny that anyone riding the Little John chair heard Paul yelling "and here comes Big Balls Bertouch" over and over again.
The 5 second penalty that was implemented for this race also helped to really shake up the regular standings and remove any calculated DNF's like last year. I don't think future Commissioner, Ben Williams, liked this rule in hindsight, as he had his first finish out of the top 10 since his 1st year in FIS. As a small concession, he did beat Mike Welton by 1.31 in the 1st run.
Whether it was the Olympic spirit in the air, the fact that people were happy this was the last race or just some good ol' fashion competition, almost everybody was high fiving or hugging when they got to the bottom regardless of the result. This is the kind of team spirit and friendly competition that's invoked in the GDHL - sure some days are tough and we're pissed that our rival beat us, but other days are pure magic. Even with all the love in the air, the shit talking and rivalries were at an all time high.
Now let's go through our top 3...
Ha ha ha, just joking. You'll have to wait for the Awards Party Saturday, March 7th for those. Go buy your tickets now before you forget.
Here were a few of the epic battles of the day:
Simon Weisz - Gareth Imrie
These 2 men are no strangers to their wives dominating them... in sports - so they decided to commiserate and go head to head. Sadly Gareth had a little trip up and ended up being DSQ's in the first run, not that he was anywhere close to Simon's time. *Editor's note: Simon has been receiving personal training from Bebe for years and he informed me that after seeing those runs, Simon has lost chairlift privileges and will be hiking up after each training run while his sons wave at him from the chair.
Lindsay Brazil - Brittany Stainer
Currently 7th and 8th in the women's standings separated by 18 points - this was a great match up. Brittany is still single. She did request that update, since it's been a few newsletters, just in case anyone was wondering. She's also given me permission to hand out her number. Britt Britt was trying to eye out any single men before the race and wasn't in the right zone. Not-single Lindsey took advantage of that distraction and took W's in both runs.
Krista Doboz - Paul Doboz
This husband and wife duo made the courageous move to race each other. Krista took a W in the 1st run beating Paul by .42, but unfortunately couldn't hold him off in the 2nd run where he got her by exactly 1 second. All is well in paradise though; they skied out of the finish corral, hand in hand, happily ever after.
Jamie Britt - Dave P. Robinson
This is the epic battle of epic battles. *insert slow motion dual video* Newcomer to skiing and the GDHL, as well as Craigleiths very own Australian Olympic Team member, Jamie Britt, raced the Original David P. Robinson, multi-time winner of the Safest Skier Award presented yearly by Paul the Ski Racer.
Dave thought that he was going to finally give up his yearly award when Jamie joined the GDHL this year, only to discover that Jamie has been using the Carve app and has a personal coach with the last name Dyson (for those of you thinking 'hey his coach might be Brooks wife, Carrie', close, but it's not). The Australian has placed higher than Dave in 6 of 7 previous races this year. However proving that this was the most epic battle - their second run was 0.02 seconds apart from each other. Sadly due to Jamie's epic bail in the first run, in their 8th and last GDHL battle of the year, Dave emerged victorious and was forcing people to give him their drink tickets in celebration after the race! Had Jamie not gone ass over tea kettle, he would have placed at least 5 spots higher from his 2nd DFL placing.
Lesley Leech - Jordie White
Moving on to a sibling rivalry. Lesley and Jordie had to have their yearly contest of who's faster. While Jordie won the 1st run, Lesley had a smokin' fast 2nd run and can continue to wear the 'I'm Faster than my Brother' shirt for the next season. Even after her exciting win, she was a woman of very few words when it came time for her post-race interview, while Jordie loved his time on the mic and was very complimentary of both their runs and how he'll work on improving for next season to beat Lesley.
Doug Henderson - Connor Clarke
These 2 gents have been battling it out since they started their racing career at 8 years old. A formal battle challenge was extended by Connor to Doug Saturday morning. They were to meet at 1:45pm, top of Little John, with slalom skis, bring your squad as witnesses and battle till the end. [New Sandbagger] Doug Henderson (who was coached by Pete Valin when he was younger, so was clearly taught how to sandbag by the best) lost to Connor in the 1st run. Embarrassed by his first run, Doug's squad, aka wife Maggie, didn't stick around to see if he could be a phoenix rising from the ashes in the 2nd run and went to watch the Canadians men's curling team win Olympic Gold instead. Connors parents, Anne and Colley were already pre-planning his victory meal between runs.
Second run came around and with no squad in sight, Doug sandbagged won! But was his run fast enough to win the race? With quick calculations Doug and Connor both simultaneously realized that Connor won and by a meere .20!
That evening, Connor was served prime rib au jus, pan seared bacon wrapped scallops, twice baked mashed potatoes au gratin and roasted root vegetables with butter and sage with Ann's amazing cookies for dessert to celebrate his win.
Julie Statler - Blair McDougal
After being paired up due to bib order (and committee member Julie, not knowing that you could choose to race whoever you wanted), Blair who is no stranger to finishing behind his wife, got chicked again and took a tough loss of over 4 seconds. This match up had both families in full force to cheer them on. Wife Maddy and the inlaws were at the bottom cheering for Blair (despite the L) and of course Ma and Pa Statler were cheering on Julie (with Julie beating Ron by 3 spots!)
Alex - Addison - David Dean
Coach Alex had to be in prime form since his U10 team, the Slalom Stars, were all watching their coach's performance. He had after all told the Slalom Stars he could ski 'almost' as fast as Alberta Tomba. David wasn't going to let Alex have all the glory though and pulled out his performance of the year, beating Alex by .64 in the first run. After getting some line advice from his U10's and a reminder to pressure the front of the boot, Alex regrouped and beat David in the 2nd run to win overall. I think David might have felt bad about all the pressure his U10 athletes put on him and gave Alex the W, but we will never know.
Molly Brenzel - Molly McDonald
This has been a hot contest all year. The Battle of the Mollys! These ladies are neck in neck, literally flip flopping each race. With Molly being the only representative of the Brenzels to really show up this weekend (ya ya Matt, we know you skied the 1st run), the pressure was ON to represent. M. McDonald threw down a decent first run, only to be completely destroyed by M. Brenzel in the 2nd - 1.19 ahead!!
Pete Valin - Jim Bunting - Mystery Man
Pete Valin who continues to sandbag his GDHL career and used the duct tape holding his forearm guards on as a metaphor for how his body feels most days, finished in an incredible single digit place. He raced Jim Bunting in the first and not realizing the time, was late to pick up his kid from lessons, so slotted in with someone else for the 2nd run. He's not quite sure who he raced because of how frazzled he was. Kudos to Jim and whoever the 2nd run partner was for racing a human with every excuse under the book and duct tape literally holding him together (both figuratively and literally).
Jenn Price - Drew Clarke
This has been a battle 3 years in the making. As soon as Drew found out that Jenn once went to Italy for a ski race as a teenager, he had his eyes set on beating her. This year's battle was a whole new level of gloves off. Leading up to this race, Drew trolled Jenn pretty hard with his unwavering confidence, calling her slow as molasses. He (Texts posted with approval from Jenn, this will be news to Drew)
Jenn won the 1st run by .60, only for Drew to race into the lodge, chug another Guinness and make it back to the start for second run. That Guiness must have given 'The Machine' a little bit extra courage, because he somehow brazenly pulled off a .51 lead in the second run, to which he immediately started celebrating thinking he was King of the World! But alas - some quick calculations were made and Jenn was .09 ahead and crowned Queen! Jenn has since repeatedly reached out to check on Drew with no response.
A few other tidbits...
I had to dust off the record books for this one - this is only the 2nd time in recorded GDHL.org history that Ian Lattimer has beat Jeff Sutherland in a race. The 1st recorded time I could find was January 12, 2014. Ian was 11th and Jeff was 21st (he DNF'd the 1st run and had to take a 2nd). Jeff also DNF'd the 2nd run in Saturday's race and had the 5 second penalty applied - but a win in a win, Ian!
David Singh mentioned to the crowd after a loss in the 1st run that he didn't know if his father-in-law, Chris Clarke, would allow him to sleep in the house if he lost the 2nd run. I'm happy to report that David was allowed to sleep inside, but was downgraded from his regular Egyptian cotton to polyester sheets.
Gordie Bruce who pulled a Babcock* ruined his potentially perfect season of coming in 3rd place in every race he finished, by coming in 4th in the dual. Whomp whomp.
*a Babcock is when you lose a pole in the start and throw your remaining pole out of desperation, leaving you no poles. This 'skill' was named February 14th, 2026 at the Skier Cross Race after Mike Babcock was the first person at Craigleith to demonstrate this skill.
And lastly (pun intended), despite Mike Babcock's best efforts, he still finished DNF but... both skis stayed on his feet... his poles stayed in his hands... and this will be his highest point race, so WINNING!
What a great race and season everyone!
Remember to grab your tickets for the Awards so we can all celebrate the season in our very best retro gear and regale each other with tales of the season. The near wins and the huge losses, how much training in the off season we won't will be doing, while simultaneously hoping that Rob 'Boom' Peerenboom doesn't confetti bomb you!
Results
Season results (without the last race) can be found on the GDHL website.
The final Dual Slalom results (and the overall results) will be released at the End Of Season Awards Party on March 7th.