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PCSS Newsletter September 30, 2021

By Park City Ski & Snowboard, 09/30/21, 8:30PM MDT

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  • Autumn is Upon Us!
  • Club News
  • Hosted Events & Fundraisers
  • Division Updates

 


Message from the Executive Director - Christie Hind

As the weather cools and our mountains treat us to a spectacular display of autumn color, PCSS is in full swing with fall programming. Athletes continue to brave even colder water on the water ramps at UOP and athletes across the club are participating in dryland training and fall camps. At this writing, a group of PCSS Park & Pipe athletes are on snow in Stelvio, Italy and many of our alpine athletes head to Copper Mountain, Colorado in a few weeks. In November, more than a dozen PCSS mogul team athletes will head to Sweden! 

The brisk mornings are gentle reminders of the importance for both our athletes and our community to begin preparations for a healthy and strong competitions and winter season. This entails dryland training, weight training, ski waxing, gear maintenance and mental health breaks before the bustle of winter. Banking this quality time helps ensure strong performances and happy athletes. 

For PCSS, this means fundraising and event season! Roughly 30 percent of all our club revenue is brought in during this fundraising season. The club just hosted its annual golf tournament last week and we are actively planning the second half of our PC Fall Trail Series, coordinating Ski Swap and prepping for Jans Winter Welcome and Live PC Give PC all in the next month! We hope all members will join in and promote these critical fundraising efforts.


Club News & Upcoming Events

Meet Pete Stoughton - Director of Events & Community Engagement    

PCSS is stoked to welcome Pete Stoughton to the team! Pete spent the last several years at the Christian Center of Park City, but many in our community also know him as the PCSS Ski Mountaineering Head Coach. His combination of passion for skiing and the outdoors, coaching and nonprofits makes him a fantastic addition to the leadership team. As PCSS Director of Events and Community Engagement, Pete will be responsible for planning and producing all club wide fundraising and community events and involved in all aspects of of getting out the stoke about PCSS while helping ensure our club better resembles and serves our community.

In his free time, Pete loves trail running, skiing and mountain biking. His own personal running ranges from 100 mile races to track workouts. Nevertheless, a scenic run with friends is where he finds inner peace. Pete also has a beautiful family and an amazingly patient wife. Pete looks forward to getting to know all of the divisions and families that make this such a wonderful community. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

49th Annual Park City Ski Swap - November 5-7, 2021 at Basin Recreation in Kimball Junction. Visit www.parkcityskiswap.com for all the details and TICKETS! 

PC Fall Trail Series - Only 2 races left! October 6 & 20, 2021. Register at www.parkcityss.org.

Winter Registration - Winter Registration is still live on our website: www.parkcityss.org. Get your registration in early so you can take advantage of the payment plan options! 

Volunteer - Volunteer opportunities are available every month. Please reach out to your program director for more details. 

Scholarships - 

YSA Scholarship - The YSA "Dare to Dream" Scholarship application process is now closed and scholarships should be awarded shortly. 

UOLF Scholarship - The UOLF Scholarship application process is now closed. Scholarships will be awarded by October 15th, 2021.

Please also check out the PCSS Website for up to date scholarship information.


Athlete Spotlight - GRIF BRILEY

Grif Briley is one of our young Ski Mountaineer athletes. His passion for Skimo began early as he would follow his father and uncle on backcountry ski tours in search for the famous Utah Powder. Grif loves the ability to escape the challenges of daily life to be in the moment of the mountains on his own two feet. Despite being relatively new to the Skimo team, he hopes to compete for a national spot for the U.S. Skimo team. Perhaps representing the USA at the 2026 Olympics.

Coach Spotlight - Liz Stephen

Liz grew up in Vermont, running everywhere she could and participating in every sport and outdoor activity she could get herself into. When she was 12, she began attending Burke Mountain Academy as an alpine skier and raced until she was 15 when she switched to cross country skiing, as a way to stay in shape for running. She instantly fell in love with the people in the sport and the full body challenge of it all. Liz made the US Ski Team in 2006 and spent 12 years on the team, competing in 3 Olympics and 6 World Championships before retiring in April 2018. She is thrilled to be leading the PCSS cross country comp team this year as Head Coach. Liz lives in Park City, Utah with her boyfriend Jeff and their two dogs.


Division Updates


Madison Varmette, Kyra Dossa, Amelia Glogowski and Cate McEneany

Aerials

Aerials has a new coach! Madison Varmette recently retired after 5 years on the US Ski Team. We are extremely lucky to have her coaching our aerialists this year.

Aerials just finished a water ramp competition with national teams from the USA, Canada and Ukraine. These teams have some of the best aerialists in the world and many Olympians. Amelia Glogowski showed off her hard work from a long summer, getting into finals and placing 11th! 

With only eight days left training on the water ramps, the Aerials team is getting very excited for the snow to fly. They start winter training at the Utah Olympic Park on December 1st, 2021.

Devo Freestyle

Devo Freestyle has been enjoying a nice little break since summer training ended, but are now gearing up for the winter season! Fall dryland is starting the week of October 11th  and will wrap up November 18th. The first three weeks will be held at the UOP to take advantage of the trampolines at the UOP, then we will shift to Woodward for the final three weeks. Signup link for fall dryland coming soon!  

Winter registrations are coming in strong and our numbers are already up from last year, so if you haven't registered yet you will want to do so as soon as possible to insure you have a spot! If you have any program questions please reach out to Ryan DeVine (rdevine@parkcityss.org) for more information.  


Josie Johnson receiving the YSA Champions Award. Photo credit Heather Sims.

Ski Jumping

PCSS Ski Jumping has been enjoying fall training on all our summer jumps. Our small hills program is going strong, thanks to coaches Robert Lock, Alan Alborn and Abby Rindqist. We had a few new jumpers earlier this month try out our sport on our “Bring a Friend Day”!

Our Comp Team was honored at the annual Youth Sports Alliance awards with four award winners. Macey Olden and Rachael Haerter were awarded the All Star Award, and Josie Johnson and Root Roepke took home Champion Awards.  

We’ll be flying over the summer plastic for one more month, and then waiting for snow to fly and winter jumping to begin!

Big Mountain

Enhanced Dryland is underway (photo - Skills Team Head Coach and personal trainer Sarah Taylor giving warm up instructions to Asher Loscalzo, Aoife Canning, and Drew Dana). We will begin the included dryland on Monday, October 4th. Looking forward to getting our athletes together at the UOP on Mondays.

The Big Mountain Team is welcoming 50 new athletes, we also have 50 returning athletes we are welcoming back with registration still open. To help manage this growth we are excited to announce that Kellen Montgomery has been promoted to Skills Local Team Head Coach which will allow better connection and communication with our Local Skills Team athletes. Sarah Taylor will be able to focus her attention on the Advanced Skills Team Athletes while Head Coach Eric Praetorius will be able to focus more of his time on the Competition Team and Backcountry athletes while overseeing the program as a whole.

Youth Sports Alliance Circle of Excellence Awards found Zev Rosenfield as a runner up for the Leadership award and Floyd Geddes as a runner up for the Sam Jackenthal Show Stopper award along with Champion and Allstar athletes being recognized on September 26.


Tay Polester

Alpine

Our U16 Group got back just before Labor Day from a trip to the Meadowlands of New Jersey! Indoor Slalom camps are all the rage these days and like many academies, we took full advantage of the manicured slopes and perfect indoor weather! They were managing 20 plus runs per session and then even getting to sight see around the Big Apple. Places like Liberty Island and a kickball game in Central Park were real hits. I’m sure we will look to use it again next season.

The FIS Age  groups returned from Stelvio, Italy a couple of weeks ago. The camp was very successful with 12 full days of skiing and NO weather days! The team stayed directly at the top of the Stelvio Pass and right at the bottom of the trams up to the glacier. The terrain is perfect there for this time of year and really can help to promote confidence at the top of the turn. Of course lift lines in Europe can be a bit crazy and we got a real look at that but all in all it was a great camp.  

Dryland for all our age classes is in full swing right now and from the look of things, every group has been working hard and trying to get prepared for the season. Keep up the good work!

Park N' Pipe

Several Park and Pipe athletes were recently honored in the Youth Sports Alliance annual Circle of Excellence awards. Aidan Rambo was awarded with the Leadership Award (pictured above) and Ellie DeRosier received the Sam Jackenthal Show Stopper Award. James Kanzler was a runner up in the Breakout Performance category. In addition several athletes were recognized with Champion and Allstar Awards.

International Team and National Team Head Coaches Keith Shipman and Leah Stroud have 11 athletes at Stelvio Glacier’s Prinoth X-Camp in Bormio, Italy for two weeks of on snow training. This will be the final training camp for athlete James Kanzler who will be embarking upon the FIS Freeski World Cup in slopestyle and big air this winter. He earned a personal World Cup spot after winning the World Rookie Tour Finals in Hintertux, Austria last April.

Regional Team Head Coach Ian Punnett will be finishing off our Water Ramp training at the UOP through October 10 while Assistant Coach Charlie Scott will be running the remaining dryland sessions. 

Woodward Indoor Sessions are now approved to run Monday evenings through April and can be found on the Winter Webpage.

In hiring news, we welcome Josh Poindexter as our new Local Team Head Coach. Josh has a strong foundation in skill development based on his background as a FIS Level Alpine competitor through his transition into Freeski and Park & Pipe. After competing for a while, Josh began coaching and eventually ran the program at Arizona Snowbowl.

Ski Mountaineering

Skimo had a great summer mountain running. And we are looking forward to it an amazing and successful competitive season with U.S. Skimo association. Training starts November 1st! And our athletes are getting all of their gear together skins and skis waxed.


back: Lucas Fassio, Maci Zaniello, Phoebe Zaniello front: Allison Berry

Cross Country

With temperatures cooling and athletes back in school, our Devo and Comp Teams have transitioned from general outdoor training to afternoon practices and more specific cross country ski training. Winter registration is open for all programs and abilities, Kickers and Gliders sold out in September, but please get on the waitlist if you are interested. 

Many of our comp athletes compete in either High School cross country running or mountain biking and they are excelling in competition. Fall is also our fundraising season, which helps offset the cost of programs and keeps them affordable. We are excited to bring back the PC Fall Trail Series again this year. Participants can run or hike and the events are a fun and healthy way for members of the community, and our club, to get together and be active. Register at parkcityss.org.


From left to right Evelyn Harris (visiting competitor), Kassidy Lynch, Sami Worthington, Alli Macuga, Zoe Dwinell, and LuLu Shaffer celebrating Sami and Alli’s high school graduation.

Moguls

Congratulations to our PCSS mogul athletes Sami Worthington and Alli Macuga for celebrating their upcoming graduation from the Winter Sports School. We are so proud of you! Sami, Alli, and the rest of the competitive FIS team will be heading to Idre Fjall, Sweden in November for a training camp followed by a FIS open competition. Because these athletes, and many others, will be abroad for training at the end of the school year, the Winter Sports School hosted an early graduation ceremony to celebrate their accomplishments. 

The mogul team is continuing our summer training with water ramping and dryland training at the Utah Olympic Park. We will finish water ramping on October 10th, when we will switch our focus to strength and conditioning work before getting back on snow. 

The mogul team wants to give a shout out to Cristina Morelli for being our rock star opportunity drawing ticket seller. She has sold over 70 tickets to date. These sales are so important for our team! Thank you Cristina and everyone else that has helped sell tickets and find auction items for Jans Winter Welcome on October 23rd. We appreciate your help! 

Snowboard

Fall Dryland Training has been off to a hot start with continued growth both in number of participants and skill! 

Registrations for the 2021-2022 winter season are blossoming as well, as we prepare for one of our largest and youngest teams in recent history. 

With this growth, we had a strong turnout at our annual PCSS Team gear night where we were able to have athletes fitted with the latest and greatest snowboard equipment from Burton, K2, Ride, Salomon, Kemper, and Union. Huge thanks to those who were able to attend and get ready for the upcoming season.