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PCSS Newsletter - March 2023

By Park City Ski & Snowboard, 03/03/23, 2:00PM MST

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  • Message from Christie Hind
  • Spencer F. Eccles Olympic Mountain Center Grand Opening
  • First Tracks at Park City Mountain
  • IMD Youth Championships at Soldier Hollow
  • Division Updates
  • PCSS Team Store
  • Scholarship Opportunities

Donate Today!

All PCSS programs – from PC Shredders where young athletes experience a 12-week program across multiple disciplines, to FIS-aged athletes competing across the globe – require significant resources to support training, coaching, education, travel, and equipment. Financial contributions to PCSS directly support the development of future athletes in our community and their pathways to success. Your donation of any size, one-time or monthly is truly appreciated.

PLEASE HELP MAKE A DIRECT IMPACT BY DONATING TO PARK CITY SKI & SNOWBOARD TODAY!


Message from Executive Director, Christie Hind

Winter 2022-23 continues to surpass our wildest dreams as far as snow totals here at home and PCSS teams are taking full advantage of the fantastic conditions for both training and competing. 

PCSS has already hosted multiple competitions for the Intermountain region, as well as international events including four FIS Freestyle NorAms last month at UOP. And we are just getting started! In March alone, we are coordinating upwards of 10 separate events at home. These events give us the opportunity to show off our club members along with the excellent terrain and conditions in and around Park City. We are also hosting competitive fundraisers like the PCSS Town Series at the UOP so skiers of all ages can compete uphill or downhill skiing. We are only half way through the series with races still to come on March 10 and 24th. We hope to see you there! 

 We sincerely appreciate everyone who has volunteered your time and energy and talent to help make these events successful! 

Finally, we are absolutely thrilled to announce the opening of the Spencer F. Eccles Olympic Mountain Center on Wednesday, March 1. This additional terrain, accessed by the new "Game Changer" lift, will provide the opportunity for athletes to train on game-changing, challenging slopes to further improve their skills and expertise. Thank you to the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation and our resident club partners, Rowmark Ski Academy and the University of Utah for making this dream come true!


Spencer F. Eccles and family, joined by UOLF's Colin Hilton, at the grand opening

Spencer F. Eccles Olympic Mountain Center Grand Opening

The Spencer F. Eccles Olympic Mountain Center formally opened on Wednesday, March 1. This much anticipated addition to the UOLF's Mountain Expansion project will provide athletes with even higher-level, world class, alpine and mogul trails. Spence Eccles, former captain of the University of Utah ski team and for whom the facility is named, was on hand for the event and cut the ribbon. Afterward, on the first chairlift ride up the mountain, the Eccles family, several PCSS Board members and several donors to the project took some of the first runs down the new hill "Olympic Hopeful" with coaches and athletes. 

Eccles said, “I’m thrilled to be a part of what young people will experience with these extraordinary facilities as they develop their ski racing skills and pursue their dreams … just as I did as a kid. Believe me, back in my day we had nothing like this! It’s going to be incredible!”

The dedication ceremony marked completion of the West Peak phase of the project, which includes advanced alpine and freestyle terrain, a new high-speed quad lift, and high-efficiency snowmaking for early season training. The challenging pitch and length ensure that the new runs are officially FIS-homologated, or “course approved,” for future Giant Slalom and Slalom alpine races, as well as high level, international mogul competitions. PCSS, Rowmark Ski Academy and the University of Utah are resident club partners in this UOLF owned and operated project. 

Thank you to all PCSS donors who generously helped make this project possible! We are grateful for your support!

First Tracks at Park City Mountain

Bright and early on March 2nd, PCSS donors and Board Members were treated to a morning of First Tracks and breakfast at Park City. Thank you to Park City Mountain for their generosity in underwriting the special event.

2023 Intermountain Youth Championships

Park City Ski & Snowboard and Soldier Hollow hosted the Intermountain Youth Championships at the Soldier Hollow Nordic Center on February 25 and 26. It was the first time the event, which focuses on fun, inclusion, teamwork, sportsmanship and competition, has been held in Utah since 2015. We had 290 sign ups for the race, which is a 26 percent increase from the number who participated when it was last held at the Olympic venue.

PCSS had 54 competitors, ages 7 to 17, and many were competing in IYC for the first time. In fact, a few were not even born yet when the event was previously held at Soldier Hollow!

The event is as much about cheering on other competitors as it is about racing individually. There were three races - a skate individual start race, a downhill obstacle course and a classic mass start. Each athlete who participated scored points for the coveted team award. PCSS came away with a 3rd place in the team division, 21 podiums, and 17 athletes who finished in last place but smiled across the finish line. Sportsmanship was clearly displayed as we watched many athletes, from both PCSS and other teams, cheer on the final finisher in the last race. Thank you to all of the volunteers who helped make this event possible!

At the end of the weekend there were many tired kids, coaches and parents with smiles on their faces. The next generation of inspired youth are ready to take on the world and what comes their way!


Division Updates

Aerials

Aerials finished their hosted events at UOP with four NorAm competitions, with athletes from the US, Australia and Canada participating. We also hosted our second Aerial Assault Regional competition on the bottom air of the Mogul course encouraging Mogul athletes to perfect their airs.

We are currently finishing the NorAm tour in Quebec Canada. PCSS athlete, Connor Curran, sits in first place for the NorAm Grand Prix as we finish the tour in two days.


FIS, Ford Hodgkins

Alpine

February has been the culmination of record snowfalls as we competed in 50 starts across six age classifications for both genders and numerous podiums, personal bests, point-scoring races, light bulb moments, deep powder days, and smiles all around for the Alpine Team. Our mid-season evaluations have also just been completed by all our coaching groups to inform our athletes where they stand as championship qualification boards get tallied. This is a great time to reflect on our season to date, with still a number of weeks left in the season to make additional changes to see the fruits of our labor.

March will be busy for the Alpine Team as we host four straight weeks of events with the U14 David Wright Qualifiers this weekend, March 3-5, followed by Town Series Training on March 8 and Racing Round 3 on March 10.

The Intermountain Division Finals come to Park City Mountain on March 17 & 18, and the final round of the PC Town Series will be held on March 24 with Town Series Training on Wednesday, March 22. We are always looking for volunteers to make these events happen, so please reach out if you are interested in helping. Less than eight weeks left… keep pushing!

Big Mountain

The Big Mountain team has been up to A LOT this season. Most recently, our competition team has been to Crystal Mountain and Palisades for National Competitions and Snowbasin for another Regional Competition. The rest of our athletes continued to train at Park City, where we hosted an informal competition on Jupiter Peak for our team and learned about basic avalanche and snow safety. 

This weekend, the Park City Big Mountain Team will be hosting our IFSA 2* Regional Competition at Park City on Jupiter Peak. This has been a highlight for the team every season, and this year is no different. We have over 30 athletes from our team competing on Saturday and over 20 athletes competing on Sunday. For both days, our team makes up a majority of the start list, and our athletes are stoked to be competing with and against each other. We have seen HUGE improvements from our athletes this season, and we're so excited to see how they do this weekend!


Tory Hoffman was the 1st IMD U16 qualifier for Junior Nationals

Cross Country

The cross country comp team competed in the final Junior National Qualifier in Bozeman on Feb 18 and 19. A record 10 athletes, and also two alternates and two alumni, qualified for the Intermountain Division Team which will compete at the 2023 Cross Country Junior Nationals in Fairbanks, Alaska on Mar 13-17. Tegan Hoffman, Keely Fisher, Tory Hoffman, Ian Carmack and Lucas Fassio will be competing for the U16 category, with Elsa Futch and Liam Snihurowych as alternates. Emily Campbell, Bailey Carmack, Zoe Peterson, and Kaya Patterson qualified for the U18 team and Zach Selzman will compete in the U20 category. 

Our annual group ski lesson for the families of our Spanish speaking athletes, took place Feb 12 and was such a success, we will do it again on Mar 5 by request. Comp athlete Bailey Carmack was amongst those instructing and did so speaking Spanish. Cross country programs which will run until mid March with our final races on Mar 18 and 19. Some Comp and Devo Plus athletes will travel to Tahoe for the Western Club Championships while others will compete locally at the Wasatch Citizens Series.

Devo Freestyle

Round 1 of our Devo Series Slopestyle and Mogul events went down on Feb 17 & 18. Slopestyle under the lights followed by Moguls on a nice sunny day made for a great weekend of competition at the Utah Olympic Park. Round 2 is coming up quick with Slopestyle on Mar 3 and Moguls on Mar 4. These events are open to all athletes with birth years 2009 and younger who are interested in checking out a mellow competitive environment. 

Registration links will be sent out to Devo Freestyle membership soon. Reach out to Head Coach James Saarela for the link if your athlete is not on the Devo Freestyle Team.

More and more Devo groups are making their way up to some of the hardest terrain available at PCMR. As some of our athletes prepare for the upcoming IFSA Big Mountain events, we’re getting familiar with the venue on Jupiter Peak. Keep an eye out for our team jackets on the hike from McConkey’s!


Some of our youngest PCSS Moguls athletes competing at the UOP event over President’s weekend (Emmett Miller, Mason Schwarzenbach, Leo Dailey)

Moguls

The FIS team is back on the road wrapping up the second half of the competition season with stops on the East Coast. This week we are in Val Saint Côme, Quebec and then on to Stratton, VT. We will be in Steamboat for Junior Nationals Mar 13-18 and wrapping up with Nationals in Waterville Valley, NH at the end of the month. 

Over President’s Weekend we hosted our second Intermountain Freestyle regional competition where we had about 85 competitors participate. It was very rewarding to see our youngest and newest PCSS moguls athletes (9 years old) compete against some of our most seasoned FIS athletes. I was personally very impressed with how the team has progressed at every level. 

We just wrapped up Intermountain Divisional Championships at Snowbird where we had a PCSS athlete at the top of every podium! Evelyn Harris and Slader Rodman both won the singles moguls competition and Megan Ciaglo and Jackson Crockett won duals. PCSS women swept spots 1-5 in single moguls!


Jay and coaches at the Aspen Rev Tour

Park & Pipe

February was a busy month for Park & Pipe. We had athletes at competitions every week throughout the month and had amazing results. Drew Hooker and Ellier Derosier got invites to the Dew Tour and skied amazing. 

In the Park City Futures Tour, Colby Johnson placed 1st in the Men's Slopestyle competition and Izzy Worthington was 2nd in the Women's Halfpipe.

In Sun Valley, the Freeski Grommet 9-10 Boys had great results with Owen Porter taking 1st in Slope 1 & 2, Aidan Saleh took 2nd place, and William Saleh was 3rd. Julia Magnuson won the Freeski Grommet 9-10 Girls in Slope 2. The Freeski Menehune 11-12 Boy’s Slope 1 & 2 saw Adrian DiPietra take 1st place with Christian Fernandez in 2nd. Jacqueline Kanzler took 1st in Slope 1 & 2 for the Freeski Breaker 13-14 Girls, and Jude DiPietra won the Slope 1 and 2 competition for the Freeski Breaker 13-14 Boys. We also had wins for the older athletes in Sun Valley with Mira McLean winning Slope 1 & 2 in the Freeski Youth 15-16 Women's division, and Aly Thompson taking the win in Slope 1 & 2 in the Freeski Open Class.

At the Aspen Rev Tour, Jay Riccomini took 1st place in Women's Slope Style. And at the Mammoth Futures Tour, Marty Kingston won the Men's Ski Slope and Zoe Smith took 2nd place in the Women's Ski Slope.


Sprint practice at Park City Mountain

Skimo

Our skimo team’s biggest news of the month came with the announcement of the 2023 US Skimo World Championship Team. Three of our athletes - Griffin Briley, Wesley Perkins and Ethan Romer were named to the team which will represent the US at the World Championships in Boi Taül, Spain, Feb 28 - Mar 5. This is the first World’s Team selection for these athletes, and a huge honor for our club to send such a strong contingency to the event.  News, results and live streaming of the event can be found at http://www.ismf-ski.org/.

Locally, our athletes have been continuing to enjoy great training and racing opportunities. We had a great contingency at the fourth Utah Skimo Tuesday night race at Brighton, UT earlier in the month and are looking ahead to a busy race schedule. We’ll have athletes at the final two Utah Skimo races on Tuesday, Feb 28 at Solitude and Mar 7 at Park City Mountain.

After that, we have our sights set on the Powderkeg races at Brighton and Solitude resort. These races have been named as the 2023 Skimo National Championships for all age classes. We’re excited to have a great field of athletes - both those we expect to be at the front of the field and many who will be gaining their first national level competition experience.


Logan Cadman (age 13) tags off Augie Roepke (14) in the U16 Nordic Combined Team Relay

Ski Jumping / Nordic Combined

Our ski jumping & nordic combined teams spanned the continent this month with a whirlwind of events. Most recently, eight of our athletes returned from the 2023 Junior National Championships in Coleraine, Minnesota. The athletes braved subzero temps and changing schedules for a successful week. 

Friday’s individual event highlights include Ian Carmack’s impressive U16 Nordic Combined 3rd (after starting in the XC portion in 12th) and Root Roepke’s 2nd in the U20 Nordic Combined. Rachael Haerter earned our best ski jumping results of the week with a 4th place in the U20 Female. 

On Saturday, athletes competed in team jumping and nordic combined as well as the fan-favorite elimination jump event. In the elimination jump, we exceeded previous years highs with four of our eighth athletes making the third round of 16 and Augie Roepke progressing into the elite eight. We capped off the week with the team sprint nordic combined relay, where Augie Roepke and Logan Cadman finished 4th in the tightly contested U16 Male category, and Root Roepke and Ian Carmack skied up from 3rd to take the win in the U20 Male class, despite Ian racing up in the older age class!

Backtracking to regional events, in early February we sent a large group of athletes to Steamboat Springs, CO to train and compete in the annual Larry Johnson Memorial. With 15 athletes making the trip, we saw some strong results, including a handful of podium finishes and a few kids getting their first jumps on new and bigger hills. 

That same weekend, we had a contingency in Whistler, BC at the 2023 Nordic World Ski Championships.  Current athlete Root Roepke attended with the opportunity to participate as a fore-jumper, program director Adam Loomis helped coach USA Nordic’s ski jumping team, and alum Josie Johnson competed in her second World Junior Championship. Josie finished an impressive 17th amongst the best young ski jumpers in the world. As you read this, Josie is competing in her first (senior) World Championships in Planica, Slovenia!

In addition to all of this travel, we have been busy introducing more athletes to our sport with Learn 2 Fly, Get Out & Play and PCSS Shredders all providing opportunities for young athletes to try our sport.


Sadie, Lily, London, and Chloe

Snowboard

The PCSS Snowboard Team has been busy this month with training at Park City Mountain and Woodward Park City, and competitions in Idaho, California, Canada and Colorado. The training sessions are productive and the competitions are yielding some great results.

At the Aspen Rev Tour, which took place on the X Games Slopestyle course, Rori Avelar landed just off the podium in 4th place. Nick ‘Pops’ Poplawski stated that ‘the jumps and rails were huge and the competition was heated,’ but Rori put down a solid run and came away happy and healthy. The crew then headed for Calgary and had another Pro Level slopestyle competition. Grey Katko just missed finals and Rori, again, came away with 4th place at this stop of the NorAm tour.

The National Team had a productive trip to Mammoth Lakes, California for a ‘Futures Tour’ stop. The crew rolled into town and had a beautiful training day in the Mammoth Parks. The weather and the park were perfect and athletes left with new tricks and big smiles. AJ Mattes and Gwennie Park made finals and Gwennie ended up on the Podium in 2nd.

The regional crew was also busy this last month with great training (and Powder Shredding) and a contest in Sun Valley, Idaho. The USASA stop in Sun Valley provided some hot snowboarding action with SBX and Slopestyle contests. The crew stood up some great runs and many landed on the podium. These contests will determine who will travel to the USASA National Championships at Copper Mountain, Colorado in April.


get Your PCSS Swag On!

If you didn't know, there is a PCSS Team Store exclusively for all apparel PCSS. Scroll through the catalog of apparel items, from hoodies to t-shirts to bags and caps. We've got something for everyone! The best thing besides all this awesome gear is that you can buy at any point. So come get your "Swag On"! To top it off, a portion of all proceeds go directly back to PCSS!

Scholarship Opportunities

Following is a summary of a variety of scholarship opportunities that are currently available. Click the name of the organization for additional details about each scholarship offered, and to complete the application process.

Scholarship/Link Description Eligibility Important Dates
The purpose of the YSA Stein Eriksen “Dare to Dream” Scholarships is to provide financial assistance to dedicated athletes who are unable to participate or compete without the help of outside funding Athletes from ages 7-21 who are training with PCSS teams Application Period A: Opens Feb 1st, deadline Feb 28th, awards announced week of March 15th; Application Period B: Opens March 15th, deadline March 31st, awards announced week of April 15th
The PCSEF Board of Trustees is committed to providing financial assistance to PCSS Alpine athletes in order for them to pursue ski racing excellence. These scholarships provide critical funds for qualified, talented athletes who otherwise would be unable to pursue their ski racing ambitions. Award will be applied directly to participant’s PCSS Alpine tuition expense, camps, competitions or other projects PCSS Alpine athletes enrolled in a full-time U14, U16 or FIS level program Applications accepted on a rolling basis
The i9 Sports Association offers scholarship grants of up to $150 to offset youth sports program participation fees Athletes under age 18 Applications accepted on a rolling basis; grants awarded in Feb, May, Aug, and Nov