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Freestyle club pushing freeride

Success of Canadian team, growth of freeskiing fuels club

The sport of freestyle skiing got a lot bigger in recent years. Not only have the big air, halfpipe and skiercross been added to the World Cup circuit, the rules for the moguls event have been changed to allow inverted tricks and double-spins. Snowboardcross was added to the Olympics for 2006, and some feel it’s only a matter of time before ski halfpipe and skiercross events are added to the Games as well.

For the Blackcomb Freestyle Club, the addition of new sports has allowed the program to grow to include freeriding as well as traditional freestyle disciplines. With a winter trampoline program, a summer program including the water ramps and trampolines, and on-snow sessions throughout the winter, no other club in Canada can offer as much opportunity.

"Our big impetus now is what’s happening with the sport in general," said club spokesperson and founder Don McGregor. "To me this change in the last few years towards freeriding is natural. It really gets back to the grassroots of freestyle, which is freeriding."

The club currently only has 32 members, 18 in the competitive group, but still walked away from the first provincial series competition at Apex with 14 medals. Two team members, Simon Louwe and Keltie Hicks, were also selected to represent Whistler at the Sports Illustrated Next Snow Search at Keystone, Colorado this weekend.

McGregor would like to increase the number of skiers in the program at the younger levels.

"Some kids graduate into ski racing, and others go into freeriding with the Whistler-Blackcomb’s Freeride Club, but no other club in Whistler can offer the same level of coaching that we can. We’re in the park, we’re in the pipe, we’re doing moguls, we’re doing big mountain skiing," said McGregor. "Our kids are entering and winning events like the Sprite Series, and when we go to the provincial competitions they’re bringing home medals.

"A few years ago these kids would have been getting into snowboarding after a few years of skiing, but with the twin-tip skis and all of these events out there skiing is cool again. You have to learn the skills somewhere, which is where we come in."

The youngest members of the club are 9-10 years old, and the oldest are in the late teens and early 20s.

"There is a real safety aspect to the program," said McGregor. "From the very beginning the kids learn to jump properly, they learn air sense. If a kid goes in to the park, they need to have that safety to learn the skills properly and to progress. If you have the basics down, you also learn faster because you spend less time picking yourself off the ground, wondering what you did wrong."

The trampoline program is part of that progression, with 15-19 kids showing up on Friday nights for a coached trampoline session. While many of the club members are from the Lower Mainland, most are enrolled in gymnastics and trampoline programs in the city.

All of the Blackcomb Freestyle Club participants learn to ski in every freestyle discipline. After a few years club members tend to specialize in a few of the events, although they continue to practice everything.

The provincial competitions are getting larger and more popular with the addition of events like halfpipe and big air. At the first competition in January, more than 150 kids from around the province took part.

"It’s amazing how fast it’s growing," said Brad Hicks, the club president and a parent with two kids in the program. "A few years ago you’d see 50 kids out there, now there’s three times as many. The club at Silver Star now has 120 kids enrolled, with a former Whistler coach running the program over there."

Hicks says the success of the national team and the Olympics are partly responsible for the growth, but adds the addition of new disciplines and twin-tip skis are the main reason for the popularity.

The Olympics will also benefit the club directly, with the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association looking to spend more than $150,000 to upgrade the water ramps in Whistler.

"The provincial association is currently looking into legacies from the Games, but along with the water ramps I think we’ll see the whole coaching program rejuvenated and revamped, a real effort to get coaching credentials standardized," said Hicks. "We’ve got World Cup guys coaching our team and other teams. I think better coaching across the board will really build the capacity in the sport, just like we’re trying to build the capacity within our own club."

The Blackcomb Freestyle Club, which was founded in 1986, is organized entirely by volunteers. They are currently offering free introductory days to all newcomers, and offer year-round training potential.

There are two central programs – a Competitive Moguls Program that splits time 50-50 between moguls and freeride, and a Freeride Program that includes everything from big mountain skiing to halfpipe, big air and terrain park.

To see the club in action, Blackcomb will be hosting the provincial championships at the end of March, providing there is enough snow.

For more information on the Blackcomb Freestyle Club, contact head coach Marc McDonnell at 604-935-2711 or Ann Britton at 604-938-1653.