And now the news

By G.D. Maxwell

"War is hell," is what I thought I heard him say. Now if he’d been a grunt crawling through a sandstorm in Iraq or a flyboy throwin’ a little shuck & jive on the city of Baghdad or even a trader on Wall Street wondering whether the markets loved or hated war, I might have understood the sentiment.

But what he was doing was slicing hip-deep snow half way down Harvey’s with his only remaining ski, hoping desperately to thud up against the other one buried somewhere uphill from the bomb crater he’d left in the snow when he augered head first for the fifth time since leaving the top of Harmony chair.

"War is hell," he repeated. I was about to stop and offer help and ask what in the world he meant but as the other saying goes, no friends on a powder day, dude.

All things considered, this isn’t the worst place to sit out the war. While young men and women are dying and old men are wondering why the enemy hasn’t rolled over and played dead and armchair generals are wondering whether the coalition of the U.S., Britain, Australia and a lot of countries most people couldn’t find on a map hasn’t revisited Napoleon’s blunder in Russia, the logisticians of Whistler are wondering how they’re going to get golf courses open with winter finally falling in March and April.

With all this strife and bewilderment in the world, you – the average Whistleratic who gets most of what passes for news from the Snow Phone and the bulletin board at Tapley’s – may be forgiven if you missed these recent news items. But pay attention. This stuff will have an immediate impact on your life.

An extremely reliable rumour being floated around the better drinking establishments in town, says one of the PacifiCat fast ferries is coming to Alta Lake. The $454 million fleet of flotation-and-locomotion-challenged ferries was auctioned off earlier this week by the tipsy B.C. government of Slash Gordon, who was, himself, being sentenced in absentia by a Maui court for driving while "…drunk out of his mind." The gavel fell when the bidding got all the way to $19.2 million, some $40 million below the estimated scrap value of the three ships.

While Washington Marine Group, the successful bidder, was not forthcoming about their plans for the ferries, this gossip columnist has good reason to speculate one of the cats has been optioned by local entrepreneur Dave Gault to replace his well-known and highly-loved party boat. A summertime fixture on Alta Lake, the party boat has seen better days and is, shall we say, not entirely in keeping with the upscale image Tourism Whistler likes to tout in its brochures.

While Dave was unavailable for comment, it is speculated his plans for the fast ferry include a total refit of the ship’s interior, converting it to an opulent, floating casino/supper club/oldies dance party boat to cater to the well-heeled yuppie scum tourists who are often heard to wonder aloud, "What else is there to do in Whistler?" during the non-ski months. With a planned relaunch this summer as the "Money Pit" it should be pointed out that no foundation could be uncovered for the other rumour floating around that Ted Nebbeling was considering leaving his post in the Campbell government to become the ship’s maitre d’ and pit boss.

Ever expansion-minded Intrawest head honcho, Joe Houssian, is apparently finding further forays into the U.S. market meeting tough resistance. Seems anyone named Houssian these days is persona non grata south of the border. "His phone calls don’t get returned," according to an anonymous source at company headquarters.

But fear not. The ever effusive marketing wizards at Intrawest’s Department of Extreme Ideas, Dewd have come up with a solution. Some lucky local has the chance to win a 2003-04 Whistler-Blackcomb season pass by coming up with the best new moniker for the fun-loving Houssian.

"We kicked around the idea of calling it the ‘Joe Who?’ contest, but we didn’t want to confuse things any more than they already were," said senior vice president of Extreme Ideas, Joaquim Sloof-Lirpa.

"The rules are simple. Just jot down your submission for Joe’s new last name on a slip of paper and drop it in the box at Blackcomb Admin building or Daylodge Guest Relations. Include your name and phone number and we’ll draw the winner on April 27 ^th at a big party at Merlin’s."

According to Sloof-Lirpa, the field’s wide open. "Obviously we think something with a North American ring would be helpful but I think the only thing really off limits would be something like Joe bin Laden or something like that."

The palpable frustration over stubborn mid-mountain fog that plagued Whistler Mountain for the entire run of the recently wrapped up Canadian Alpine Championships was shared by Weasel Workers, race organizers and the racers themselves.

"It sucked," according to someone who spoke with someone who may have heard Alpine Canada head Ken Read exclaim.

Ever-resourceful though, Paul "Bones" Skelton thinks he has the solution. "We’ve been in touch with (Defence Minister) McCallum and it looks like we’re close to a deal," he explained. The deal being negotiated is the purchase of the Canadian military’s ageing fleet of Labrador helicopters.

"We don’t care if the choppers don’t fly. We’re just interested in the engines and main rotors." The idea, apparently, is to mount the engines and rotors high up in towers along the length of the Dave Murray Downhill course and blow the fog away. If all goes well, the new installations will be in place in time for the 2010 Olympics.

There will be a public meeting Tuesday, April 1 ^st at Millennium Place on a proposed change to the Alpine Responsibility Code. The proposal would replace the current 9 ^th point of the code, "You must not use lifts or terrain if your ability is impaired through use of alcohol or drugs." Instead, the new wording would admonish skiers and borders to "Perform shoulder checks before executing any unexpected turn."

According to mountain manager Bob Dufour, "This change really makes a lot of sense. One of our biggest problems is collisions caused by people making sudden turns in front of or into other people because they just don’t look over their shoulder first."

The proposal also takes into account the futility of keeping people from skiing and boarding while drinking or doing drugs.

A counter proposal to simply move the proscription against drugs and alcohol into the number two spot on the code will be considered at the meeting. As one proponent of this change put it, "By the time most of these deadheads get to the ninth pole they’re too stoned to read anyway."