Former mogul skier now developing future champions
With less than a week to go before he is to be inducted into the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame, mogul legend John Smart is still a little out of the loop. He doesn’t know who else is being inducted this year, or much about the official ceremony. His brother might make the trip from Toronto to Ottawa to cheer him on, he doesn’t know – he hasn’t asked him yet.
Truth be told, Smart has been too busy managing his line of SMS Clothing in preparation for the winter season to sit down and really let the news sink in. About halfway through the interview it finally hit him.
"It’s a great honour," said Smart. "It’s like going to the Olympics. There’s a sense of national pride that you become more aware of.
"We athletes are incredibly selfish, it’s all about you. But in the Olympics you really see for the first time that you have a whole country behind you, and there’s a lot more to this than just yourself.
"Being recognized like this brings back the same feelings."
This Saturday, Nov. 22, Smart will join a handful of other freestyle athletes to be named to the Ski Hall of Fame by the Canadian Ski Museum. The ceremony will take place at Camp Fortune, across the border in Old Chelsea Quebec. Other 2003 inductees include alpine skiers Bob Gilmour and Peter Webster, and cross country skier Dave Rees. Olympic silver medallist Becky Scott, who moved up two places in cross-country as a result of drug tests, will also win the 2003 John Semmelink Award for Canadian Skier of the Year.
Smart was nominated by Jack Gardner, the father of freestyle aerialist Meredith Gardner who was named to the Hall in 1995. Until word came that he was on the list for this year, Smart says the idea of going for the Hall of Fame never occurred to him.
Even so, Smart was pleasantly surprised to discover that he could have qualified for the Hall of Fame in any of the four nomination categories – athletics, coaching, officiating, and participation in the ski industry.
After being told that he could only enter in one category, he decided to go with his athletic career, which included a decade with the Canadian Freestyle Ski Team, and four years on a pro mogul skiing circuit.
In his career, Smart earned 13 World Cup medals, including two gold medals, five silver medals and six bronze medals. He competed in three world championships, placing sixth twice and seventh once, and finished the 1993 season ranked second in the world.
He competed in the 1992 Albertville Olympics, finishing seventh, and in the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, where he was fifth.
At home, he won seven medals in the Canadian National Championships, three gold, three silver and one bronze.
When he retired from the national team in 1996, Smart jumped to the pro mogul circuit where he made another seven podium appearances, including two gold medals, and earned the World Pro Mogul Champion title in 1999.
In Whistler, Smart owns and operates SMS Camps for moguls and freeriding during the spring and summer, and SMS Clothing during the winter months.
Through the camps, Smart has been able to foster his love for the sport in young athletes, many of whom have gone on to represent Canada as well.
"Working with athletes has been such a valuable experience, in retrospect. At the time I first got into camps and coaching, it was just a natural extension of where I was and what I was doing. I’ve been doing it for 12 years now, which amazes me – I never suspected it would have gone on this long," said Smart.
"Being on the hill is where I get the most positive feedback, and it’s the most rewarding. I enjoy working with the kids, being physical, being outside.
"We’ve brought up kids that are now coaching for us, kids that are on the national team, the Olympic team… medallists at the Olympics are working for us now. Sometimes I look around at all this talent, and wonder how it all happened."
Originally run as Smart Mogul Ski Camps, Smart saw the writing on the wall a few years ago when a lot of younger kids, including a number of freestyle skiers, gave up moguls and aerials to ride the terrain park. Soon he started to offer a freeride camp as well as a moguls camp.
"It’s weird because (the two disciplines) have a totally different attitude. Moguls is for competitive kids, and rules and structure, compared to freeskiing which is about being a free spirit, anti-establishment," said Smart.
Down the road, Smart sees the two disciplines coming back together, and for that reason a lot of kids with SMS Camps practise both moguls and freeskiing.
"Back when I was an athletes rep I pushed to change the sport of mogul skiing, to increase the Degree of Difficulty, and let the athletes go inverted. It took a while, but (the FIS) are starting to wake up and allow more difficult tricks into the competitions. And I have kids in my program that can boot down a mogul field and spin rodeo 720s off the jumps," said Smart.
"These are the kids of the future, to feed the future we need to be ahead of the curve."
Smart doesn’t get as many days on the hill as he used to, but looks forward to spring camps and summers on the glacier. He has also become a bit of a powder snob, heading up the mountains whenever the snow report looks good.
Smart considers himself lucky to make it through his World Cup and pro career with only a handful of injuries – a rarity in the sport. He has only missed two contests in his entire career for pulled muscles in his back.
"That was a learning experience for me. I had to pull out of a couple of events in Scandinavia, and I was so frustrated on the sidelines. All it took was a split second lack of awareness, and I was down. After that I worked hard to make sure that it never happened again," he said.
He still crashed from time to time, but never missed another start.
"I’ve had a couple of broken thumbs, but that’s fine, you can tape your hand to your pole. I actually made my first top-10 like that.
"I was pretty lucky to have a career like that, to get in, to get some good results, and to get out in one piece.
"I just liked to ski and compete, and everything that came with it was a bonus for me."
