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Backstage on the tour: It’s a hard life in The Great White Circus

It was nine o’clock in the evening in Colorado. I thought the Canadians would all be sitting around the Hotel Jerome bar by now, sipping champagne and celebrating the team’s first World Cup victory in 14 years.
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Rob Boyd

It was nine o’clock in the evening in Colorado. I thought the Canadians would all be sitting around the Hotel Jerome bar by now, sipping champagne and celebrating the team’s first World Cup victory in 14 years. I thought they’d be laid back and relaxed, replaying the Aspen downhill for a rapt audience while signing autographs for fawning fans. I knew my chances of reaching Britt Janyk to congratulate her personally were slim. So I decided to call Rob Boyd instead…

Reality is often far different than perception. “Hellooo?” The sound of static made it nearly impossible for me to recognize my old friend. Didn’t sound like bar noises to me. I could tell he was driving — the sound of the road invaded our conversation like an unwanted guest at a wedding party. But it was the tension in his voice that really surprised me. Didn’t sound like a guy celebrating his first World Cup victory as a coach. So what was going on?

“You wouldn’t believe the mess we’re driving through,” he told me, his voice cracking with fatigue. “It’s snowing like crazy, we’ve been on the road for six hours already, and we haven’t even gotten across the Divide yet. We’re still a couple of hours out of Denver.” Then he laughed, but with very little humour. “I can tell ya, Mich — it’s been one long turkey train since we left Aspen…”

Picture a Suburban station wagon over-filled with ski racing gear, athletes and a dead-tired coach negotiating Colorado’s notorious Highway 70 on a Saturday evening in a raging blizzard. Now picture all the other folk on the road too. “We’re just approaching the Eisenhower Tunnel,” Rob told me through the crackling static, “and the scene here would be really funny if it wasn’t so stupid. I mean, there are people outside in running shoes and windbreakers trying to push their cars up the pass. And trucks behind them struggling to get around. I’m not joking. It’s bedlam!”

To add insult to injury, he’d had to overstuff the suburban with gear because the Canadians had “volunteered” to cart the Slovenian Team’s stuff to the Denver airport. “I didn’t make that deal,” said Boyd, a rare tremor of impatience detectable in his tone. “And we would be a lot more comfortable without it. But what can you do?” It’s all part of the job, his tone seemed to imply…

And his workday — which had started at 6 that morning — was far from over. For after he’d dropped the women off at their Denver hotel, he still had to make his way to the airport where he’d be overseeing the check-in procedure for the Canadian Team’s gear going to Europe. “I’m still hoping we’ll have time to share a glass or two of champagne together as a team before we hit the sack,” he told me. “I mean, we had a really good day out there. Three in the top 15 — and Sherry Lawrence really fast in the bottom section. I’m quite satisfied with the way…”

Then the connection went dead.

Turns out, there had been very little time for a celebratory party in Aspen. Given that they were already a day behind schedule because of Friday’s weather delay — “we got some serious powder skiing instead,” Boyd told me — he and his charges had packed up and left the Rocky Mountain resort soon after the race in order to make it to Denver in time to catch their early-morning flight to Switzerland.

“The schedule is so tight at this time of the year,” he’d explained, “that there is really no time for much frivolity. Sure, everybody is in the same boat. Still, that doesn’t make it any easier.”

Let’s step back from the day-to-day travails of the coach for a moment so that we can put Britt’s performance last Saturday in context. While mainstream media across Canada were hailing her victory as a historic event, few really took the time to notice just how unique a triumph it had really been. And it truly was a watershed result.

For the first time in our country’s skiing history, a Canadian-born World Cup champion (Janyk) had been coached to the top step of the podium by a Canadian-born World Cup champion (Boyd) in a national program run by a Canadian-born World Cup champion (Ken Read).

Being the nerdy ski historian that I am, I think this is a significant accomplishment for Canada. I also think this shows athletes, coaches and sponsors across the country that doing it “the Canadian way” has huge potential — both for top performances and distinctive storytelling. That’s not to say I’m dismissing the hard work of all the other non-Canadians on the team. Whether Slovenian, French, Austrian or Swiss, the professional coaches who’ve worked with Canadian athletes over the last few years are among the best in the world.

But it’s always been my contention that to be truly successful — and sustainable — the national ski racing program in this country needed to be built from the ground up using Canadian-born “winners” at all levels of the organization.

Fortunately Ken Read agrees with me. While he would never hesitate to hire a foreign coach if he thought that coach could make a difference to his program’s bottom line, Read has always been a committed nationalist who’d love nothing more than a Canadian-born cadre of world class coaches from which to choose his staff. “I would give anything to see Rob grow into a head-coaching job with the team,” he told me during last year’s Canadian Championships. “Properly trained, I believe Canadian winners can inspire others to become winners. And I think Rob has all the skills required — determination, patience, a strong work ethic, and the will to win – to become that kind of a coach. It just takes time…”

And a lot of hard work. Much more, in fact, than anybody who hasn’t been there could imagine…

I caught up with Rob the next morning as he was boarding his flight to Europe. Though he still sounded tired, he appeared slightly more upbeat than the day before. Slightly. “What a day that was,” he told me. “So many highs and so many lows…”

Indeed. After fighting his way through the snowstorm traffic and dropping off his “girls” at the hotel around 11, Rob had found himself in a whole other battle at the airport. “It was total chaos,” he told me, chuckling now (but surely not last night). “The Swiss were ahead of us with all their bags. And the French were behind with all theirs. I don’t know how many tons of luggage there was to check in, but it was a lot! The airport attendants were totally overwhelmed. I must have spent over two hours there…”

By the time he dragged his sorry butt back to the hotel, there was nobody left to celebrate the day’s results with. “It was 1 in the morning, the bar was closing, and the girls were going to bed. So no drinkee for me…”

Still, he was keen Sunday morning to talk about the race and how “the dots were becoming more and more connected” on his team. “The conditions were really tough yesterday,” he told me. “It’s never easy to race in a storm — there’s a lot of uncertainty. But our girls took advantage of that. We told them the track was in good shape, to stick to their lines and attack. And that’s what they did. They believed us.”

He stopped talking for a moment. I could feel his smile of satisfaction across the cellular universe. “And that’s what was so exciting about yesterday’s race. Our girls really showed mental toughness in Aspen. They believed in their coaches. They believed in their training. And they believed in themselves.”

A long chuckle. “You know, for Britt it was like skiing at Whistler. Just before her run she told me ‘I feel totally at home here. There’s no visibility, a lot of fresh snow and everyone’s complaining about the weather. I think I’ll do OK today.’ And she did…”

As for their next race — held at the legendary resort of St Moritz — Boyd feels entirely optimistic. “We have a pretty good track record there,” he told me. “Emily (Brydon) was third there not so long ago, and Kelly (Vanderbeek) had one of her first big results on that same course. So we’re going in with a fair bit of confidence.”

So what about Boyd? A relaxing trans-Atlantic flight today followed by an easy trip from Zurich to St Moritz tomorrow morning and a lazy afternoon in one of Europe’s fanciest resorts? Think again.

“No — actually I’m flying on to Munich,” he told me after a long sigh. “I’ve got to pick up the team van — and 48 pieces of checked luggage — drive it across Germany and Austria back to Zurich, meet the girls there and drive on to St Moritz in time for course inspection on Tuesday.”

What? That’s insane! Boyd just laughed. “Nobody ever said winning World Cup races would be easy,” he reminded me…