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Christian Hrab: Roots rider takes charge of high performance program

It wasn’t all that long ago that I was lauding the Canadian Snowboard Federation for stepping outside the box and making the bold decision to hire Jim Miller as the high performance director of their national team program.
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Christian Hrab

It wasn’t all that long ago that I was lauding the Canadian Snowboard Federation for stepping outside the box and making the bold decision to hire Jim Miller as the high performance director of their national team program. A no-nonsense, top-level wrestling coach, (yes, wrestling) Miller’s biggest weakness was his lack of snowboarding experience. But it didn’t seem to faze him. “Doesn’t matter whether you’re a swimmer, a wrestler or a snowboarder, “he explained to me last winter (see Alta States, Jan. 10, 2008). “High performance is high performance. It’s the way you live. It’s what you eat. What you dream. How you approach challenges...”

And it’s not like he underestimated the task. “I would be totally naïve,” he said, “to think that I could walk in, present my ideas to 60 individuals and believe that they would all buy into my story. Still, I think most of them will value what I have to offer...”

Alas, he was wrong. After the team’s most successful season ever — and less than a year after being hired — Miller was summarily fired. The reasons given for his dismissal are legion. But chief among them — at least according to the athletes and coaches — is that their new boss was totally out of touch with snowboarding culture.

I’ve already written at length about snowboarding’s schizophrenic relationship with high performance sports. Born out of rebellion to the status quo, the sport’s formative years were etched in middle-finger salutes to old-school disciplines like ski racing. I still remember Jake Burton going off about the evils of the Olympic movement and how snowboarding would lose its soul if it succumbed to the IOC’s siren song.

As it turns out, he wasn’t far off…

Ironically (or inevitably), snowboarding today has become as mainstream a sport as any its young acolytes dissed in the old days. As for the IOC, its limo-chauffeured members couldn’t be happier. In Torino, for example, the snowboarding events were among the most popular on the Olympic schedule. And American TV ratings went through the roof!

As the French say, ‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’ ….

Speaking of which — with only 20 months left before the Games, and the talent-heavy Canadian Team now without a high performance program boss, the CSF executive had some serious decisions to make this past spring. Being bold and going outside the culture hadn’t worked. Miller had failed to get traction with his charges. So what now?

From dangerous to safe? From outsider to insider? From arm’s-length to intimate? How far to go? After all, getting medals in 2010 was the only priority right now. And the Own The Podium bean-counters had made it plain: It was five medals or bust. So what to do…

Did I already mention schizophrenia? Maybe it’s more a bi-polar disorder. No matter. In what can only be described as a full attitudinal pendulum swing, the CSF decided in early May to hand the reins of its high performance program to a leader profoundly different (both in preparation and attitude) to the man they had so recently championed.

And in another great ironic twist, this appointment might turn out to be exactly what the team needs right now… or not. We’ll see.

Thank goodness Christian Hrab has a sense of humour. “It’s like jumping off a cliff with a very small parachute,” says the 37 year old, trying to keep a straight face. “But seriously — this is one of the most exciting challenges I’ve ever undertaken. We have an amazing group of athletes, phenomenal coaches, a top-notch sports-science team and enough funds to last us until 2010…”

Forget the straight face. Now the CSF’s new high performance director is laughing, sort of. He reminds me of a little kid playing with fireworks — thrilled to be there, but a little leery nonetheless. “Can you believe it, dude? My job is to make sure that all these pieces come together at the right time and the right place. So yeah, I guess you could say I’m feeling a little pressure right now… but I like pressure!”

A veteran of the snowboarding wars — both as an athlete and a coach — Hrab is the quintessential insider. He knows everybody. He’s worked everywhere. He’s done it all. Indeed, it’s no exaggeration to say that both he and the sport came of age together…

“Yeah, now that you mention it, I guess I was part of that first generation of Canadian riders to take it up as a teenager,” says the perfectly bilingual Montrealer.

Hrab saw his first snowboarder in 1985. “Wow, I thought. That looks so cool!” He bought his own board the next winter. Totally dropped skiing the year after that. Moved to Whistler two years later…

“You know, I’d grown up with skiing,” he recounts. “Did the racing thing and all that. But I was really into windsurfing and skateboarding too — my friends and I would freeride between the moving cars on St. Catherine Street at night. So snowboarding made total sense to me.” He stops. Smiles. “As for Whistler, that made even more sense…”

What I love about snowboarding history is that it’s so immediate. So much in the hearts and minds of the people who lived it. For example, Hrab still remembers his first bus trip to Whistler — not so much for the trip itself, as for the connection he made on the bus. It was December of 1989. And snowboarders were still relatively rare then. “We stopped in Squamish for some reason,” says Hrab.” I was wearing a Burton ball cap and this guy came over and started talking to me about snowboarding. Turns out he was from Vancouver, and doing the same thing I was. I was stoked. We were both moving to Whistler to live the dream…” The guy was future pro rider and Olympic bordercross-course designer Jeff Ihaksi (Alta States, March 27, 2008 ) . “We’ve been friends ever since,” says Hrab. “Funny how things like that happen, eh…”

The two riders weren’t the only ones pursuing their dream at Whistler, however. The early ’90s saw some of the best young jocks migrate from across Canada to the Wet Coast. Still, there was far more demand for good snowboarders back then than there was supply. “There was a joke going around during those years,” explains Hrab. “What’s the difference between a beginner and an instructor? Three days…” He laughs at his own punch line. “There’s an even funnier one: What’s the difference between an amateur and a pro? A season…” He smiles. “We progressed pretty fast in those days.”

Hrab would live and ride at Whistler for the next 14 years. And his progression through the snowboarding ranks was fast. The young newcomer would go from gung-ho volunteer with the Blackcomb Race Department — “I was the first rider on their crew,” he says proudly — to star snowboard instructor on Whistler Mountain. From enthusiastic participant in the weekly Kokanee series — “There were so many events in those day, you could race four times a week if you wanted to,” he says — to Canadian team member on the fledgling FIS World Cup tour. “It was an amazing time to be a competitor,” he says happily. “I learned so much from coaches like Bob Allison…”

But through it all, Hrab knew that what he really wanted do. So when he retired after failing to make the ’98 Olympic Team and the Japanese Ski Association approached him to work with their national snowboard team, he jumped at the opportunity. “I always knew I wanted to be a coach,” he says. “But it was my stint with the Japanese that really confirmed it for me.”

It didn’t take long for the CSF to notice his results. “It was the summer of 2001,” he says. “Only eight months before the Salt Lake Games. The CSF wanted me to take over as head coach for snowboard cross and GS.” He sighs heavily. “It was probably the most difficult decision of my life…”

He eventually decided to go with the Canadian offer. “And for the next three years I invested everything I had in that program.” Which is why, he says, it hurt so much when he was fired in 2004. “I was devastated,” he adds. “It felt like I’d been stabbed in the heart…”

Hrab decided to change his life around. He left Whistler. Moved back to Montreal — “I really needed a city fix,” he says — and dabbled in private coaching. But he never gave up on snowboarding. “Suddenly the CSF started sending small jobs my way,” he says. And laughs. “By the winter of 2007, I had my own budget, two staff members and was in charge of 12 sport development programs.” He chuckles. “And now look at what I got myself into…”

Which begs the question: Why? Why take up the reins of a team that treated him so shabbily in the past? “Because great results at Cypress in 2010 will positively affect the future of snowboarding in Canada,” answers Hrab. “I consider myself a fairly perceptive student of the sport. And what I see with the Canadian program today gets me excited. For the first time ever, I think we have everything in place for the Games.” He stops. Smiles. “I just want to make sure that the program delivers on all that promise…”