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Callaghan ski jumps need funding, grassroots support

Squamish looks to build up interest with legacy facility at Brennan Park

The future of the two ski jumps at Whistler Olympic Park remains very much up in the air but plans are underway to find the much-needed money and community support to keep them alive.

It will not be an easy task.

This week Keith Bennett, president and CEO of Whistler 2010 Sport Legacies, confirmed that his organization does not have the funds to keep the ski jumps up and running post-Games.

"We do have legacy funds to support the operation of the cross country ski centre for the Nordic skiing and also for the operation of the sliding centre," said Bennett. "The ski jumps are in the Nordic centre but there was never any provision to actually operate them."

He explained that the jumps - 140 metres and 106 metres long - are not simple or cheap items to operate. There is a refrigeration system in the in-run track. There is tremendous support needed from volunteers to shovel the stairs that run up and down the side of the jumps. And there needs to be avalanche control and snow management on the side hills.

The jumps also need a winch cat to groom the slopes.

And while Olympic organizers have agreed to leave behind a winch cat following the Games, there are many other factors that need to be resolved before those jumps are operational in the future.

Ski Jumping Canada is hoping to hold festivals and international competitions there in the years to come and have the jumps open 30 to 40 days a year.

"There's a lot of things that need to come together to really make that viable," said Bennett. "And again, finding the funding is the other pretty significant piece.

"The onus is on sport to create a financial business plan around those events that supports those evens. We're not in a financial position to underwrite the events. We can provide the facility."

Ski Jumping Canada is in the process of developing a business plan that would outline how it could hold festivals and big competitions at Whistler Olympic Park in the years following the Games.

"We are developing a plan," said Brent Morrice, chairman of Ski Jumping Canada.

The hope, he said, is that the sport can generate funds from those festivals.

But the truth is: ski jumping in Canada isn't robust when compared to other winter sports.

Dr. Roger Jackson, CEO and director of Winter Sport of Own the Podium, the organization that financially supports athletes in their quest for the Olympic podium, said his organization gave Ski Jumping Canada $150,000 every year for the last five years.

It was, he said: "Hardly enough to do anything."

Own the Podium had $28 million to divvy up between sports this year alone.

"We've provided them with a small amount of money every year for the period of time during this Own the Podium project although they did not qualify for funding simply because they don't have any athletes that are potential medal winning athletes which is what our program was about," said Dr. Jackson.

"They also have difficulty because they don't qualify for funding from Sport Canada simply because they just simply don't have enough people involved in the sport. So the future is very unclear as to what's going to happen."

What ski jumping needs is results on the podium to get the much-needed funding. Until then, it's crucial to build grassroots support for ski jumping and Nordic combined in the community.

That's exactly what Denise Imbeau, president of the Callaghan Winter Sports Club, intends to do.

The club is proposing a legacy sport facility near Brennan Park in Squamish that would have smaller ski jumps to entice young people into the sport. The planning is in the very early stages but so far there is community support and political will for the concept.

"There certainly seems to be the will of the Squamish community to see this continue to move forward," she said.

"Our goal is to create an influx of interested youth who will at some point be able to use that larger facility (at Whistler Olympic Park).

For Morrice, whose son Trevor just made the Olympic ski jumping team, getting the youth involved is crucial.

"Trevor is now an Olympian," he said proudly. "That means all kinds of things to young athletes.

"I really believe that kids need an alternative to hockey in this country. We need to support all the winter activities."

And he hopes that Canada's newly named Olympic ski jumpers and others in the pipeline will no longer have to travel as far as Park City to do their big jump training.

Morrice said: "We're hoping that they can go to Whistler Olympic Park, rather that Park City because it is an excellent hill."

 

Canada's Olympic ski jumping team

They're a youthful bunch, perhaps the youngest competing in Whistler.

All hailing from Calgary, Canada's Olympic ski jumping team was unveiled last Thursday.

They are: Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes, 18, Trevor Morrice, 18,  (son of Brent Morrice, chairman of Ski Jumping Canada), Stefan Read, 22, (nephew of Crazy Canuck downhill Olympian Ken Read and son of Ron Read, International Ski Federation rep for Ski Jumping Canada), and Eric Mitchell, 17.

They will be arriving at Whistler's athletes' village on Feb. 7