Archive for 'Sports'
My very short ski experience with Britt and Michael Janyk
February 17th, 2010. Published under General, Life, Sports. No Comments.
Sometime around 1995 or ’96 I spent a winter in Whistler teaching skiing. I was teaching in Whistlers Ski Scamps, the kids ski school, and having a great time. I was teaching school groups during most of the week, but on the weekends I had the chance to teach the same group of kids every weekend. That was the most fun because the kids were pretty good skiers and I got to see them learn lot over the course of the season. That weekend program was run by Andree Janyk, Britt and Michaels mom. She was a tough person to work for; she expected a lot out of everyone who taught in that program, but she was quick to praise you when you were doing a good job.
Close to the end of the season we had some big event where all of the groups got together, all the weekend groups and all of the racing groups. Andrees son Michael there with some group of racing kids, most of whom were a bit older than the group I was teaching. Britt was hanging around there somewhere too, but I think she was already on a development team by that point so she was really just helping her mom out. For one reason or another all of my kids left early that day (it was a beautiful March day) and one of the coaches with the racing groups had to leave. That coach asked me if I’d ski down to the village with his group then let them go off on their own. I was about to head down for the day so that was fine with me. Michael happened to be in that group of kids.
Once we got started going down the hill I was flying down the hill, enjoying being able to ski fast and not worry about whether the kids I was leading could keep up or not. I thought I was keeping ahead of them no problem until I looked back over my shoulder to make sure they were all still there only to see Michael right on my heels and a look on his face of “Why the hell did we get stuck with the slow guy?”. I did everything I could to ski the fastest I possibly could, but I definitely couldn’t outrun any of those barely-teenage-kids. I like to think I did pretty good, but when I was skiing flat out I was barely keeping up with them! I won’t even get into how tough it was to keep up to Britt and her mom skiing out one day.
Now that both of them have been on the national team for years and Britt just came 6th in the 2010 Olympic downhill race I think my ego can bounce back from barely being able to keep up with them ;)
My cousin finished 12th!
April 11th, 2005. Published under Life, Sports. No Comments.
I mentioned in a previous entry that my cousin was competing in the halfpipe competition at the Telus World Ski & Snowboard festival. Well in case anyone was interested, he finished 12th!!
Very proud of him, that was some pretty steep competition and it looks like he did great. He’s travelling back home today so I haven’t had a chance to congratulate him in person and get the scoop, but we are definitely incredibly proud of him. He has made some great progress this year with his snowboarding and has gotten some good sponsorship so we are pulling for him to be able to do this for a living!
Phil
Going to the Telus World Ski&Snowboard festival?
April 4th, 2005. Published under Life, Sports. No Comments.
Is anyone who reads this blog going to the Telus World Ski & Snowboard Festival in Whistler this weekend? My cousin is competing in the halfpipe competition there this weekend, so if you’re going let me know so I can tell you who he is so you can cheer him on!
I guarantee he’ll be surprised by random computer geeks cheering for him ;)
Phil
Mises.org “Proposal to end NHL lockout”
January 19th, 2005. Published under Business, Sports. No Comments.
I have really been enjoying reading the Mises.org site lately. Maybe I didn’t miss out on the family business/accounting genes after all…that’ll make my dad and grandfather pretty happy ;)
Today they posted an entry with a proposal to end the NHL lockout which I thought was an interesting take and is an option that I have yet to hear in all the endless discussion about the lockout. Living in Canada, hockey is one of the only things we talk about ;)
The crux of the suggestion? Dissolve the Players Union and let the owners/players determine the salary situation on an individual level. Will there be players who won’t be willing to take a pay cut? Probably. There will also be a large number of players who just want to get back to playing hockey and will be more than happy with the deal they can work out.
Phil
Thomas Grandi wins World Cup race!
December 20th, 2004. Published under Sports. No Comments.
For the first time a Canadian man has won a World Cup Giant Slalom race. Thomas Grandi won the Giant Slalom race held at Alta Badia in Italy this weekend with a time of 2 minutes 34.23 seconds.
This is so great to see! I’ve been watching a few races this year (like every other year for a long time) hoping to see the Canadian skiers break out and become the world class skiers that we used to have on our national ski team. It’s even more fun now because the son and daughter of my boss when I worked in Whistler are both on the national team. When I was teaching skiing in Whistler Andree would always fill us in on how Britt and Michael (Janyk) were doing with their racing (before they’d made it to the national team), so it is very cool to see them hurtling down the hill. Congratulations to Michael too for coming in 4th place in the Europa Cup Slalom this weekend!
Phil