Ski team recruiting
The students who make up the Concordia ski team have managed to post a few fast individual results on the Quebec university alpine skiing circuit this season even though they still seek more athletes to compete well as a team.
With winter taking its time to arrive this year, the ski team got off to a slow start. Its annual winter training camp, held at le Massif-de-Petite-Rivière-St-François just east of Quebec City, had to be converted from a racing camp into a free ski camp due to a lack of snow.
Team captain Olivier Hendrick says the warmth only affected the season’s first event, the giant slalom held at le Massif du Sud in late January.
But the start wasn’t that slow. The team’s best result to date, a fourth-place finish by Vincent Van Uytfanck in the giant slalom, came at that very race.
Since then, the team of 10 men and three women has competed at two other events: one back at the intended site of its training camp, where Emmanuel Arnauld was the top male Concordian in the slalom, and another at Sutton, where Andrew Lavers had the team’s best result in the giant slalom.
Two races remain as the team heads to Adstock, near Thetford Mines, for a slalom event March 8 to 10 before capping off the season with the provincial championships at Mont Garceau in St. Donat the following weekend.
Hendrick expects the men’s team to finish either third or fourth out of the seven Quebec schools at provincials, but says they will have a hard time against the other universities that are better-funded and actively recruit skiers.
“We don't expect much, because there is very little interest shown by students at Concordia to join,” says Hendrick, a third-year JMSB economics student. Because there are only three women on the team, they are at a disadvantage when competing with other schools. Hendrick and future team captain Lavers are concerned the team may go into extinction if more students don’t express interest.
Although numbers is the main problem, funding is also an issue. For the most part, the group funds their racing and training on their own or by selling beer at Stingers football games. This year, they have benefited from a new financial sponsorship by Triplex, a restaurant in the AMC Forum.
Concordia Recreation and Athletics chips in, but training twice a week at Ski Chantecler in the Laurentians and competing at five league races around the province isn’t cheap. The team shares training space on the mountain and a van for rides with the McGill team to cut costs.
If the team is going to improve, however, Hendrick says the biggest help would come from experienced students interested in joining and competing.