The Huntsville High School (HHS) Nordic team started their season with a bang just before Christmas at the Hardwood Invitational Nordic Ski Race hosted by Hardwood Ski and Bike. The team had some “exceptional results” at the December 20 race, said Head Coach John Cowan.
The Novice Girls’ team dominated the podium with Emma Dickson taking first place, Maddy Arsenault in second place and Sage Nakamoto in third. The Novice Boys’ team had impressive results, too, capturing four of the top five spots — Austin McKee took second place, Elliott McArthur earned bronze and honourable mentions go to Kyle Kingshott and Lochlan Willows who finished fourth and fifth respectively.
In the Junior Girls category, Sophia Marshall took the Gold medal, while Zak Varieur captured first place for Junior Boys on the 5 kilometre course. Honourable mentions to Riley deGans and Cameron Marshall who finished fourth and fifth respectively. Overall, the Junior Boys team finished first. Well done, team!
Natasia Varieur took home the Silver medal in the Senior Girls category. Owen Johnstone won the Gold in his first race as a Senior.
Congratulations to all of the athletes on a successful start to the 2017-18 season!
The racing calendar ramps up with another race at Hardwood Ski and Bike on Thursday, January 11, followed by a race on Monday, January 15 at Midland Mountainview Ski Club.
The team then takes a break from the race calendar until February 8 when they will travel to Highlands Nordic Duntroon to take part in the annual Mayfield Invitational. On February 14 they head to Highlands Nordic for the GBSSA Nordic Championships. The season finishes with the OFSAA Championships in Sudbury at Laurentian University from Wednesday, February 21 to Friday, February 23. Good luck, skiers!
About the HHS Nordic team
Huntsville High School’s Nordic ski team started their 2017/18 season in mid-November with dryland training three times a week. A group of skiers have been training on roller skis since September and had the opportunity to work with the Ontario ski team coach, Victor Wiltman, on dryland specific training.
“The sport is an all-body activity which requires a good engine and upper body,” said Head Coach John Cowan. “In the world of skiing, great skiers are made in the off season so we spend a great deal of time developing ski-specific upper body work and the energy systems.”
When the snow arrived, the Nordic ski team moved to on-snow training at the Lookout field four times a week. And with Arrowhead Park now open for the winter season, the team trains after school on the parks trails. “The success of the Huntsville High School Nordic ski program is due in large part in having one of Canada’s top cross-country ski facilities at our front door step,” added Cowan.
The Huntsville High School Nordic team and Arrowhead Racing Center (ARC) program are two separate entities and both of the programs have an overlap of some skiers and coaches. The high school program is run by teacher coaches who provide extra-curricular opportunities for the HHS students. This year the team’s teaching staff includes head coach John Cowan, Geoff Corbett, Allison Myers, and Jim Baumgart. They are joined by community coaches Steve Jones and former Huntsville High School Nordic alumnus Rob Edmonstone to help them over the course of the season.
The HHS Nordic ski team has on average between 35 to 40 student athletes a year on the team. The Nordic ski program has six teams: Junior Girls, Junior Boys, Senior Girls, Senior Boys, Para-Nordic and Special Olympics. It is one of the few OFSAA school sport programs to be inclusive.
“The HHS team has 35 students on the team this year and we have a large number of grade nines that will help with the future of the program,” said Cowan. “Among the grade nine participants we have a lot of club-trained athletes which bodes well for the program.”
In past years, every skiing athlete has had the chance to develop over the course of their team’s season and age-category teams were formed based on the athlete’s efforts in competitions and the OFSAA-required number of practices completed.
During the ski season, the team travels to competitions around central Ontario racing at a variety of ski centres. This year, the provincial championships will be held at Laurentian University cross-country ski trails in Sudbury in late February. Each athlete on the team is able to compete at the Georgian Bay Secondary School Association (GBSSA) regional championships and those results qualify the team or individual to move forward to the provincial championships at OFSAA.
Coach Cowan expresses that skiing in high school gives students a chance to enjoy an individual activity within the framework of a team, one that they can be active in during winter months for life. Once they have graduated from high school, there is opportunity for students to compete at the post-secondary level as well. This year, 14 HHS Nordic alumni are competing for University teams in Ontario, two are competing for universities in Alberta and one is competing at an NCAA Division 1 school in Massachusetts.
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