Crystal Ridge has been busy organizing volunteers and baking cookies and will be providing the bulk of the logistical and volunteer efforts for the day. Thank you to head coach Richard Vervoort and Assistant Ana McFayden for your efforts.
There is an updated race notice on the B4S blog - http://
you will notice a more detailed itinerary and a few changes to the day. I want to remind everyone that the primary intent of B4S development events is to provide a positive race experience for children in the first or second year of racing or to children who are novice skiers. As discussed at our coaches meeting in September, host clubs can decide on categories of children that they would like to include in the event they host - and that all B4S events should have as their focus the midget and minimidget age groups.
In addition to events for children born 2000-2003, Crystal Ridge has decided to include events for 2004-2007 birth years. In addition to these two categories, in response to expressed interest, the event will include an unofficial category for 'experienced racers' (kids who are not novice skiers or kids who have raced for more than 2 years at several events per year). This will allow experienced racers to participate. Please note, children in the unofficial category will not accrue points to the club aggregate points in this event. We hope this satisfies the expressed need to include all kids but still keep the focus on novice or less experienced racers as the primary focus of this event.
Registration numbers are currently at 56 kids. It is encouraging to see that the vast majority of the kids who have registered are kids whose names you do not see at Alberta Cup Races. This has to be considered a major success of this development event and supportive of the expressed intent of B4S development events as being events focused on developing athletes who do not have as much race experience. The B4S event series was created with one of the major emphasis to be expanding participation of clubs from all over southern Alberta. Bravo Crystal Ridge Nordic Ski Club for creating an event which has accomplished this mission! Bravo!
Please also note, that the event registration does not include trail passes. All participants and adult skiers must have either a day pass or a season pass to ski at the Canmore Nordic Centre. Please ensure your families know to bring extra money to pay for trail passes which cost betw $5 and $10 per person depending on age.
Please also note, that we will have a brief coaches meeting at 11am in the upstairs meeting room in the new part of the daylodge to review details.
Please also come with appropriate expectations of what this event should look and feel like. It will not look like the Olympics or feel like a world cup or even and Alberta Cup race. Think 'Old School'. It will be a safe event. A first aider will be onsite.
Bravo Crystal Ridge Nordic Ski Club for the hard work you have done in pulling this event together. We look forward to a very fun day on Sat Feb 1 at the Canmore Nordic Centre.
If you have any questions, please let me know
Roy Strum
B4S Cheerleader
Lead Coach - T2T program, Canmore Nordic Ski Club
Race organizer mentor - B4S#2
