A Season Carrying the Flame from 30 Years of New England Skiing
Things are good and green again around New England. And for skiers across the region, that’s an invitation to train in the low expanses, and reach for the high mountain forests. In June, those trips into the high mountain forests sometimes come with a pleasant surprise. A patch of white preserved from the winter, or hiding deep in the crevices. Snow. A prevailing whisper from a big winter, inevitably met with a smile, be it quiet or loud.
Now’s the time to tune into that whisper of winter, to carry it forward for another winter to come. And just as we reach that time in the yearly cycle, it’s been a unique time to attune NENSA’s own cycle to one which has been going on for a grander sweep of time.
30 years ago, NENSA was started by a group of ski coaches with an expressed purpose to organize and galvanize nordic ski racing in New England. The most enduring legacy, the greatest shout of that initial burst of community, was and is the Eastern Cup Series. A quick survey of where that initial effort in 1995 to organize a series of junior national qualifying for New England skiers has landed today: last winter, 2024-2025, saw the Eastern Cup surpass 3,000 participant race starts for the first time ever. Yet, as the Eastern Cup has grown, it’s still made of the same stuff. Skiers, coaches, organizers, volunteers – a community – which has kindled their ideas of what ski racing is and can be into a mainstay of winter in New England. The ultimate testament to the Eastern Cup then: come out to one, smack dab in the heart of winter, and the smiles, the camaraderie, and the competition will make you shed a few layers. The Eastern Cup’s proof that winter can be warm.
NENSA is proud to announce a 2025-26 Eastern Cup Series which builds on the whispers, the individual and community commitment, of 30 years of racing. Starting at Holderness, New Hampshire with the Cheri Walsh Memorial December 20th, 2025, and rolling through Quarry Road and Craftsbury on its way to a finale at Oak Hill in Hanover, NH on Feb. 15th, 2026.
Every season’s Eastern Cup schedule represents a community accomplishment built on the Series’ success. NENSA is grateful for the coaches, organizers, and clubs who dedicate a little extra time each Spring to weigh the considerations and values around what the Series has been and ought to be for the next season. NENSA is proud to continue with successful collaborations between New England’s junior and college circuits with the Bill Henchey Memorial Eastern Cup/University of Vermont Carnival. We’re excited to return to familiar haunts which have gained a new gleam, with Oak Hill back in the Eastern Cup Series.
Perhaps most poignantly, we’re also humbled to be reminded of the whispers that the 2025-26 Eastern Cup Series is built on. Three of the four Eastern Cup race weekends in 2025-26 will be held in honor of individuals from our community whose individual spirits carry forth every time we as a community gather to race. The Eastern Cup Opener will mark 40 years of the Cheri Walsh Memorial at Holderness School, held in honor of former Holderness School racer Cheri Walsh (Bio here). The Roy Varney Memorial at Quarry Road will again honor the passion for nordic ski racing in his home state of Maine that the late Roy Varney demonstrated during his life. The Henchey Memorial at Craftsbury will honor longtime Craftsbury standby, official and operations extraordinaire Bill Henchey.
One way to read the 2025-26 Eastern Cup schedule is in sequence, allowing the disparate but united passions of three community members who, while departed, remain vital whispers, point you towards a conclusion. The return of Oak Hill to the Eastern Cup schedule, framed that way, looks like a great communal conclusion. One of the most historic ski venues in New England, smack dab in the middle of it, ready to welcome in a vital, varied, and competitive tradition back again.
NENSA’s excited to steward the Eastern Cup towards it all. As the whispers of winter grow into the shouts, literally, at Holderness this December. We’ll see you out there, when the snow is on the ground again.
