New England Nordic Ski Association

The Home of Cross Country Skiing in New England

Coaches Education

New Virtual Speaker Series for NENSA Members

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We’re excited to announce our new virtual speaker series which is free to all NENSA members!

This educational series expands opportunities for learning beyond our in-person conferences, symposiums, and clinics. All webinars in the series will be held over Zoom and each offering will be feature a 45 minute presentation followed by a 15 minute Q&A. If you’re unable to make a webinar, register anyway as we will share a recording afterward. We currently have three speakers joining us in December and we will be adding more offerings soon. If you’re interested in speaking in our series, or have a topic you’d like to see covered in a future webinar, let us know at kait@nensa.net.

Dec 3: Patience, Insight & Leadership with Kris Freeman
Dec 10: The Master Skier: Balancing Life, Health & Performance with Matt Klick
Dec 17: The Beaver Dam Model of Club Development with Isabel Caldwell

Purchase or renew NENSA membership
Series details & registration

A Little Better Than We Found It: NENSA Coaches Conference 2025 Recap

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On Saturday evening in Dublin, NH Sverre Caldwell kept coming back to one word, until it became definitional. “I’m all about ‘progressions,’” he said.

Caldwell was speaking to his peers, a coach addressing a group of around fifty coaches at the 2025 NENSA Fall Coaches Conference. Caldwell was also speaking as a patron, of sorts. Not in the strict sense of providing the financial resources to keep things going. Instead, in a much harder to define, lasting way. NENSA asked Sverre Caldwell to be our Coaches Conference keynote speaker because we simply looked around for the best coaching experience to speak to the essential task of building a community. And whereas in the past, those coaches may have come far flung – from national US Skiing headquarters out West, or draped in a Scandinavian accent from overseas – we looked around and found the best source of community experience, pride, and love of skiing in a coach with a broad smile, and a ready anecdote, in Stratton, Vermont. In NENSA’s progression of running close to the ground while shooting to be the best in the world, there has always been Sverre.

Sverre and Isabel Caldwell on Saturday in Dublin.

If Caldwell underlined anything for us, it was that its progressions all the way down. From defining an individual athlete’s relationship with the sport as one which they were simply trying to get better towards a goal, to pushing a community to add support for athletes to do that on the highest level of the sport, the idea that going forward always meant departing from a step already taken never left the conversation. 

Framed in that way, the 2025 NENSA Fall Coaches Conference looked like a vital community progression too. Last weekend’s gathering was the largest annual NENSA Conference of the sort in recent memory, with nearly 80 regional coaches. The Conference reinforced a wonderful truth, which is that like any community, the ski community is a gathering for all kinds of humans, with all the talents that humans have. Technical knowledge, scientific knowledge, and the lived experience of practicing our sport were all on display. True to the idea of progression, we’re coming away from NENSA looking to understand what our next steps will be to such an enthusiastic reception. Participants can look forward to more coffee and donuts, and less presentation time overlaps next year. What more so though, we’re coming away from last weekend though, is a sense of gratitude. Ultimately Sverre’s reflections Saturday night on a long, successful career boiled down to something quite humble. Try and make the community you enter a little better than you found it. The echoes from our presenters, engaged coaches, and the community it summed up to, indicate that NENSA is following the old headmaster’s (or rather…intentionally not a headmaster a ski coach instead) advice.

BKL Parent Leaders and Coaches Recap

Jay Davis (Ford Sayre) presents to the BKL Parent Leaders

Dr. Sharon Henry opened the Bill Koch Track with a powerful reminder that balance is everything, a theme that resonated throughout the entire day. In many ways, balance lies at the heart of Bill Koch League coaching: finding equilibrium between fun and fundamentals, challenge and support, teaching and learning.

Our morning sessions focused on the foundations of balance and how to effectively teach technique to BKL skiers. Coaches shared creative games, progressions, and approaches that have worked in their own clubs, sparking great discussion and new ideas to bring into the winter season.

After lunch, the conversation shifted toward life transitions and the parallels we see in sport. Lizzie Larkins encouraged us to consider the “human side” of coaching and how we can support athletes through the many changes that occur during the BKL years and beyond.

Next, Jay Davis from Ford Sayre BKL shared how his club balances their event offerings, combining adventure, fun, and community through both internal gatherings and open events. This led to thoughtful discussion around the BKL philosophy, the balance of meeting children where they are, and strategies for managing groups that may feel “unbalanced” in energy, skill, or dynamics on any given day.

The day closed with a shared sense of inspiration and collaboration. Coaches, presenters, and NENSA staff alike left with new ideas, renewed motivation, and a deeper appreciation for the balance that defines our work and community. Building on the momentum of last year’s BKL Symposium, this year’s offering truly showcased the collective energy and creativity that make the BKL community so special.

Junior/High School/College Coaches Recap

Bryan Fish (USSS) demonstrates some double pole technique for NENSA Coaches (Photo: Courtesy Image)

When NENSA’s Staff met with our Coach Development committee to gain some feedback on the agenda for the 2025 Conference, they framed their feedback in participatory terms. The directive was something like: “Speakers are great, but we have a bunch of coaches in a room together like we never do, so let’s talk about skiing!” 

What we set out to do then, was just that. It all came together in the Outing Club late Saturday afternoon, with Alex Jospe, Adam Terko, and Kathy Maddock leading a highly participatory session talking about V1, V2, and Double-poling, along with how they use video in their training. US Ski and Snowboard Sport Development Director Bryan Fish stood by at the ready to lend us his humble, but very deep well of coaching knowledge as coaches from across the region chimed in. The session reached its stated goal, but also matched the frequency of our conference offerings with the way we so often implore coaches to coach in New England. Instead of elevating one approach over the other, let’s all speak to each other on the same level. Competitive, sure, but collegial too.

Alex, Adam, and Kathy’s session came late in the afternoon, but felt like the end of a progression which began in the morning with me (Ben) presenting on where our approach as a New England community is at the moment. To outlay that we want local experts to develop so they multiply our regional efforts in verbal or written terms, is to a certain extent, my job, but to see it come together in some of the great resources we have from different ski communities was a great progression to the day.

Sharon Henry presenting to the NENSA Coaches Conference on Saturday

In the interim, we also had individual presentations from Zach Caldwell on ski service philosophy, and a highly-detailed, intricate presentation on athlete balance from Dr. Sharon Henry. Those sessions both saw high-levels of engagement from the audience, and spurred the overarching thought that among an audience of high school coaches, junior club coaches, and college coaches, there is an appetite for the expertise of skills coaches interact with everyday – waxing, ski equipment, and physiology – but never a focused area to step into community resources around them. So, yes, we got one sampling of that Saturday, but the hope is that it spurs the development of ongoing coach resource development for the NENSA community.

The other highlight of the weekend came on Sunday, when Bryan Fish led a L100 assessment with 7 coaches, and nearly as many there for non-certification exposure to the national curriculum. For all the complexities of interacting systems with our regional and national sport education, the end result is that we are building a shared vocabulary for skiers to progress through the very beginnings of their journeys in the sport.

The diversity and experience (and diversity of experience) were all fundamental to the experience of the Coaches Conference this year, and we’ll look forward to developing that as this Conference gains momentum once again.

Resources Forthcoming

NENSA is currently compiling slides, audio, and video from Saturday to share with our members on a new coach resource webpage. Stay tuned!

Post-Event Survey

Please help us build off this year’s program by taking our post-event survey below!

Survey Here

All About Skiing: NENSA Community Day at Ford Sayre

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Ford Sayre Youth, Ford Sayre’s Jay Davis, NENSA’s Isabel Caldwell and Mackenzie Rizio, and Dartmouth’s Cami Thompson. (Photo: Courtesy Image/Heidi Lange)

Oak Hill in Hanover, New Hampshire is an old ski venue with a very new parking lot.

Those two facts, put together, made for a perfect place to put together a new NENSA Program featuring some pillars of the New England nordic ski community. Last Friday, NENSA put on its first Community Day with the vibrant and growing Ford Sayre ski community as hosts.

What’s a Community Day? – This question came up a whole bunch in putting together a Day full of activity. Or rather, “who was this for?” The answer might not be readily identifiable at first. On Friday, we had Coaches from across the region doing a NENSA Coaches Clinic concurrently with a USSS L100 assessment, while Ford Sayre BKLers and Junior Nordic Team members took to rollerski ramps, biathlon laser rifles, and (in a rare sign it was a true “nordic ski” day,) the ski jump at Ford Sayre. People filtered in and out to say hi to old friends, new colleagues, and visit with a group they all had at least one thing in common with, that they loved nordic skiing.

The answer to the question that we have at NENSA then, is something like this: Take that thing you love in the winter, nordic ski racing and community, and plop it down for one beautiful summer day in July.

The Oak Hill, Ford Sayre Community Day last Friday included the following elements:

  • A NENSA Coaches Clinic and USSS L100 Coach Certification Assessment.
  • A Community Group Run.
  • A Youth ski activity carousel which included:
    • Rollerski agility.
    • Dryland Biathlon w/laser rifles.
    • A chance to try out the ski jump simulator at Oak Hill.
  • A Community Barbeque.

Contained in all those elements is the priorities and values that we as a community are looking to stress. Accessibility to the sport, ongoing development for community leaders, and the simple joy of seeing some familiar faces who all like to spend the winters the same way you do.

Throughout the day, there was upwards of ~75ish people who took part in a way that most connected with them. Framed one way, that pales in comparison to the number of people who will be at Oak Hill for something like say, the Oak Hill Eastern Cup next February. Framed another way though, we gathered 75 members of the NENSA community together in the middle of a season with no snow!

We’re hopeful that success can be something to build on. The ultimate value of our community is that there is 1000s of people, all pointed roughly in the same direction. Whether you’re a BKLer, BKL parent, or one of the most experienced coaches in the country, it’s all about skiing. Always has been. Even when you break that out into pieces, the power remains.

NENSA Coaches Clinic w/USSS L100 Certification

Coaches walk up the first hill at Oak Hill so they can kick this winter!

If you spend some time digging through the NENSA archives (as we’ve been doing much during our 30 year anniversary), one of the early successes you’ll find is a history of coaches from across the region working together. Indeed, that spirit still carries forth through our community today.

The chance to focus those collaborative energies into opportunities to do some focused development is something we’re currently re-visiting. Thus, we put on a first NENSA Coaches Clinic offering – working on basic, fundamental progressions of ski technique and aimed at skiers who work with all sorts of different audiences.

This Coaches Clinic was combined with a USSS L100 certification opportunity. Under the new USSS curriculum which was introduced last summer, there’s much more leeway in the programming around the “final boss” of the process, the assessment (read about the process here.) That means we’re looking to develop some peer-informed version of the curriculum around this assessement.

What this looked like on Friday was that we had 7 USSS L100 assessment candidates, alongside 6 more coaches who weren’t seeking certification, a guest presentation from Dartmouth Men’s Head Coach Brayton Osgood, and NENSA’s Ben Theyerl organizing the afternoon. The idea was to build on just running through the usual body positioning –> dryland bounding —> classic skiing –> skate skiing by making the clinic polyphonic. What one coach might share about a drill having worked with middle schoolers in Maine could potentially help a junior coach in New Hampshire, and a college coach in Boston, and vice versa.

Coaches Clinic

The results of this approach: well, we covered a lot in a very short amount of time. We threw a lot at the wall, and hoped some would stick.

The vast array of coaches we sought was achieved. We, indeed, did have an accomplished middle school coach from Maine, young, energetic coaches from the EISA college circuit, and experienced coaches who were doing coaches education before NENSA ever offered it. We also had skiers who were just thinking about coaching.

It could be, understandably, dizzying. The positive result though, was that on a Community Day, we truly got the community together. And, hopefully, there was a template to expand on. What could the youth coaches learn from being more focused on a clinic with other youth coaches? How could Brayton’s presentation on exactly when and how he is looking to incorporate ski walking, moose hoofing and bounding into work with his top college skiers inform a shared practice across the college circuit when in front of that audience?

All of it is exciting to think about as we build out more opportunities for coaches to coach together. We’ll be offering more of these soon, so stay tuned to the NENSA calendar!

Youth Nordic/Rollerski Clinic – Ford Sayre and NENSA

Jay Davis gives a quick instructional ahead of conquering the ramps to Ford Sayre BKLers.

NENSA works well as an acronym. If you break it down though, you might catch that we’re the New England NORDIC Ski Association, rather than just the NECCSA (New England Cross Country Ski Association doesn’t have the same ring, and we owe that group of founders who incorporated in 1995 for their sense). Rarely though, are we in a place which allows us to stretch and contain the full breadth of nordic skiing, as in, simply showing you can do skiing without your heel attached. Which is, the technical definition, after all.

Oak Hill, having practically invented this form of the sport in the United States, is a place we can achieve this little side quest to live up to our name. On Friday, the youth of the Upper Valley got an introduction to everything from ski jumping to Biathlon to the rarest and new form of our sport, cross country cross!

Youth skiers took to a set of the rollerski ramps that are springing up across the region (rumor has it, there’s a fresh set about to make their debut at Frost Mountain this Saturday!), then tried their hand at Biathlon laser rifles, and got to feel the weight of potentially jumping off the Oak Hill ski jump in a safe environment by using the, much safer for beginners, simulator.

No seltzer was spilled while riding this wave.

The net result was a day which emphasized our community’s shared Bill Koch League (BKL) philosophy. That is, that the best way to learn to have fun on skis is to have fun on skis!

What especially stood about Friday’s iteration of this philosophy was that it stretched to encompass skiers who had long outgrown the BKL proper. A plethora of Ford Sayre Junior team members got to re-visit the BKL they have, in some cases, just graduated from. Through to BKLers turned NENSA Staff, and a very dedicated Dartmouth Head Coach turned chief of parking lot grooming operations, thank you Cami Thompson for your dedication to removing any and all bits of gravel, there was a distilled err to the hours of fun on skis.

For the many folks who drove by the fun on their way to the Storrs Pond beach, the Oak Hill fun on Friday looked somewhat goofy. A bunch of folks on too long of rollerblades, using poles to get around. Up close and personal though, in the birthplace of that New England skiing concept of the Carnival, it almost felt like winter. And that, in any programming NENSA does in the summer, is as high a success as we can attain.

NENSA Community Day at Ford Sayre

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Following the success of our first NENSA Community Day in partnership with Stratton, we’re excited to share our second Community Day to be hosted with Ford Sayre on July 18th! As the event name suggests, these events are all about community and have a shared goal of fostering existing connections while also creating news ones.

Whether you’re a BKL skier, a curious newcomer, a parent, or a Masters athlete, this event is your chance to come together with the ski community for an afternoon of movement, learning, and fun. From rollerski games and biathlon to ski jumping, trail running, and a delicious BBQ dinner, there’s something for everyone. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to connect with friends old and new, try something new, and get inspired for the season ahead!

Full details and registration here.

Is your club interested in hosting a NENSA Community Day? Reach out to mackenzie@nensa.net to get the ball rolling.

Thank you to our valued NENSA Partners