Introductory

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.