The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athlete Association recently honored long time grass roots nordic ski supporter Joe Miller with its Distinguished Service Award. According to the MIAA press release, this award is given to individuals who provide “unique and invaluable service to the thousands of students attending MIAA member schools across the Commonwealth.” In Joe’s own words, “it start[ed] with my son in Bill Koch in 1989, then [daughter] Katie. Bill Koch, J2/U16, EHS, High School Coach and ski league director, MIAA Rep., Tournament Director, and UNH parent Ski supporter.” In the MIAA press release, Joe is noted for “providing opportunities for young people to be a part of positive activities have been priorities for Joe. From coaching youth teams, to helping organize town leagues and working with town officials to revamp fields for youth programs, Joe has always been motivated by the opportunity to provide a sound foundation for today’s youth to develop into the next generation that will support their communities.” The Berkshire Eagle published a nice article to highlight Joe’s award. Those of us from the NENSA community have long known Joe for his steadfast support of youth development opportunities in our sport. Congratulations Joe for a very well deserved recognition of your contributions!
NENSA News
Quarry Road Opener Highlights Maine Community
Pat Cote and the Quarry Road Ski Club seemingly have created a utopic culture along the banks of the Messalonskee Stream in Waterville, Maine. However, the “magic” of creating a winter oasis for cross country skiing in early December is much rather a product of many years learning and hard work. On Sunday, despite there being no natural snow in the region — well over 100 skiers took to an expertly groomed loop of one point five kilometers of manmade snow in south-central Maine.
The Quarry Road Opener hosted six races for High School, Open, Middle School and Youth skiers. This years event attracted ten masters and forty-seven skiers between the ages of 20-29. For some competitors it was also their first day on snow for the year — for all it marked the beginning of the race season. As always, there was a strong collegiate attendance with Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, the University of New Hampshire and UMaine Farmington all competing. The camaraderie and among the college, high school and club teams made for a lively spectator experience!
Lucinda Anderson of the University of New Hampshire set the pace in the Women’s Open race with a time of 23:15 over a demanding course with little rest. Two seconds separated fellow Wildcat Hattie Barker from the Anderson, before Bowdoin’s Emma Crum in third — who led a sleuth of Polar Bears taking spots three through seven!
Colby College’s, Zach Nemeth covered the course with powerful skiing in just under 20 minutes. His team mate, Jack Young took the second step of the podium with a time of 20:04. Brian Beyerbach a former Saint Lawrence Saint, now hailing in Bethel, New York showed outstanding post collegiate form placing third for team, “Wolfpack.”
It wouldn’t surprise many that Caitlin Patterson, a GRP Alumni and current Nonstop Nordic athlete and coach topped the women’s master podium with graceful skiing. She was joined on podium by Alanna McDonough of Cape Neddick and local Quarry Road skier Berkeley Almand-Hunter. How awesome to see a full women’s podium at the first Zak Cup race of the year!
The men’s masters field boasted seven competitors. Local Quarry Road skiers Andrew Almand-Hunter and Samuel Mathes, took the top two steps on the podium setting impressive course to finish the 7.5km in 25 minutes. Missing from the podium Dennis Claire (Gunstock Nordic) rounded out the podium just in front of his club mate and Zak Cup regular, Jeff Palleiko.
Female U16 / High School 4.5km
1. Mallory Raymond, Gould – 16:03.1
2. Maya Kellett, Mt. Blue High School – 16:06.2
3. Nora Condit, Edward Little – 16:27.0
Male U16 / High School 4.5km
1. Orrin Slover, Quarry Road Ski Club – 13:09.6
2. Silas Bartol, Maranacook – 13:47.2
3. Tate Harvey, NonStop – 14:01.5
That sleuth of Polar Bears who helped Bowdoin claim the 2023 NENSA Rollerski College Cup. The College Cup is awarded each year to the college team that accumulates the most points over the course of the series.
The Opener ended with a perfectly low key Lollipop opportunity — several intrepid skiers, some on skis for the first time only a few minute before the race — took to a paperclip shaped course laid out in the stadium. Race officials, parents and the general public lined the course making for great memories.
The Quarry Road Opener marked the beginning of Zak and Club rankings — data that NENSA computes throughout the season for friendly rivalries and club motivation. In the Club Standings the colleges start out with a strong showing taking the top four spots, with nearby Colby College claiming the lead with 669 points.
Event Organizer and Technical Delegate Seminar Recap
This year’s Event Organizer and TD Training Seminar was held over the weekend at the Holderness School in central New Hampshire. We kicked off the seminar with presentations with a thorough recap of transformation of Holderness’s nordic trails, which now include a 2.5km snowmaking loop and 1.5km of night skiing. In that presentation Pat Casey noted that their highly experienced chief of snowmaking operations compared the new snowmaking system “to being given a Ferrari!” To all the weekend’s participants it is quite clear that Holderness now has a fantastic resource they want to share with our community.
Eileen Carey gave a super presentation on how we can better incorporate Para skiing into events in our region. This was followed by excellent presentations from Carol Van Dyke on Volunteer Coordination and Knut Sauer on his experiences as Chief of Control at last year’s University Games in Lake Placid – using remote security cameras in place of hand held devices to record rules infractions. We broke up the classroom time with outdoor group work, where each group was assigned a task related to race day preparations/setup. We had very useful discussions of their findings in the subsequent debrief session.
In the late afternoon we enjoyed a crowd favorite – Allan Serrano led us through review of rule infraction videos from last season, with the crowd trying to see if we came to the same conclusions as the race juries did. This is a highly useful exercise, teaching officials how to consistently officiate as a collective. Following this activity, we enjoyed a delicious meal and unstructured social time in the Holderness dining hall. After dinner we reconvened on Holderness turf field/cross country ski stadium to test Bullitttiming’s camera system ahead of this year’s Eastern Cup night sprint. In addition to showing us cool toys, Ed Despard led a discussion on other timing options available to event organizers and how the can make incremental steps to being self-sufficient for smaller local races.
Sunday morning we kicked off the day with the annual FIS rules update given by Allan Serrano (turns out it’s very handy to have someone on the FIS rules committee in our region). The update sparked lots of good conversation and allowed us to better clarify our understanding of these changes – one of the clear benefits of having an in person event is this back-and-forth dialogue. The rest of the morning we went outside for group workstations. Groups had about 20min at each station to learn the key points and tricks on how to be more efficient in each role. Topics covered were: Course Marshall training, How to Run a Race Jury Meeting, How to Identify Components of a Homologated Timing Setup, Best Practices of Timing Chip Distribution and Collection, How to Setup Fluoro Control, and Best Practices for Stadium Setup. We regathered inside for a short activity debrief, expressions of thanks and a group photo.
This event is truly a community building exercise. Event organizers, volunteers, officials, some coaches and NENSA staff spend the weekend building relationships through activities and personal interactions, which improve our ability to work together successfully to put on events all across the region. We are very grateful to have such an engaged community helping to support the grass roots of our sport. A huge thank is deserved for all the presenters and group leaders who invested their time and expertise to make this a very successful Event Organizer and TD Seminar. Many thanks are also due to the Holderness School, its coaches and local athletes who worked with us to host this event!
On Deck: Rodrigues Sprints and Kendall Memorial
Snow is falling, excitement is growing and the winter season is getting underway! Skiing events are beginning to happen as well. Coming up this weekend we have the Rodrigues Sprints and Kendall Memorial races at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center. These are a great opportunity to freshen up the skiing legs in preparation for the racing season ahead. Both are freestyle events and will be scored on the NENSA Zak and Club rankings.
Rodrigues Sprints
The event offers a traditional interval start qualifying round, followed by royal court heats – where everyone gets to ski all three of the rounds – no elimination, just reshuffling until you are matched with competitors of very similar ability.
Kendall Memorial
Taking place on Sunday, this is low key mass start action, with fun group skiing for U16s and up. 5km for U16s, 10km for everyone else. Bring your friends and have a great time!
Skiing Better Together: 2023-2024 Popular Race Preview
This weekend marks the beginning of Popular Racing for the 2024 ski season with the Quarry Road Opener in Waterville, Maine. Natural snow and increasing snowmaking capabilities across the region have set the stage for a wonderful winter! NENSA is so fortunate to be working with excellent venues and partner clubs across New England, allowing for a robust 2023-2024 NENSA Popular Race Series. There are 22 Highlighted Popular Events on our schedule, which includes 21 individual Zak Cup competitions and nine more Club competitions (you can find on our Events Calendar). Within the Series there are nine marathons! All 31 events (and the eight Eastern Cup races) will be scored to season-long Club Cup standings.
Popular races are intended to be inclusive events for all skiers, with options for those just exploring the sport to veteran competitors. NENSA works with event organizers to make your experience the best it can be, from registration and promotion, to course prep, results and awards. Local clubs and venues rally to create their own festive touches that make awesome community gatherings — including music, food and robust award ceremonies.
The community produced the #skiingbettertogether this summer — please use this hashtag and mention NENSA in your personal media so we can share our journeys this winter!
NENSA continues to automate scoring of both Zak and Club Cup. Throughout the winter NENSA members will receive discounted entry at many of the events. We hope individuals will consider renewing memberships early and that clubs will check in ([email protected]) and make sure their NENSA Club Membership is current. Both of these steps insure that event timers and NENSA staff will have the best data possible, which allows us to provide the best product.
Zak Cup scoring is a way for senior and master skiers to have friendly rivalries across the race series, with both age group and overall classification. At the end of the season, the top three competitors of each age group will receive a coveted NENSA mug. In the winter of 2021 the scope of Club Cup scoring was expanded to include not only Popular Races, but also the four Eastern Cup weekends in an effort to reflect the broadest club participation across all competitive events. The structure for Club Cup scoring has a points base of 60 points for a win for any given category, then decreasing by 1 point per place. Up to three skiers per category score points for their club.
All races will score the following age groups:
U16 ages 14-15, U18 ages 16-17, U20 ages 18-19
SR ages 20-29, M1 ages 30-34, M2 ages 35-39, M3 ages 40-44
M4 ages 45-49, M5 ages 50-54, M6 ages 55-59, M7 ages 60-64
M8 ages 65-69, M9 ages 70-74, M10 ages 75-79, M11 ages 80-84
M12 ages 85-89, M13 ages 90-94, M14 ages 95-99, M15 ages 100+
We also track participation across the Marathon Races with a Challenge for skiers to complete three or more of these events. Last years 40 marathon skiers will be receiving a co-branded NENSA / LL Bean hat in the mail in the coming week. 2024 Marathon Challengers will receive a Skida Hat! We are excited to to have a range of “marathon” distances, some that are 20+ km all the way up to 50km, with a balance of both classic and freestyle.
Whether you are a seasoned veteran, a recreational skier or a junior looking for a local race there really is something for everyone on the calendar. We look forward to a long winter, and the return of the Club Relay Championships & End-of-Season Celebration during the NENSA Spring Series at Craftsbury on March 23rd and 24th. NENSA will recognize season-long Zak, and Club awards as well as other NENSA Awards at this joyous occasion. NENSA mugs will be awarded to the top-3 in each season-long Zak Age Group for those that are present.
Think snow and reach out to [email protected] with any questions.