Read all about Pennie Rand being the recipient of the 2019 NENSA Chummy Broomhall Award, the 2020 BKL Festival at Great Glen, the 2021 U16 and EHS host venues, US Ski & Snowboard critera for World Cup race selection, the first of our NENSA High Peaks Cyclery Rollerski Races ~ the App Gap Challenge ~ and so much more! Enjoy! https://conta.cc/2NwiEkY
NENSA News
Pennie Rand – 2019 Chummy Broomhall Award Recipient
NENSA is thrilled to announce Pennie Rand as the 2019 recipient of the Chummy Broomhall Award. This award honors Chummy, who was the Chisholm Ski Club leader for nearly 70 years, a two-time Olympian, and a builder of the race courses for Squaw Valley, Lake Placid and Black Mountain. He embodied the spirit of being a volunteer as he was a man who gave his time to generations. NENSA proudly presents this annual award to honor the unsung heroes of ski racing.
This year NENSA would like to honor Pennie Rand, of Richmond VT, for her limitless enthusiasm for our sport of cross country skiing, and her support to our NENSA programing and athletes, of every age.
Pennie infuses enthusiasm with everything she does – from founding and organizing five editions of the exciting Cochran’s Nordic Ski Cross, to making wild flower crowns for the winners of the annual App Gap Challenge rollerski race (and serving on the timing crew), to attending countless NENSA, EISA, and community events — LL Bean Adirondack pack on her back, camera in hand, and cheering as loudly as she can for each and every competitor!
Eli Enman of Sleepy Hollow has this to say about Pennie: “When I think of Pennie and the Nordic Ski Cross, I just think of all her energy, and love of skiing come bubbling through. She’s a great organizer, and she is awesome at pulling people in to volunteer to put on the most fun race possible. It’s also worth noting that the ski cross race is a sort of cross discipline event, with both Nordic and Alpine parts. This is reflected in her joy of all things skiing – with Pennie it’s all about getting outside on any type of equipment to enjoy winter. In short, she makes skiing fun and it’s impossible not to get caught up in her enthusiasm for the sport.”
Pennie is a native Vermonter from Middlebury and was the Vermont Skimeister Champion in both 1980 and 1981. She is a certified Nordic instructor and has led ski tours to Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Iceland. She is an alum of the University of New Hampshire where she was on the Nordic Team. Fitting of her well-roundedness, her daughters, Karin and Annavitte have competed both as Alpine and Nordic skiers — and it’s fair to say their “best day” is skiing together as a family with dad, Matt, in the woods where there is a combination of covering some serious ground and catching powdery schusses along the way!
In the 1990s, Rand was executive director of the Catamount Trail Association. She is a freelance photographer and an Alpine ski coach and starter for Cochran’s Ski Club. In 2014 she served as director of operations at the Vermont Ski Museum in Stowe VT. Currently Pennie assists Molly Peters coaching the St. Michaels’s College ski team.
Pennie stared the Cochran’s Ski Cross seven years ago as an end of season event — the once local race, has now grown to become a regional phenomenon that draws a diverse field with top collegiate and club racers (including National and International Champions), juniors, masters and local legends of both XC and Alpine skiing. This past April, registration was closed after 200 athletes signed up!
While the Cochran’s event is a celebration of the season and the skiing community there is no doubt that skiing skills and racer mentality are being learned by all the competitors. Many chose to wear costumes to disguise their intents – but it’s fair to say all the racers give it their all in search of bragging rights or just to push their personal boundaries! And the woman behind this fun phenomenon is Pennie, who is right there in the thick of the action, making sure the event is top notch — starting the race all while while cheering for everyone (and laughing in her signature belly laugh)!
Adam Terko of Mansfield Nordic on Nordic Cross 2019, “The hype was real! And the participation and engagement for this type of sport is a big box you can check on the list of ‘why New England is the strongest region in the country.’ It’s not just our awesome access to trails, clubs, competition, and resources. It’s local events like this where community members like Pennie have a vision and are willing to put it all together to make something like this happen…and the ski community that comes out to shred when it happens!”
Our hats are off to Pennie Rand for helping push the level of skiing forward, and NENSA thanks her for all she has done for our sport!
Editors note: Pennie and Matt are currently in Iceland courting their mountain spirit – as it should be.
2019 Cochran’s Nordic Cross Video
Blog from Mansfield Nordic: Why Nordic Cross Matters
NENSA 2021 Championship Event Sites Announced
NENSA is excited to announce the host sites for the 2021 U16 Eastern Championships and Eastern High School Championships!
The 2021 U16 Championships will be held at Fort Kent Outdoor Center in Fort Kent, ME on March 12 – 14, 2021. FKOC did an amazing job hosting this past year’s Eastern High School Championships and we are happy to be working with them again on U16s in 2021.
Eastern High School Championships will be held at Titcomb Mountain in Farmington, Maine on March 19 – 21, 2021. Hosted by the Farmington Ski Club, we’re excited to be holding EHSC in 2021 at the “Friendliest Mountain Around!”
This year we bid two years in advance for our Championship Events, so the 2020 events are already scheduled and announced. As a reminder: U16s in 2020 will be held at Mountain Top Inn & Resort in Chittenden, VT, and EHSC will be held at Gore Mountain in North Creek, NY.
Your June 20th KickZone eNewsletter is here!
Check out all the latest happening and news at NENSA, and beyond HERE
This June 20th issues includes NENSA’s newest sponsor, High Peaks Cyclery, our NENSA Club of the Year and NENSA Coach of the Year Award winners, all the info you need to get psyched and get signed up for the AppGap Challenge, happening on August 3rd, and so much more!
Great Glen Trails to host NEBKL Festival in 2020
We’re so excited to announce that the New England Bill Koch League Festival will return to Great Glen Trails Outdoor Center on February 29 and March 1, 2020! The festival is the marquee event of the Bill Koch League, the largest cross country ski program for children in the United States. Whether a child loves the adventure of cross-country skiing, enjoys playing with friends on skis, or wants to grow up to be a ski racer, the New England Bill Koch League has something for them.
Once a year, skiers and clubs from all over New England and New York come together at the annual Festival for a weekend of fun and cross country skiing. The site rotates annually through the states of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine. NENSA is pleased to be working with Great Glen Trails Outdoor Center and Great Glen BKL again on such a fun and inclusive event. The weekend will feature relay and individual races by age group, as well as a healthy mix of non-racing activities that all can enjoy.
Great Glen hosted the Festival in 2016 with the theme of “White Mountain Magic,” a celebration of the wonder of being out enjoying the natural world in winter. The theme of this year’s festival will be “Superheroes” which will be a celebration of the inherent superpowers that exist in all of us—skiers, coaches, and parents alike!
Lodging information can be found at http://nensa.net/bkl-festival/bkl-festival-lodging/