Archive for the 'Hopefuls Announcements' Category

Click here to check out the 2012 OMS Summer Camp Opportunities!

Believe it or not, our final race and last day of Hopefuls for the season is this Saturday. The winter has gone by way too quickly but it is so great to see how much all the kids have improved with their skiing. We will meet this Saturday at the Sugar House at 9 am. We’ll be racing on Wardance. Each team will inspect the course and we plan to start the race by 9:45. After the race we’ll leave the course open for parents, kids and coaches to challenge each other. We’ll have a pizza party and awards beginning at 12:30 at the Yurt at the base of the Black Ridge Chair.

Here are some photos from the Scavenger Hunt last weekend (Thanks to coach Paul Muzyka)

Hi All, This Saturday we will have our Scavenger Hunt, we haven’t done it in a couple of years and we are excited to be scavenging about the mountain on Saturday morning. So, be prepared and study your trail maps between now and Saturday morning. The plan is to meet on Saturday morning at the Sugar House at 9 am, teams will then head out on the mountain with their clues and try to solve the riddle. All groups will return to the Sugar House at 11 am and we will determine the winner of the hunt. We’ll meet again at noon for the afternoon session of training.

Also, most of you have joined OMARA. OMARA is our ski club and your annual dues support social events (ie parent info meeting in Dec), scholarships for athlete travel, race equipment, and many other things. OMARA is in the process of raising funds to build a clubhouse on the mountain which would be available for all members to enjoy and utilize. Saturday morning there will be a brief informational meeting downstairs in the Sugar House at 9 am for those who are interested in learning more about this project. The Clubhouse would be a great addition to our OMARA community and we’d love to get the word out to our youngest and largest group. Please join us for a short meeting this  Saturday morning after you have dropped the kids off with their groups.

Finally, our last race and final Hopeful session of the season will be on Saturday, March 17th. We will be racing on Wardance that day, followed by a pizza party at the base area of Wardance. It is always a fun event and we look forward to everyone participating that day, we will also have the opportunity for kids to race their parents at the conclusion of our official race. We hope you can join us for the final celebration!

See you on Saturday

Pam, Jim and the Hopeful Coaches

Vacation week is here and best of all, we are supposed to get some snow tonight! Hopefuls will be training this week on Saturday 2/18, Tuesday 2/21 (Race Day), Thursday 2/23 and Saturday 2/25. Please meet your teams at the Sugar House, we’ll ski 9-11 and 12-2 each of our training days.

I want to let everyone know about two upcoming events. This Saturday, 2/18, is the Okemo Mountain School Winterfestival from 7-10 pm in the Clock Tower Base Lodge. This is a fun event with wine and beer tasting, a sampling of foods from area restaurants and a silent auction, all proceeds to benefit Okemo Mountain School. This event is a huge fundraiser for the school. Details on the event can be found on the OMARA homepage. There are some great silent auction items up for bidding and some fantastic wines to taste. Hope you can join us for the evening.

The following Saturday, 2/25, is Comedy Night also at the Clock Tower Base Lodge. This event benefits the OMS scholarship fund and Black River High School’s Project Graduation. Please consider joining us for a night of fun and laughs. More information can be found on the OMARA webpage.

See you all on the hill soon.

Pam, Jim and the Hopeful Coaches

The Hopefuls will be training on our usual schedule this weekend. Meet your teams at the Sugar House at 9 am skiing until 11, break for lunch then regroup at noon and ski until 2 pm. We are really proud of the kids racing last weekend and it is evident how much they have all been improving.

A note about the Hopeful races. Our races are held at the race arena and run in a dual course format. We’ve had some questions about athletes times and the accuracy of some of them. We try, as best we can, to make the timing accurate. It is not uncommon for times to be missed on the announcing side of things. There is so much going on in the timing building that sometimes an athletes time cannot be announced. We are getting kids on course, monitoring what is happening on course, and recording finish times. Unfortunately, at the Hopeful level there is no backup hand timing which means we are relying solely on the computer for an athletes time, and yes, sometimes there are false starts and false finishes.

Once you are at the Devo level and beyond you will be required to join VARA and USSA and there will be back up timing at all the races. At the Hopeful level we view the races as more about the experience than the actual race times and results. Again, we do our best to insure that the timing and results are accurate. Hopefully, your children enjoy the race experiences with our program and gain confidence and experience to bring their skiing to the next level.

JACKETS: the second order of jackets has arrived. Ellen and Leigh will be upstairs in the Competition Center on Saturday from 2:15-3:15 pm for pickup.

There will be some awesome racing on the mountain this weekend as Okemo is hosting the J1-J2 State championships. These kids are 15-19 years old. Saturday they will be racing Slalom on Wardance, Sunday is Giant Slalom on Chief and Monday is a Super-G on Chief. If you get the opportunity swing by the race venues to check out some fast skiing.

See you all on the hill Saturday!

Pam, Jim and the Hopeful Coaches

This Saturday we have our 3rd race. As always meet your teams at the Sugar House at 9 am, head over to the race arena for inspection. We’ll hope to start the race by 9:45, everyone get two race runs. Please meet your child immediately after the race for lunch. In the afternoon we’ll ski from 12-2, meeting at the Sugar House. Results and awards at 2 pm. Thanks to all the parents for their support of all the kids racing! See you Saturday.

Also, there are still a few jackets to be picked up in the Comp Center, please contact Ellen or Leigh to coordinate pickup.

Pam, Jim and the Hopeful Coaches

This Saturday we will have a normal training day, skiing from 9-11 and 12-2, meeting at the Sugar House. Last Saturday we had 93 kids race, I know that has to be some kind of record. WOW, so great to see all the kids having fun and parents cheering them on! Results are now posted on the website.

If you ordered a jacket in the first round of orders they have arrived. Many people picked them up last weekend but we still have several to be picked up (specifically, Waldron, Blake, Black, Visnic and Richardson). I will be upstairs in the Competition Center on Saturday morning from 8-8:30 am, please meet me there to pick up your jackets. If that time doesn’t work let me know and we’ll arrange something else. Thanks!

See you all on Saturday

Pam, Jim and the Hopeful Coaches

Hi All!

I know you’ve been waiting, and I’ve finally posted them, the Hopefuls results from January 21st are available!!

Click here to go see them!

Saturday 1/21 is our second race of the season. We’ll plan to meet at the Sugar House at 9 am, then ski directly to the start house on Bull Run to inspect. At this point we’ll plan on running a single course again and the race is scheduled to start at 9:30 so plan to come out and cheer on the kids. Each athlete will take two runs in the race course and we should be finished by 11 am. Parents, please plan to meet your child at the end of the race, we will not be returning in groups to the Sugar House. After lunch, we’ll meet again at noon and ski until 2 pm at which time there will be results and awards in front of the Sugar House.

The Hopeful Jackets have arrived. If you have ordered a jacket, you may pick it up in the Competition Center between 2:15 and 3:15 on Saturday afternoon. If you have not ordered one yet we are doing a second order to use up the remaining fabric, if interested please bring a check and sizing info on Saturday and give to Leigh or Ellen.

Looking forward to a great race on Saturday.

Pam, Jim and the Hopeful Coaches

We are getting some snow here in VT, the ground is covered and it is still coming down. Yeah!! We saw some great skiing in the race last weekend and the kids all seemed to have fun despite some nervous jitters. This Saturday 1/14, we’ll have training as usual. Meet at the Sugar House at 9 am ski till 11 am, regroup again after lunch and ski from 12-2. Keep hoping for snow and we’ll see you on the hill!

Pam, Jim and the Hopeful Coaches