URGENT INFORMATION! No, really, it is. You could live without it, but you wouldn’t enjoy the type of life you would be living.

With significant action on the UW Nordic Team front these days, rumours have been swirling. These rumours are about anything from the multiple locations of the North Bay OUA Qualifiers, the participating female UW team, and the persistent questions about the origins and sheer awesomeness of Henry Reich. In attempt to quell these rumours, the UWNN has steered completely around them and instead opted to inform the team of the upcoming mandatory* team activity. Team half-buzz-half-shave-cuts! The UWNN can feel the excitement radiating out from the team. Now, it is understandable you may have no idea what the UWNN is describing.

 

 

Courtesy Vincent Van Gogh

 

As you can see clearly from an artists interpretation, this involves hair removal on one half of the face and head but not the other. It has been guaranteed as the fastest possible combination of hair for ski racing, tested extensively by the Republic of South Africa’s ski team. Fortunately, for this operation you need to bring nothing but a beard and a full head of hair – trimming equipment will be provided on site.

The UWNN is here for your well being, so trust us.

 

 

 

 

*Please refer to Form 3b, Section 22.2a, SubSection 12ii, where team members signed away the right to choose your own haircut.

Further elaboration…

For those of you unsure of what “the same fashion as that of the World Cup” means, refer to this handy-dandy table for all your point collection needs.

 

Place	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Points	100	80	60	45	30	20	10	1

 

Similar to the World Cup, but not exactly the same.

 

Petra Majdic, member of the Slovenian World Cup Team – not currently on the UW Ski Team, but has an incredibly awesome suit.

UW Cup – Like the World Cup, but without all the sponsors, prize money, city sprints and Petter Northug Jr.

At a recent exclusive to the UWNN press conference, coach Colin Rhodes announced the reinstatement of University of Waterloo Cup. The UW Cup is awarded to the most successful male and female skiers on the UW ski team each year, based on consistency, speed, and “square feet of pure awesomeness” to quote some random TV commercial. Rhodes outlined the 18 races counting towards the overall, and the points are organised in the same fashion as that of the World Cup. As with the World Cup, whomever amasses the most points over the course of the season is declared the winner, and receives a truckload of bragging rights.* Notable races on the schedule include Eastern Canadians (held at Nakkertok in Ottawa) as well as the OUA Championships, and the Olympics. Television coverage will be limited, as will live results, and the best way to follow your favourites is right here on the UWNN sidebar.

The UW Cup is the premiere title to win as a member of the UW Nordic Ski team, and has seen past winners such as Justin Faulkner, Andrea Dupont, Ian Murray among many other prominent figures.

It’s the New Year, and with 2010 comes a new age in UWNN reporting – there will be a minimum of two content updates a week for the entire ski season – stay tuned!

Sincerely,

The UWNN Staff

 

*Please be prepared to provide your own truck.

Skiing Conditions in Waterloo – Sexier Than You Might Imagine

Last week most of Ontario benefitted from a massive winter storm, which – depending on where you live – provided rain, freezing rain, snow, or bucketloads of snow (there was a rumour circulating regarding a 50 cm dump in the North Bay area). However awesome the entire province getting snow is, what really matters is whether we can ski!

The UW Nordic News (UWNN) is more than happy to report that the UW Nordic Ski Team was able to enjoy rock skiing conditions at least 4 days last week, if you were brave, 5, if you failed all your classes, 6-10. “Skiing in Waterloo?? But where???”, UWNN hears you exclaim. Well, for starters see the previous post, which gained national and international fame via the CCC website. Clearly some skiing is possible in the Waterloo area, even if it requires a little effort.

This past weekend, a wide variety of locales were sample by the crew here at UWNN, and we’re going to give you an update on each one.

 

North Campus

The Skinny: A piece of land behind some industrial buildings by the Columbia IceFields facility, it is UW Nordic’s prime fall training ground. Some small hills, some soccer fields, and the occasional sketchbag walking the path from residence buildings/campus over to Beringer Rd are pretty much all North Campus has to offer in the fall. In the winter, there is no change, except the sketchbags are colder and more miserable. The location is close to campus, most 1st year residences and quite a lot of residential housing, so is easily accessible without a car to most students.

Trail Conditions: Some old old guy was out skiing back and forth across one of the soccer fields, so I guess there is a little bit of a trail. Other than that, it’s whatever you make it.

Trail KM without loops: Maybe 2, if you’re creative.

Skating: Only if there is a crust. Currently there is not.

Classic: Not track set, but if you’re just going out for a hack, it’ll do the job.

Rock Skis: Highly recommended.

Rating: 1.5 Jaervahinin’s out of 3

 

The UWNN’s sickest pair of Jarvinen’s ever.

 

Westmount Golf Course

The Skinny: A small golf course set in town with plenty of fun rolling bits, some T-boxes, and if you get there early enough in the season, greens not fenced off. Used by overage alcohol fuelled sliders, you’re often able to find beer cans and broken sleds in the early season.

Trail Conditions: Beautiful powder. Sunny. Deep snow baskets required, as well as weight shift (at least it was this Saturday).

Trail KM without loops: At least 4, but if you investigate the holes in the middle instead of just circling the outside, easily more.

Skating: Do-able, but is going to be a lot of work.

Classic: If you’re lucky, someone will have arrived before you and skied the entire 18 holes doing a nice job. If not, then you’re stuck grooming your own trail, which will probably suck and end with a lot of fresh snow in your boots.

Rock Skis: Probably, those paved cart paths with the goofy rock retaining walls tend to jump out of nowhere, especially on the down hills.

Rating: A pair of tights, some warm up pants and 3 sweaty smelly Craft’s out of 6

 

The recommended type of baskets for West G&CC.

 

 

Bechtel Park

The Skinny: A large park, with several soccer fields both in and out door. The Bridge St. and University Av. location overlooks Highway 85, borders a cemetery, and has a massive parking lot which is ideal for the up-and-coming rally driver. A place of pain and suffering during UW Nordic fall intervals, and the best ski location per travel time in the Waterloo region.

Trail Conditions: Snowmobile rolled, somewhat grassy and icy. On the one large uphill, gravel pokes through the snow. Roughly 5 cm of rolled cover on all trails.

Trail KM without loops: At this point 5, depending on your definition of ‘loop’.

Skating: Absolutely.

Classic: No tracks set yet, but could be good.

Rock Skis: In places, but if you stick to the fields and the right areas, race skis are a go. On the back hill, and if you suck at technical, tight corners in the woods, rock skis.

Rating: A John Kristian Dahl, Erik Brandsdal, Ola Vigen Hattestad, and Petter Northug Jr. out of the Norwegian Sprint Team.

 

Northug (Bib 20) and Hattestad (Red Leaders Bib) kicking ass in a World Cup Free Sprint.

 

 

What is interesting about this picture?

UW Season Opener!

While the entire province struggles with warm temperatures, rain, and the frustration of a later-than-usual snowfall, the UW Nordic Ski team has had their first on snow session of the year! A little bit of shovelling, some recycling bins, an arena and several enthusiastic people later, the first annual UW Nordic Ski figure-8 was constructed. It looked something like this:

Derek, Colin and Alison getting their snow legs back.

The comprehensive loop included an uphill, a downhill, and a technical hairpin corner, all designed to challenge the skills developed during the fall on rollerskiis.

Andrew Jeffrey demonstrating proper hairpin-turning technique.

Due to the rather warm temperatures and the large turnout, aggressive repairs had to be conducted to keep snow on the course, but despite these adverse conditions, dozens of laps were skiied, and the loop existed for almost 24 hours.

Most of the team observing Colin working hard.

Rookies Ryan McNamara and Tim Rhodes navigate grass and snow.

Pretty much everyone had an awesome time, and everyone who failed to show up, really wished they had. A highly recommended team-building, muscle-building and skill-building activity. Stay tuned for more news, as the snow flies, so will we.

Today’s Waterloo Snow Report: There isn’t any.

Attendance Challenge!

You may (if you are on the team) or may not (if you are anyone else in the world) have been aware that for the month of November, the University of Waterloo Nordic Ski Team has been running an attendance challenge. This means that the team is divided into two sections who then compete to generate the most attendance points at practise for the month. The losing team makes the winning team a fantastic, healthy and above all health-code approved dinner.

While in the past the natural division has been men vs. women, the pure lack of women on the ski team coupled with the sheer determination of the men has resulted in the creation of two new teams.

The Babies – Team members in either their first or second year at UW. Probably does not reflect mental capacity, ability to grow facial hair or napping frequency.

The Elderly – Team members in third year or higher. A reflection of the wealth and experience gathered by being a little bit older and a whole lot wiser.

Today (November 15) represents the mid-point of the competition, so we thought we would update you as to the score. Let you know who is in line for free eats, and who is looking at a pile of dirty dishes.

Team	Total
The Elderly	44
The Babies	39

Go teams! (The author is unbiased!)

UW Duathlon Mass Start Time Trial

Recently the University of Waterloo held its semi-annual fall run-rollerski duathlon. Staged on a beautiful Saturday morning, the duathlon was designed to test the athletes running, rollerskiing and putting-on-boots-under-pressure abilities. The order of events was a 6 km out-and-back run over a quite hilly course followed by a hectic transition to rollerskis for a further 6km.

Results have been made official at this time, and are as follows:

Name	Run	Transition	Ski	Total
Nolan Beanlands	23:58	1:22	20:59	46:05
Andrew Jeffrey	24:11	1:41	21:15	47:07
Tim Rhodes	24:31	0:35	22:44	48:13
Colin Rhodes	25:39	0:52	25:00	51:31
Ryan McNamara	26:31	1:44	24:17	52:32
Heather Foley	34:13	0:57	22:40	57:50
Alison Stephenson	31:48	1:42	25:10	58:40
Derek Hartman	25:52	-	-	-

 

As per usual with anything involving rollerskiis, there is a disclaimer about ski speed. Various speeds exist, so results contain a measure of inaccuracy.

Injury Update:

Martha Sutton – Week to week with a lower body injury

Kieran Jones – Day to day with a core strain