Nor Am Athletes at Killington, VT and Mt Gabriel, QUE:

Good luck to our Eastern mogul and half pipe athletes competing at the international event, URTUR's Killington Nor Am in Killington, Vermont this weekend. The event will be livestreamed on www.urtur.com/live. Also, good luck to our Eastern aerial athletes competing at the Mt Gabriel Nor Am event in Canada.

DEW TOUR:

Don't forget the Dew Tour is at Mt Snow this weekend. Here is a link for information if you want to go and check it out!!

ECS, Freeride Teams - Waterville Open, Waterville Valley, NH - slopestyle/halfpipe.

The third stop on the Eastern Freestyle Salomon Freeride Tour is this weekend at Waterville Valley. Check in is at the WVBBTS Competition Center.

EQS, Western Region - Holiday Valley, NY - Feb 6-7 - m/ss-ss.

A great warm-up event to this year's host of EQS Championships.

We are psyched here at Holiday Valley for our FREESTYLE EXTRAVAGANZA!!

Course builder extraordinair Richie Morgan, fresh from his World Cup course work at Lake Placid, has built us a fantastic THREE LINE 175-meter mogul course on the Chute. Besides our fresh snow that we have gotten every day this week our snow making crew have blown snow to Richie’s specifications to ensure great conditions and nice soft landings!

Slopestyle will be held on Sunday on Snoozer this year. It is a great venue and easily accessible to spectators by a short walk from the Main Chalet. The course has been custom made just for our meet. Besides the two awesome jumps, there will be “features” that will please both the little kids and the big ones too.

Get psyched…Come Join Us…Get a taste of the site of B Champs !!!

Because everyone knows how we enjoy our ‘B’ Freestyle Meets here at Holiday Valley !!!

EQS, Eastern Region - Sunapee, NH - Feb 6-7 - m/m.

Assuming the 2nd Annual Banana Eating Contest will again take place - hopefully, they decide to do it on Sunday!! (hint. hint.)

Have a great weekend!! Remember - next weekend's A event is at Sugarloaf on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and is the last event before the Points List closes that generates the invitations for Junior Olympics at Waterville Valley, NH in 2010!!!

GO BIG!

Coach Deb

This is ALMOST a "Last Week in Freestyle" report - Sorry!

ECS, A Mogul Teams - Killington Klassic - Jan 30-31 - moguls/duals.

We are FINALLY back over at Bear Mtn!!! Training tickets are available on the third floor of Bear Mtn Lodge. Training will start at noon on Friday - unless there is an influx of help from the community. Mother Nature set back the build schedule and from what I understand they got a huge head start on it today - but will need the extra time in the morning to finish up.

ECS, Freeride Teams - Barker Basin Battle, Sunday River - Jan 30-31 - slopestyle/halfpipe.

The second stop on the Eastern Freestyle Salomon Freeride Tour is this weekend at Sunday River. Check in on Friday is at the competition center and on competition days will be on the third floor of Barker Lodge.

EQS, Western Region - Rip's Monster Mogul Mash, Hunter Mountain - Jan 30-31 - m/m.

Huntah always puts on a great B event. As of 10pm on Thursday there are still a few spots left!!

EQS, Eastern Region - Sugarloaf, USA - Jan 30-31 - m/double slopestyle.

Sugarloaf has PLENTY of room for more competitors!! Head on up!

Good luck to our Eastern Freestyle teams competing at the Lake Placid Nor Am Friday and Saturday. The event will be livestreamed on www.urtur.com/live.

Congrats to our former Eastern teammates that were named to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver this week! Go East Coast!

Ashley Caldwell - Waterville

Dylan Ferguson - Waterville

Emily Cook - CVA

Hannah Kearney - Waterville

Matt Depeters - Buffalo Ski Club

Michael Morse - Killington Mountain School

GO BIG!

Coach Deb

Sugarloaf EQS-B event January 30-31 will be Moguls on Saturday and 2 Slopestyle events on Sunday

The idea of setting a quota of 90 athletes per B event was done to address primarily the following items:

1. Ensure all B athletes get two runs - this was by far the primary objective and we felt that it was very important for a development circuit such as EQS that the kids all got a second chance.

2. Create a safer environment for B athletes - with upwards of 150 athletes at one event it was not an ideal situation for many reasons: Many athletes and parents are new to the sport; the training time in the morning is not sufficient for this many athletes; it is difficult for the coaches to keep track of everyone; and if it is really cold it could get extremely uncomfortable - especially for the youngest participants.

3. Level load events - Many centrally located events in the East were a guaranteed performance cut every time due to out of region teams traveling for their events. This was deemed as an unfair situation. This is also why we institued the policy whereby in region athletes had first crack at their own events and if the event did not fill after a week the registration was opened to everyone.

4. Promote the idea of spending more time training than competing - attending 4 or 5 competitions as a B is the recommended amount. We discovered that quite a few B athletes were competing almost every week! It is important to note that all coaches agreed unanimously on this note.

The EFCC really cares about all of the athletes and the sport and we are trying hard to do the right thing. Recognize that we cannot create the perfect situation for all instances but we do firmly believe we have everyone's best interest at heart.

~excerpts from an email to a parent that Head Bristol Coach and the EQS Sub Committee Chair, John Kroetz, sent today.

To those of you that take the time to read my "blah blah blah" - I really do appreciate it. I need your help to get the rest of the community on board.

#1: JOIN EASTERN FREESTYLE EMAIL LIST. PLEASE help me and share this resource with your fellow parents, coaches and officials TODAY, so we can continue to build an educated community that raises the next Olympians!! Just tell them to: GO TO THE SITE AND CLICK ON EMAIL NEWS AT THE TOP. Boom. Done. Thanks!

#2: DO NOT CONTACT USSA. The ONLY reason a member of the Eastern Freestyle community should have to contact USSA is to register, renew or upgrade a membership. We are one of the only divisions to have a USSA employee in our office. If they continue to receive emails and calls from our community, then we may lose this position. THIS WOULD BE BAD!! From this point forward, please refer all questions to the Eastern Office: Sherry Albert at: office@easternfreestyle.org. Having said that, Chances are MOST of your questions can be answered right here on the Eastern website. Please take a moment to hit all the "trails" on the Trail Map - you might find a few that improve your skills!! Ultimately, Eastern Program Directors and Head Coaches should really be your first point of reference as the professionals. Most of the time, if one parent has a question or concern, then it is relevant to their entire team or the entire community - let the program directors/head coaches get the answers for you so they can turnaround and communicate the answers to the whole team. If your Program Director/Head Coach cannot answer the question, let them contact their fellow colleagues to get the answer for you.

#3: How to be a Winning Parent...this document is a favorite of mine. Let your kids own their sport - be a supporter, a fan and the bill payer!! We can't thank you enough for all that you do to support our athletes - but, please, just do that. No need to solve the world's problems at the bottom of the course/venue. Nothing will ever be perfect in freestyle or the world - except your child!!

1. Your child should never be taught to view his or her opponent as the “Bad Guy”.

2. Encourage your child to compete against himself/herself.  The ultimate goal of the sport is to challenge oneself and continually improve.  Winning in sports is about doing the best that you can, regardless of the outcome or the results of your opponent.

3. Do not define success and failure in terms of winning and losing.  If a child competes his/her very best and doesn’t achieve their goals, you need to help them feel like a winner. 

4. Be supportive.  Do not coach.  Coaching interferes with your role as a parent and supporter of the team.  Be your child’s best fan - provide support, encouragement, empathy, transportation & money - but leave the coaching and instruction to the coach.

5. The more fun an athlete is having the more he/she will learn and the better they will perform.  If your child is not having fun – investigate!  What is keeping them from having fun?  Is it the coaching, is it pressure or is it you?

6. Whose goal is it?  Is your child competing because they don’t want to disappoint you, because they know how important the sport is to you and are these goals and aspirations theirs or yours?  It is quite normal and healthy to want your child to excel and be as successful as possible, but you cannot make this happen by pressuring them with your expectations or by using guilt or bribery to keep them involved.  If they have their own goals and reasons for participating, they will be far more motivated to excel and therefore far more successful.

7. Remember the importance of high self-esteem in all your interactions with your child-athlete.  Athletes of all levels and ages perform in direct relationship to how they feel about themselves.  Make your child feel good about himself/herself and you’ve given him/her a gift that lasts a lifetime. 

8. Give your child the gift of failure.  The most successful people both in and out of sports do two things differently.  First, they are willing to take risks and therefore fail more frequently.  Second they use their failures in a positive way as a source of motivation and feedback to improve.  Failure is a perfect stepping-stone to success. 

9. Stress the process, (skill acquisition, mastery and fun), not the outcome.  In any peak performance, the athlete is totally oblivious to the outcome and is absorbed in the here and now of their actual performance.  An outcome focus will almost always distract and tighten up the athlete insuring bad performance.  If you truly want your child to succeed, help get his/her focus away from how important the contest is and have them focus on the task at hand.  Supportive parents de-emphasize winning and instead stress learning the skills and participating.

10. Avoid comparisons and respect developmental differences.  Comparisons are inaccurate and destructive since every child matures and develops differently.

11. Teach your child to have perspective on the sports experience.  The sports media would like you to believe that sport and winning and losing is larger than life.  This lack of perspective frequently trickles down to the youth sport level and young athletes often come away from competition with a distorted view of themselves and how they performed.  Parents need to help their child develop realistic expectations of themselves, their abilities and how they played without robbing the child of his/her dreams.

THIS WEEK IN EASTERN FREESTYLE - Jan 22nd - 24th.

No one has sent me any fun teasers for their event yet so we are just stuck with the event info sheets on the Events page.

EQS Central B's

Stevek Mogul Challenge at Stratton Mountain, Vermont. Moguls on Saturday and Sunday. 

Carinthia Cup at Mt Snow, Vermont. Slopestyle and Aerials on Saturday. 

EQS Western B's

Seven Springs Mogul Smackdown, Seven Springs, PA. Moguls on Saturday and Sunday. 

ECS A Mogul Teams

Rosemary Bowl, Waterville Valley, NH. The Aerial events were postponed until February 14th! The Eastern Division Jump qualification on Friday. Click here for more information. Mogul training on Friday does not open until 11am. Saturday Moguls. Sunday Duals.

Athletes At the Peak

Starting Thursday our former teammates will be competing in Lake Placid, New York at the last stop on the FIS World Cup Tour before the 2010 Vancouver Games. Come on over and cheer the crew on as they compete to gain spots onto the USA Freestyle 2010 Olympic Team!! For more information, check out the event info site.

Have a great weekend!

Go Big!

Coach Deb

Version 2:

WAZZUP????? MT Snow to the rescue!!!!

The slopestyle scheduled for Okemo on Jan 9th will be held at Mt Snow on Carinthia. They have five features all set to go. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

Just register for the event on the Okemo registration and we will transfer it to Mt. Snow. If you had registered for Okemo slopestyle and CANNOT attend Mt Snow, then please send the Eastern Office an email to let us know.

Version 1:

To the Eastern Freestyle Community,

IS THIS BRAIN BUCKET SAFE?

This is the first in a series of “Did You Know…” articles from TD’s/Officials to be shared with Eastern Freestyle members. Anyone can submit ideas for content or even whole articles to: ed.albert@gortons.com.

Due to the on going snow depression in New England, the Killington B Opener Mogul Event has been cancelled.  Killington hopes that all B athletes take advantage of the available training weekends and holiday weeks  in December to work on proper mogul skill development.  See you all on the B tour in 2010!

All registration for competitions is online at Eastern Freestyle on the Events link.

Having said that, the registration process for EQS meets has changed significantly this year.