The Game
Photos courtesy Ron Panky/MSI
With just one air left in my run before the finish, I roll up to the final cliff band in the middle of Ruby Bowl. Making one too many turns, I miss the entrance and am forced to traverse over a bush to get to the rock I want to drop. Once there, however, I realize I'm facing the wrong way. Crap. The clock is ticking; I imagine the judges checking off points as I stall like an idiot. I hastily make half of a hop turn, point down the fall line, and launch. I try to shift my weight and land on my right ski. Instead, I get off axis, my upper body rotating forward towards the ground until...Wham! My right tip punches in, and the ski releases at the same moment my head augers into the snow. As I hop uphill to grab my ski, cursing, the irony of the situation is apparent. I chickened out of the hard line, and just blew my back-up plan, crashing on a simple air. Big mountain competitions are as much a mental game as a physical one; my play-it-safe strategy just backfired.
The Canadian Freeskiing Championships is a difficult contest for several reasons: it's the first contest of the year, comes early in the ski season, and the sheer enormity of Whistler's terrain is puckering. Choosing a line takes on an importance beyond competition strategy-if you go somewhere you can't handle, chances are that multiple cliff bands wait below. It's enough to psych you out.