Rev Tour Mt Snow

FINN SHILEY JUST GETTIN' STARTED

I have been on snow almost daily since early Nov and I can say that today, at Ragged Mt in NH, I got my first powder turns with my Nephew Finn and his family.  It was much needed.. Sadly I could not get my surf-style pow slashes or shoot tree limb pipelines without some suffering in my park-tenderized back and feet.  Oh well, the torch can pass to Finn!
Looking back on the Rev Tour, some immediate highlights come to mind.  Seeing Shelby, Serena and Jenn on the Podium for HP was really cool.  It will be tough to see Jenn and Shelby graduate, and its nice to see a young new rider following those two.  Spencer Shaw continues to ride strong and placed third in mens HP.  He also won $250 for being the only rider to land a 1080.  Although he didn't agree with pipe and its dimensions, he had his way with it.  Other SMS riders to make pipe finals include Kylie Kennedy, Chris Tierney, Joe Mensch and James Haffner.
Sunday's slopestyle found the crew a little beat up, with more hardship in store.  Sore parts plagued the crew, but Kylie, Joe, Mike Perle, Chris Tierney and Hunter Wood all made slope finals.  No sooner than practice opened I recieved a call to come down to jump 3 where Chris Tierney had sustained a concussion.  It was a nasty looking impact and we all feel for the Tierney family.  Our riders somehow avoided the podium on Sunday, but will come into the next event strong and hungry.  A big shout out to Joe Mensch, Kylie Kennedy and Chris Tierney for making finals in both Slope and Pipe, and to the Podium sweepers, Jenn, Serena and Shelby Simpson.

"SMS Riders Land Runs"... At Mammoth Grand Prix

At the years first Grand Prix in Copper Mtn I was proud that our first ever elite girls squad held their FIS seedings among the worlds best. I mentioned that it was long term strategy implementation and execution just to get on the invite list at these events. I mentioned also that these are the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Qualifiers for the US Team and plenty of other national teams. To be a high school athlete at a world class event is an incredible honor, and an opportunity that few will ever get the chance to understand. For me as a coach and a witness to work with these kids and Kirk out here is as much as i could ever ask for. The reason is that everyone here is taking the opportunity in hand. To improve at the little skills that bring the big runs together and not overreach is the challenge that Jenn Cohen, Joe Mensch, James Haffner, Shelby Simpson, Serena Shaw and Spencer Shaw have met today. With one day in a little (18foot)pipe and one day in an imperfect 22' to get back to form before today's contest the SMS Elite kids proved to the world why they deserve to be here. The event score keeper's laptap is still down and the boys results are not in but for the women we have a proud crew led by Serena Shaw in 17th, Jennifer Cohen in 23rd and followed up by Shelby Simpson in 29th. Shelby is bringing more amplitude and getting all of her tricks but couldn't smoothe it out today. Jenn and Serena each landed their strongest runs of the year. Not once but twice. The kicker for a coach is that each girl added one to two points to their first run by tightening up combos and changing up grabs. SMS Snowboarding has a saying,"sms riders land runs"... Today they landed and then landed better runs. My hats off and it feels good.