SAM Magazine-Portland, Me., June 22, 2007-Maine ski resorts fought off a brutal early season to post a modest gain of 1 percent on total skier visits for the 2006-07 season. The gain came in the face of a 6.7 percent downturn on the year for the Northeast region, and a 6.9 percent drop for the nation as a whole. Late-season storms saved the stat...

SAM Magazine-Aspen, Colo., June 22, 2007-The Colorado Tramway Safety Board (CTSB) has received a complaint from the family of a girl who fell off an Aspen chairlift last winter. Celine Ofenito, age 10, slipped and fell approximately 60 feet off of Aspen's Cloud 9 lift in February. The girl suffered several injuries as a result of the fall, includin...

SAM Magazine-Park City, Utah, June 21, 2007-American Skiing Company (ASC) plans to dissolve itself now that it has agreed to sell Sunday River and Sugarloaf, Me., to Boyne USA. As a result of the move to dissolve the corporation, ownership of the remaining ASC resort, The Canyons, will pass to Oak Hill Capital Partners, currently the majority stock...

SAM Magazine--North Woodstock, N.H., June 20, 2007--Ski NH reported a total of 1,960,251 visits for the 2006-07 season, which is three percent less than last season. Thanks to warm temps and little snow in New England for the first half of the season, visits were off in the state by 40 to 60 percent as of Martin Luther King weekend. Once the weathe...

SAM Magazine--Copper Mountain, Colo., June 14, 2007--Colorado Ski Country USA announced that the state set a new visit record during the 2006-07 season with 12.56 million skier visits. It's the second year in a row that Colorado's 26 ski and snowboard resorts have set visitation records, although this past season's 12.56 million visits bested last ...

SAM Magazine - Whitefish, Mt., June 14, 2007 - The Montana ski resort of Big Mountain, outside of Whitefish, has announced that the ski area is launching a new branding and positioning initiative for Big Mountain Resort. As a result, Big Mountain will change its name to Whitefish Mountain Resort As part of the resort's positioning strategy, the...

SAM Magazine - Salt Lake City. Ut., June 13 - Utah ski resorts set the state's fourth consecutive record for skier visits, racking up 4,082,094 skier days. The total bucked a national trend, which saw skier days slip 7% on the year overall. "We've seen some strong growth over the past five years." Commented Ski Utah President Nathan Rafferty. "M...

SAM Magazine - Broomfield, Co., June 13, 2007 - Lucy Kay has been named chief operating officer of Breckenridge Resort. Kay, formerly the vice president of marketing for Keystone and Breckenridge, will assume the reigns of COO immediately. Kay is a familiar face around Summit County, where she's been involved in the ski industry for the past twenty...

SAM Magazine-Warren, Vt., June 8, 2007-Skier visits declined 7 percent in Vermont last season, according to Vermont Ski Areas Association (VSAA). In 2006-07, Vermont ski areas tallied 3,820431 visits, down from the approximately 4.1 million skier visits in 2005-06. The decline was consistent with numbers across the country: total skier visits acros...

SAM Magazine-Park City, Utah, June 6, 2007-Boyne USA is purchasing Sunday River and Sugarloaf/USA, Me., from American Skiing Company (ASC) for $77 million in cash. Boyne will also assume $2 million in debt and other liabilities. "We are excited to bring almost 60 years of resort experience to the New England market," Stephen Kircher, Boyne's pre...

SAM Magazine-Lakewood, Colo., June 4, 2007-Tim White, NSAA director of education, has resigned to become executive director of the National Ski Patrol (NSP), effective June 18. His appointment comes after nearly two years of internal turmoil for the organization, which had left its direction unclear. To that point, White told SAM, "I want to make i...

SAM Magazine - Vancouver, B.C., May 29, 2007 - Intrawest has announced that the company has appointed Michael Forsayeth as chief financial officer. Forsayeth will head Intrawest's global financial operations, reporting directly to president and COO Alex Wasilov. Based out of Intrawest's global headquarters in Vancouver, Canada, Forsayeth has ser...

SAM Magazine - Boulder, Co., May 29, 2007 - Mountain Sports Media, the owners of Ski and Skiing Magazines, Warren Miller's SnoWorld and SkiNet.com have announced the acquisition of SnowGallera.com by MSM. SnowGalleria.com, an online collective of retailers which sends business via the web to specialty retailers, was launched by Descente/DNA COO ...

SAM Magazine - Minturn, Co., May 23, 2007 - A private resort outside of Vail has won preliminary approval from the Minturn Planning Commission. Last night the Commission recommended that the Minturn Town Council approve the Ginn Development Company's private ski and golf community located outside the town on Battle Mountain. The proposed ski area, ...

SAM Magazine-McLean, Va., May 24, 2007-Total dollar sales for wintersports specialty stores rebounded from a midseason slump, finishing at $1.8 billion, just one percent off last year's total, according to the end-of-season Retail Audit conducted by Leisure Trends Group for SnowSports Industries America (SIA). Overall unit sales and average retail ...