We Remember…
Everett Kircher, 85 — As a ski resort operator, Everett Kircher ranks high as a bold innovator. Consider some of his firsts: the first chairlift in the Midwest. For this he bought one of Sun Valley’s singles, originally installed there in 1936 and installed it at his new resort at Boyne Mt., Mich., in 1948. He later converted it to a double. He installed the world’s first triple, a Riblet, in 1963, and for an encore, installed the world’s first quad, a Heron, in 1964. He was years ahead of his time in this. Although his 1992 six-pack was the first in the U.S., it was not a world’s first.
Later, his Michigan ski holdings expanded, as Boyne USA, to include resorts in Washington, Montana, Utah and British Columbia. Kircher died January 16.
Heinz-Dieter Schmoll, 76 — Well-known in European ski circles, Schmoll was editor of Motor im Schnee, German equivalent of SAM, for over 30 years. Later, Schmoll compiled an annual global directory of passenger ropeways. He died January 8.
Contraction — The Ski Industry Answer?
By Joel Bourassa, Ski NH International Director
Maybe the ski industry should learn a bit from Major League Baseball. As well documented, Major League Baseball is suffering from saturation, with too many teams and not enough profits. A strong argument could be made that the ski industry is in a similar situation. I propose that at the NSAA annual meeting the owners of the U.S. resorts get together to accomplish the following:
1) Ask for an anti-trust exemption from the U.S. Legislature. Hey, baseball has had one for years, why not?
2) Change our industry name to Major League Skiing (MLS). Note: “Major League Snowsports” just doesn’t sound very, well, major league. Set up an Eastern Division, Central Division and Western Division. A Southern Division? Nah.
3) Vote to eliminate several “franchises” in each region. I’d suggest eliminating Killington, Wachusett and Sunday River in the East. (New Hampshire would see more “parity” that way.) In the West, let’s get rid of Winter Park, Squaw and Mt. Hood to start with. Maybe Taos, Snowshoe, Boyne and Gore should go as well. The rest of the ski resorts would see higher attendance and larger profits, so it’s got to be good for MLS.
4) Institute free agency for ski resort employees. After four years with the same ski resort, any employee could opt for free agency and test the market. Imagine the joys of instituting trading deadlines. “Okay, Bill, I’ll trade you two lift attendants and one ticket seller for a snowmaker and a parking attendant to be named later.” Or, “Sorry Fred, we couldn’t find any takers, so we are giving you your unconditional release.” So much for the employment problem!
5) Major League Skiing, like Major League Baseball, could get taxpayer funds to help build new larger-capacity facilities, complete with corporate luxury boxes and corporate names. For example, Jay Peak in Vermont could be renamed the Ben & Jerry’s Resort, or Loon Mountain’s pending expansion could have the Citizen’s Bank Quad and Dean Kamen’s Trail and so on. Huge television contracts…Endless possibilities!
6) Like MLB, institute a rule that no ski resort can sell to a new owner without agreement from the rest of the owners. That way, MLS can keep the undesirables out.
7) Appoint NSAA’s Michael Berry the new Commissioner of Skiing for life.
I think the timing for Major League Skiing is perfect right now. The Boston Red Sox were recently sold to a group that includes former American Ski Company executive Les Otten, who probably could help guide this entire process.
Diversity Gone Awry
By Roger Lohr
“If someone’s grandmother, who knew nothing about snow sports, looked up from the bottom of the mountain at the skiers, snowboarders, telemarkers, ski skaters and others, to her they would all appear to be just skiers coming down the mountain.”
I remember words to that effect being uttered at an SIA board meeting many years ago by Brad Steward, an early giant in the snowboarding world. They haunt me to this day, especially when I think of the photograph of the three firemen raising the flag above the smoking remains of the World Trade Center. It seems there was a decision that the image needed to be recreated so that the three white firefighters were changed to one white, one black and one Latino. Just as my stomach began to churn, I read that the National Organization for Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund had launched a campaign about the media’s disregard for female firefighters.
The reader should understand that one of my responsibilities during my 14-year tenure at SIA was to incorporate cross-country skiing—and later snowboarding and snowshoeing—into mainstream SIA programming. It was tough sledding and we often concluded that each of these other disciplines needed its own program, each with its own specific focus.
Thus it was that programs like Mountain Dew Snowboard Festival, Winter Trails Snowshoe Day and the Snow Trax Nordic skiing program flourished. So did the program for women and female kids, Daughter’s Day. Then we faced more segmentation. For instance, nordic skiing splinters into a dizzying array of factions such as skaters, classical racers, freestyle racers, backcountry skiers, telemark skiers, skiers who want commercially groomed trails, those who prefer free trails…and the list goes on.
I know the effectiveness of targeting specific market segments and focusing on the specific concerns of each. And I heard myself recently mouthing off about how important it was for the Daughter’s Day program to speak more specifically to the nordic skiing segment. But at the same time I found myself inwardly questioning why we should market snow sports separately and specifically to females, especially in the face of no equivalent programs directed at males.
I find myself confused. Like almost everyone else, I understand that the famous photograph of the firemen does not show white men; it shows what we have come to accept as heroes. Perhaps, like Steward’s example of the grandmother, we diverse snow sports aficionados are really just skiers.
