Ski Season Entertainment
Ski...sleep...shred...sleep... Obviously the vast majority of your time on a ski or snowboarding season is spent on the mountain taking your sport to the next level... but what do you do when you're not killing it on the slopes (or sampling the apres?). Last night's coverage of the Super Bowl in the U.K brought back some fun memories of watching this sporting showpiece unfold from Whistler and got me thinking of other entertainment Canada has to offer.
You'd be forgiven for not noticing that the Super Bowl was on last night, American Football is hardly front page news in the U.K (except when Janet Jackson's nipples are involved) but Sunday's Super Bowl set a new record for the largest U.S. television audience for a single broadcast - 111 million tuned in! The only time I've watched (or took any interst in) an American Football match was in Whistler when I worked as a snowboard instructor. After a morning lesson with my clients we retreated to the G.L.C - voted the #1 Apres bar in North America and commenced drinking jugs of Kokanee and chomping on hot dogs - good times! After the Super Bowl Whistler put on its weekly 'Fire & Ice' Show - an awesome visual feast of Whistler's Ski & Snowboarding instructors throwing down some gnarly tricks through a great big ring of fire...basically a snowy circus! This seasons Nonstop crew on our 11 week instructor course in Whistler were there for the showdown.
Besides skiing, snowboarding, poutine and mounties... Canada is renowned for its obsession with ice hockey. I'd never paid much attention to it, apart from playing some awesome game on the Sega Mega Drive back in 1995, but it's impossible to avoid in Canada. It seems to be perpetually on in every television in any bar... and it's difficult not to become fascinated by it! The clear attraction is the fact there's a fight pretty much every game and I guess it's refreshing seeing guys take obscene hits and just carry on rather than some Premiership footballer clutching his leg like someone had taken a hammer to him. There's no denying it... fights in sports are awesome! Everyone knows sport is better when it's live, and ice hockey is no exception. Luckily in Fernie our own Red Tree Lodge is just across the road from the local ice hockey rink and the crew on our instructor courses and performance camps always become avid fans of the Fernie Ghostriders. Matches tend to be most Fridays and Saturdays and are the ideal way to kick start a night out.
A somewhat less violent, but by no means less radical sport is curling. I mentioned in a previous post my surprise at how satisfying this game is. As a Scot I was pretty sure I'd have have some natural ability at this noble sport, but I was pretty far from awesome. That didn't detract from my enjoyment though; there's something weirdly satisfying about manically sweeping ice so a big rock can slide along it! Sports aside, Nonstop courses are jam packed with opportunities for extra activities... dog sledding, snowmobiling and winter camping are just a couple that spring to mind.
