March 28, 2018 - The sport of ski-cross could be introduced to Thunder Bay as early as next year with the potential for tracks to be built on the slopes of both Mount Baldy and Loch Lomond, the community's two ski hills.

The alpine ski discipline, introduced at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, is an action-packed and adrenaline-fueled sport that features four to six racers going head to head, at the same time, with the aim of finishing first.

Tourism Thunder Bay partnered with the Lake Superior Ski Division Alpine to bring in Jim Hemlin, a ski-cross consultant with Alpine Canada to tour the two local ski hills. The site visit conducted on Monday March 26 evaluated what would be required to build a ski-cross course at each of the hills for recreation use, but also to a standard that would allow the hosting of championship events.
Ski-cross, according to Hemlin, is alpine skiing with air and a little bit of freestyle attached to it. 

"The racing tracks themselves are contour grooming," said Jim Hemlin. "They're banked turns and rollers and every once in a while you put a small feature like a tabletop or a little step up jump. It's just not about putting people in the air, it is about testing skiers skills for balance and speed control."

Ski-cross courses have both naturally occurring terrain and artificial features. Course building is a type of art and always keeps the athletes on their toes.

Hemlin says the two Thunder Bay ski hills have the terrain to build tracks from 400 to 1200 metres. The course layouts could accommodate races at a World Cup level down to a small local regional event. The idea is to start off small and build on later.

"At a World Cup level, the tracks are 1000 to 1200 metres in length, but for a local event 400-600 metre tracks are more than enough to accommodate level of events from Nor-Am (North American) and below," said Hemlin.  "The runs that could be built on both local hills are suitable for ski-cross at all levels from 4-years-old to 80 years-old. The terrain that they are able to offer is well within the bounds of having an environment that is a lot of fun."

The Lake Superior Ski Division Alpine (LSSDA) is looking to add ski-cross to the local ski program with an eye to host more championship ski events in Thunder Bay.

Dave Bradley, the Vice-Chair of LSSDA, feels ski-cross provides a huge opportunity that will further promote Thunder Bay as a ski town at the provincial, national and international level.

Bradley explains that Alpine Ontario has a rotation of events every four years for different disciplines and age groups, so being ready to host an event, be it slalom, giant slalom, Super G or ski-cross, is the key.

"If we can demonstrate to the world that we have ski-cross hosting capacity, the potential for us to attract a major event within the that four year cycle is high," said Bradley.

"Having our two local hill owners working together with our local ski organizers shows that we can grow the ski industry when we all work together," said Paul Pepe, Manager of Tourism Thunder Bay.  "Ski events boost our winter tourism economy significantly."

The Canadian Cross Country Ski Championships were just held at the Lappe Nordic Centre attracting 600 athletes from across the country.  In 2017, Loch Lomond was the venue for U16 Canadian Alpine Championships which saw 200 athletes from across Canada compete with that national event coming on the heels of the U16 Ontario Alpine Championships held in March 2015. 

The Lake Superior Ski Division Alpine is looking to build capacity for hosting future championship events in Thunder Bay and Tourism Thunder Bay sees this as an opportunity for further product development for tourism in our community.  

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Contact:  John Cameron, Tourism Development Officer 625-3231 or jcameron@thunderbay.ca.