Saturday, March 2, 2002 -- Champion, PA
WPSC Council Cup (iPO Event Id#: 4735)
Story and photos by Don Parks

[Details] [Coverage] [Overall Results] [Pic Set 1] [Pic Set 2] [Pic Set 3]
[2001 Council Cup]

The Giant Slalom takes on Avalanche

The 2002 WPSC Council Cup was contested by four area teams, the Circle E Ski Club, Mon Valley Ski Club, Pittsburgh Ski Club, and the Appalachian Telemark Association. Too bad for Jack Kowalski, he was the only representative for Westmoreland, but next year he expects the rest of his team to back him up.

In this "friendly" battle for supremacy in the WPSC (okay, maybe it's just bragging rights), the Giant Slalom course was set on 7 Springs' Avalanche slope. How did the course look? "It's good," said an eager Circle E's John Matisko as he surveyed the course before the start. Then he added, "but they're all good, some are just better than others." Attitude is everything and these folks all love to play in the snow.

Racing for the Cup

When it came to racing it was one shot down the course for each competitor. The final scores were then totaled by taking the best 5 men's and the best 2 women's times from each team, lowest total time wins.

It was looking good for the Pittsburgh crew as Dane Morris (29.81) and Paul Schade (30.16) sliced up the course for the two fastest runs of the day. But the next six fastest times all went to Mon Valley, including Mimi Pottinger (31.04) who had the fastest women's time and the fourth fastest overall time.

Tallying all the scores and it was a 5.5 second win for Mon Valley, scoring a 221.80 to Pittsburgh's 227.37.

Look mom... no heels!

In the battle for third, Circle E needed every fraction of a second to stay ahead of the Atlantic Telemark Association. After Paul Cline (39.66) and crew took their 15% time deduction as a free heel handicap, they're 258.68 was less than a second behind Circle E's 257.84.

But no one was complaining, and everyone seemed to be cheering at the bottom of the course for all the racers. Because, "they're all good!"