Greetings NENSA community,

NENSA’s annual winter auction closes in just about 24 hours, tomorrow at 8:00 P.M.  It has been a joy to see the engagement of our community in this fundraiser through item donations and bidding activity.  There is a bit of time left and many wonderful items awaiting opening bids.  All proceeds directly support our year-round programming and help us keep membership and entry fees low.

Winter’s reluctance is not hindering our ski community.  From opening races at Quarry Road (recap below) and Craftsbury (Silver Fox Trot this weekend) to NENSA’s TD and Event Organizer Seminar (recap below) to the approaching Eastern Cup opener next weekend and the truly outstanding results of New England skiers in Norway and Canada last week, there is excitement (if not snowflakes) in the air and New Englanders are showing their true spirit.

In this week’s edition of KickZone

• NENSA Auction is closing tomorrow/Thursday at 8:00 PM
• Quarry Road Opener recap
• Silver Fox Trot - Saturday, 12/10
• Rikert Grand Prix Eastern Cup Opener, 12/17-18
• NENSA's TD and Event Organizer Training Seminar recap
• Concord Learn-to-Ski Clinic, 2/5/23
• NENSA membership
• Scenes from the Community
• Craftsbury Outdoor Center: Special early-season rates for NENSA members
• Nordic Team Solutions: Monthly video and NENSA Auction memberships

In the news

• U.S. Ski & Snowboard
• Diggins Wins in Lillehammer
• Career-Best Day for Ogden
• NNF: 2nd Virtual Speaker Series Talk, 12/16 at 1:00pm, Øyvind Sandbakk
• Cross Country Skier Magazine: As the World Cup Season Launches, Jessie Diggins Takes Stock

Have a wonderful week!

All my best,

Heidi

Heidi Lange

Executive Director

New England Nordic Ski Association

heidi@nensa.net

www.NENSA.net

Thank you!

Memberships directly support all of our year-round programming,

backing us in our mission to nurture and sustain an active cross country ski

community for all ages and levels throughout the East. 

Thank you for taking a minute to join or renew your NENSA membership,

and for the important support that it provides!

Please join me in thanking and supporting our wonderful NENSA Sponsors 

for their generous contributions and the ongoing impact that they have on NENSA programming and cross country skiing in New England!

NENSA’s annual Winter Auction is LIVE for just 24 more hours. Be sure to get your bids in! Now is your chance to plan a getaway or to find a special holiday gift for someone on your list.

To all who have made donations or bids, thank you for supporting NENSA!

Skiers flocked to this year’s Quarry Road Opener to kick off the winter racing season. Despite no natural snow, the organizers at Quarry Road put together a ribbon of artificial snow for the ski community to enjoy. Rain on Saturday made way for blue sky and sunshine during the Opener. This year’s course was very similar to 2021, but was run in the opposite direction. Racers set out in 15 second intervals in groups of 20 to minimize congestion on the short loop. It was a dizzying affair of laps, with athletes needing to keep a careful count to ensure they skied the correct distance....read much more, see photos, and find scoring and results HERE.

The magic continues this weekend with the Silver Fox Trot popular race and BKL event — being held a touch earlier this year!

Join us Saturday Dec. 10 at Craftsbury Outdoor Center. Even if it's your first day on skis this winter, we encourage you to come and ski with Ford Sayre Nordic and the broader community on Craftsbury's amazing snowmaking loop.

This year the day will begin at 9:30 AM with the Citizens Race which is part of the Zak Cup Series but is open to all participants. It is a mass start race by gender in all races but the final decision will depend on conditions. NENSA numbers are required for Club and Zack Cup scoring and NENSA members receive a 20% discount on the entry fee. 

This year’s Event Organizer and TD Training Seminar was held over the weekend in Waterville, ME. We kicked off the seminar with presentations at the Chace Community Forum (housed in Colby’s new downtown dormitory on Main Street). The content of this year’s presentations was markedly different from years past, with heavy focus on how we work together to be even better event hosts. Highlights from the presentations include Mary Anne Levins speaking to her experience as a Race Secretary and Ed Despard of Bullittiming on all the new updates in the world of timing.

We discussed how we include ParaNordic athletes in our events. The easiest thing we can do is add a category for them at registration. The next step is to reach out to the athletes that register for that category and have a conversation with them about their goals for the race and invite them to preview the course with you. As we move toward greater inclusion, think of ways that they can be safely incorporated into the start order so that they have the opportunity to ski with able bodied skiers...read more about the weekend and some of the key takeaways HERE.

Never been on cross-country skis before but curious to try? We’d love to see you at Beaver Meadow Golf Course on February 5th for a free Learn-to-Ski clinic! Equipment loans are included. Cross-country skiing is a fun way to get outside and enjoy winter right in your own backyard or at your local community ski center. These Learn-to-Ski clinics are geared towards people of all ages, backgrounds, and identities who have never been on cross-country skis before. We aim to create a welcoming, inclusive, and safe environment for people to try a new sport and discover the joy of gliding on snow...read much more about the event, FAQs, and registration HERE.

THANK YOU TO OUR NENSA CONTRIBUTING SPONSORS:

Reporting Misconduct and New QR Code for Reporting

Whether you are a coach, parent, volunteer, or athlete, we all play a role in providing a safe environment for the sports that we love. U.S. Ski & Snowboard  Athlete Safety policies, the SafeSport Code, and the U.S. Ski & Snowboard MAAPP help us support that culture of safety.  

• If you witness or are aware of inappropriate behavior or misconduct - REPORT IT!
• Reports may be made anonymously!
• Child Abuse and Child Sexual Abuse – Report to law enforcement or child protective services in your jurisdiction immediately.
• Reports to the Center - SafeSport hotline at 833-5US-SAFE (587-7233) or CLICK HERE to complete an online reporting form.
• Reports to U.S. Ski & Snowboard - CLICK HERE

You may see QR codes posted at events this season. The QR codes open a page on www.usskiandsnowboard.org for quick links to reporting from your smartphone.

Thank you for your diligence in maintaining sport safety and protecting our athletes. 

It is time to renew NENSA memberships. NENSA membership is required for attendance at the BKL Festival, Eastern Cup, U16 and EHS Championship events, as well as for Junior National, Zak, and Club Cup rankings. NENSA members receive discounted entry fees to many of our events as well as exclusive offers from our sponsors that are constantly added and updated HERE. Membership directly supports our year-round programming, backing us in our mission to nurture and sustain an active cross country ski community for all ages and levels throughout the East. Thank you for taking a minute to tend to your renewal, and for the important support your membership provides!



THANK YOU TO OUR NENSA SUPPORTING SPONSORS:

SPECIAL EARLY SEASON LODGING OFFER

FOR NENSA MEMBERS!!

Effective today thru December 11, 2022

$81 for a single and $75 per person/per night for a double room in Cedar.

NENSA member pricing also available for other lodging types - call to inquire.

Please call COC and provide the front office with ’23 NENSA membership number at time of reservation.

Nordic Team Solutions shares a video with NENSA this month that is perfect for the early season, featuring classic transition drills. This is part of a comprehensive, searchable drill catalog and resource library available to Nordic Team Solutions subscribers. If you are intrigued and find these resources valuable, check out the Nordic Team Solutions annual memberships in the NENSA auction! We are so grateful to Nordic Team Solutions for their support of NENSA and for the resources they offer the nordic community.



NNF Invites Ski Community to 2nd Virtual Speaker Series Talk on Friday, December 16th at 1:00pm EST with Øyvind Sandbakk

December 2, 2022 | by Ben Thereyl

The National Nordic Foundation (NNF) is excited to announce the next talk in our virtual speaker series, after the success of our first lecture with Dr. Stephen Seiler. In keeping with the theme of education on training physiology, our next event will feature a talk entitled “Optimizing Long-Term Performance-Development in Endurance Sports” delivered by Norwegian Researcher Øyvind Sandbakk on December 16th at 1:00pm EST.

Our lecture series is free to attend, with a recommended $25 donation going directly to NNF to support our Pillar Projects this winter, and beyond. Donation and registration for Sandbakk’s talk on Friday, December 16th at 1:00pm EST can be found here and here. Limited to the first three-hundred participants. Registrants will receive a recording of the talk afterwards. You must be registered beforehand to receive a recording.

Diggins Wins in Lillehammer

December 2, 2022 | by Leann Bentley

Jessie Diggins skied to her 13th individual World Cup win - tying her former teammate Kikkan Randall for the most U.S. World Cup Cross Country victories - in Friday's opening 10k individual start in Lillehammer, Norway.

"First and foremost, I want to say thanks to the wax techs and the team. I am really proud of their effort because my skis were so awesome out there," said Jessie Diggins in a post-race reflection. "I went into the race with the plan of trying to ski really smooth, pace it evenly, work the transitions and the corners and push hard into the downhills and maximize every second that I could." 

On a fast, 3.3k loop course lined by numerous American fans, fast skis, high tempo, and quick transitions made all the difference for Diggins. Germany's Katharina Hennig was sitting comfortably in the hot seat until Diggins skied through every time check with positive splits. Hennig held on for second, 3.8 seconds back, with Heidi Weng of Norway rounding out the podium in third. 

"My fitness and brain were in a really good place and today I felt like when I asked my body to go deep into the pain cave, it responded," said Diggins. 

Julia Kern and Sophia Laukli also posted top 30 results, finishing 25th and 29th respectively. Alayna Sonnesyn was 32nd, and Lauren Jortberg was 48th in her first World Cup distance race...read more and find results HERE

Career-Best Day for Ogden

Four Americans In Top 10 In Lillehammer Sprint

December 3, 2022 | by Tom Horrocks

Jessie Diggins finished fourth to lead four U.S. Ski Team athletes into the top 10 in the FIS Cross Country World Cup freestyle sprint in Lillehammer, Norway, on Saturday. Ben Ogden posted a career-best World Cup result, finishing seventh, and Julia Kern and JC Schoonmaker each finished eighth. 

“We had some awesome skis out there,” Diggins said, once again praising the effort of the U.S. service techs. “It was so cool seeing the U.S. Team as a whole having such a great day.”...read more and find results HERE.

Ben Ogden posted a World Cup career-best result, finishing seventh

in Saturday's freestyle sprint in Lillehammer, Norway. (@NordicFocus)

As the World Cup Season Launches, Jessie Diggins Takes Stock

December 6, 2022 | by Cindy Hirschfeld

Just before the start of the 2022­­–23 World Cup season, U.S. Cross Country Ski Team star Jessie Diggins took time out of her packed training schedule to speak with American journalists. She Zoomed in from Ruka, Finland, in a call facilitated by U.S. Ski and Snowboard. Diggins answered questions on a variety of topics, from the amount of pressure she feels to her role as mentor on the team to the impact of her advocacy work with Protect Our Winters, the athlete-driven nonprofit that addresses climate change. HERE, we share her thoughts on some of the things she was asked about.

THANK YOU TO OUR NENSA OFFICIAL SUPPLIERS: