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Dear MAST Families:
I see from Instagram that many of you are skiing out West somewhere. Okay, I'm just a lot jealous. Have fun. Stay safe. Stay away from tree wells, cliffs and snowboarders. Continue to work on your skills using the mountain as your coach. Teach your folks and younger siblings some of the skills you learned this year. And don't get a ticket in the slow skiing zones. Two quick messages. 1. Banquet Date Change We are moving the date and time of our banquet. Please note the change. MAST Banquet NEW Date: Friday, April 30 NEW Time: 7-10PM Location: The ROC in St. Louis Park No food. Just a program. You are invited to bring your own chair. We will be asking people to pre-register and we will be charging a modest fee to attend to defray the costs. More to come. 2. Gratitude Survey The responses to the MAST Gratitude Survey have been wonderful. If you have not completed the survey, there is still time. The purpose of the survey is to fight back against all that has disrupted our year by reflecting on, and collecting, all that remains for which we can be thankful. For me, the ski season that concluded is a big source of gratitude for me. Spending six days a week on snow with our wonderful 7th and 8th graders not only gave me energy but restored my sense of hope. Watching them work so hard to master a drill or learn how to shin a gate or make a new friend were great sources of joy. Here is a link to the survey if you haven't taken it yet: MAST Gratitude Survey Enjoy your break. Stay safe. Mark Conway 612-275-8392 Good Morning:
The following people have purchased a season pass for 2021-22 through MAST as of Friday. Elizabeth Arbeiter Vada Arbeiter Erik Arnold Colin Brandt Jonas Geere Elli George Gabrielle Harritt Carolyn Heindl Athalia MacKimm Jerome Nechville-Gray Lia Rulf Zoe Rulf Simon Showalter-Loch Leo Spanier Eleanor Vap Elliot Vap Today(Sunday) is the last day to purchase a 21-22 Hyland season pass through MAST. If you would like to take advantage of the Spring sale pricing, please drop off a check at the home of Hope White --4945 Clinton Ave S -- in the amount of $429 made payable to Mpls Alpine Ski Team. You can also purchase a pass for $429 directly from Hyland online through the end of March. Hyland Hills Season Pass Season pass pricing increases to $455 on April 1. Mark Good Evening:
2021-22 Spring Season Pass Sale Hyland Season Passes are on sale NOW for $429 through the end of March. The price rises to $455 on April 1. You can purchase your pass online with Hyland/Three Rivers Park District. If you purchase your pass online, you will pay MN State Sale tax. You can save some money purchasing the pass through MAST. If you wish to purchase a pass through MAST, please write a check for the amount of $429 made payable to Mpls Alpine Ski Team and mail it to our Spring Season Pass Sales Chair, Hope White. Mpls Alpine C/O Hope White 4945 Clinton Ave S Mpls MN 55419 The deadline to order a pass (through MAST) is Sunday, March 28. Banquet As was announced last week, we are planning on holding an outdoor banquet on the afternoon of Saturday, May 1 from 1-4PM. No meal. Just a celebration. The theme of this year’s banquet is GRATITUDE. To help us unpack this theme, I would like everyone—coaches, parents, and athletes—to fill out a short survey. Here is a link:https://www.mplsalpineski.org/2021-banquet.html You will understand more about the survey when you open the link and read the introduction. Please take a moment to fill this out. It will be good for your spirit. Trust me. I’m a ski coach. Lauren Kiesel Photography I just learned that Lauren Kiesel Photography was taking photos at our Secton IV championships at Wild Mt the past couple of years. We also had our own photographers at Wild who took outstanding photos as well --as they have been doing all year. If you are interested in looking at Lauren’s photos, you can check out her website here: https://clients.laurenkieselphotography.com/f942276797 And to see the photos that our professional in-house photographers have taken this season, please click here: https://www.mplsalpineski.org/20-21-photo-gallery.html. These are wonderful—Please take a look. Summer Strength and Conditioning We are hoping to offer a summer strength and conditioning program again this summer. We will need to wait to see whether the Covid rates continue to decrease and what programming MPS will allow us to offer. So, more to come. Meanwhile, get outside. Exercise. Stay active. With deep gratitude for all of our coaches, parents, athletes, and supportive alumni, Mark 612-275-8392 Markrobertconway58@gmail.com Good Evening: While tornadoes and rain ravaged the middle and southern parts of our state today, we stayed dry up north at Giants Ridge. The soft snow was treated with chemicals to make the track harder-- fertilizer in fact. When you watch the film on Sprongo, the track will look like someone had a bad case of diarrhea. Fortunately, it did not emit a scent. Oliver Mueller had a terrific day, finishing on the podium in fourth place. Oliver will earn All State Honors --AGAIN! Congratulations Oliver. In his first run, Erik Arnold skied himself into 26th place in his first state meet appearance. Unfortunately, he had a bit too much speed heading into a hairpin in the flats on the second run and had to correct a fault. Charlie attacked the courses, showing the kind of aggressiveness I would like all of our racers to have. Sadly, the deteriorating track fought back and knocked the speedy Charlie off his line and he too had to correct a couple of faults. Andreas' great technique was on display today. He put together two solid runs together to finish in 40th (out of 88 racers). Our three female skiers raced well today as well, finishing 38th (Gabby), 51st (Meghan) and 70th (Elli). Gabby and Elli earned more valuable experience to bring to the hill next year and Meghan completed her career with her third state meet appearance. Congratulations and thank you Meghan for all your hard work, success, and beautiful spirit. I want to thank our seven competitors for your brining your best efforts to the hill this week. It was really fun to watch you train yesterday and to see you give it your all today. You were magnificent representatives of MAST. You might be interested to know that the girls champion today has a MAST connection. Former Lake Harriet/Southwest Skier Ava Pihlstrom skied the fastest times on both runs today to win the gold medal. This is a magnificent accomplishment. As far as I can tell, Ava is the first female racer to win the State Championship who is NOT a USSS Club Skier. Ava skied with us in 8th grade, qualifying for state and helping propel the SW girls to the Section Championship and State. For ninth grade she enrolled at Blake where she has continued to develop as a ski racer (obviously) AND train and compete year round as a highly ranked figure skater. A portion of her first run from State is posted on our Sprongo page. She skis with great technique, impeccable balance, and a fearless mindset. Take a peek. Thank you to the coaches (Charlie Smith, Greg Abel, Paige Alampi, and Daniel Polland) and to our parent photographers (Michelle Smith and Tanyia Abel). Race results are attached. The format is the best I can offer at this point. I'm sure I better version will be available at some point. I will post this on the website when I receive it. Thanks for a great season everybody!!! We did it! Mark 
Every year the athletes create a video reflecting on the season. Senior Josie Spanier is sitting in the director's chair this year. Please see her message below... Have fun! Be creative!
If you haven't been interviewed by Sonia, Josie, or Caroline yet for the MAST Banquet Video record yourself and your friends answering one or more of these questions and email it to josiespanier@gmail.com ! (Also, please record horizontally/landscape)
Good Evening Everyone:
I trust that everyone is out skiing at Hyland tonight while the state meet contingent is up here on the Range. Tomorrow's practice is cancelled due to the rain forecasted throughout the day. It was a wonderful season and I am so inspired by all of you who came out to train over the last week. I saw so much wonderful improvement just since the last race on Feb 26. Keep it up. Even though we can no longer practice as a team, you can still work on your skills through the end of the season. We had a terrific day of training. Our skiers looked very strong. The MSHSL is broadcasting the race online if anyone would like to pay $10 to watch it. Here are the details: The State Meet will be streamed online by SchoolSpace Media at www.prepspotlight.tv and produced by Rock Ridge Public Schools. Price will be $9.99. I just checked it out. Be sure to click on the date, March 10. That is where the state meet broadcast will show up. More to come.... Mark Hello! We are planning an outdoor gathering for our end of season banquet this year! See details below.
Date: Saturday, May 1st Time: 1p-4p Place: ROC (Recreation Outdoor Center), St Louis Park More to come. Volunteer! Do you want to be part of the event planning committee? We need a Banquet Lead to coordinate activities. You will be well supported! Please email Jodi, jmkaouri@gmail.com if you are interested and want more information. Good luck to our State qualifiers tomorrow! Go MAST! Good Evening Everyone:
Just a quick note to alert you to some changes to the training schedule this week. 1. We will not be skiing gates this week due to the warm temperatures. Course conditions will deteriorate too quickly to allow for a safe training venue. 2. We will.be free skiing in our assigned lanes. The coaches will carefully monitor conditions for safety. The soft snow will give you the opportunity to work on your balance and make subtle improvements to your technical skills before the season closes. 3. We will have two training sessions on Monday: Pods 10-12 from 3:30-5:30. Pods 7-9 from 5-7:00. 4. We will have one training session on Tuesday and Wednesday: All Pods from 5-7:00PM. Check you email everyday for any last minute changes to the schedule. If the coaches determine that even free skiing is too dangerous, they will cancel practice. Also, please watch the videos embedded on our website of some recent world cup and world championship skiing. Use the slow motion feature in the gear box to study the video. Especially watch for the angles these skiers create at the ankles, knees and hips. Note how level the shoulders are; how the hands and arms are positioned, and where the chest is positioned as the turn progresses from transition to transition. See you tomorrow. Mark PS. There are over 120 video clips from training on Saturday. Be sure to look for your videos and tag yourself. PSS. The website also has race results from all the races this season as well as wonderful photo galleries from races and training. Thank you to all of your photographers. These athletes are so lucky to have such beautiful pictures of themselves at their fingertips. If you want to download a photo, just click "control" "space bar". You should be able to save the photo to your computer. Section IV Championships March 3, 2021 Good Evening MAST Fans! We had a beautiful day at Wild Mt today. Sunshine. Warm temps. Great snow conditions. Fun courses. We didn’t achieve all our goals today, but our athletes accomplished a lot of them and gave it everything they had. Oliver Mueller, Roosevelt, stood atop the podium in the afternoon race. He won by.... THREE SECONDS. Congratulations to Oliver. Also qualifying for State in the afternoon races were Erik Arnold, Charlie Smith, Meghan Abel and Elli George. In the morning races, Andreas Drekonja and Gabby Harritt both qualified for State after laying down some impressive runs. Both Quinn and Owen were one spot away from qualifying as well. In team scoring, we fell just a bit short of our ultimate goals, but not for lack of focus, desire or effort. The Washburn girls finished second in the morning race. Gabby had the second fastest time on the first run but bobbled on the second to finish fifth overall and qualify for State. Quinn finish 7th. And how about this. Both Nahlah and Kate tied for 13th place. Down to the one hundredth of a second. Unfortunately, the Washburn girls were only one point away from placing first. That is a close ski race. The Washburn boys faced some tough competition in the morning race, placing third overall. Andreas was our top finisher in 5th and Owen finished 10th. Jackson(12th) and Callum(18th) rounded out the scoring for the boys. The Washburn boys have exceeded all of my expectations on the season. We needed to replace five of our starters from last season's Section IV championship team and these boys did a magnificent job of scaring the daylights out of the other teams. I am confident they will continue their hard work. They were not far away from making it three championships in a row. In the afternoon, the Southwest girls surprised themselves (and everyone else) by finishing in second place behind this year’s powerhouse, Hill-Murray. Meghan Abel has learned how to ski aggressively, and it paid off with a 9th place finish. Elli George was hot on her heels in 10th. Ingrid Hartzell and Lucy Renz skied their hearts out with fearless abandon to round out the scoring, placing 12th and 15th respectively. Sandwiched between Ingrid and Lucy were Athalia (13th) and Violet (14th) from MAST. For the boys, all six Southwest boys skied beautifully today. Like the Washburn girls, they fell just a bit short, taking second behind a strong Hill-Murray team by just 9 points. Nonetheless, it was a tremendous performance. I think this might have been the first race all season in which the top six SW boys finished both runs cleanly. That is a tremendous accomplishment. I want to thank all the parents who worked the races. Once again, we supplied more than our share of race workers and you all did remarkably good work. A special thank you to Kelly Bent for coming out of retirement and serving as a gate judge in the morning race and the starter in the second race. Thank you, volunteers. Races cannot happen without you. Finally, I want to thank all the coaches who helped out today as well. Your dedication to our athletes is simply inspirational. We have six practices remaining. I hope the seniors will continue to train and support our state meet bound skiers and their younger teammates. For those of you not going to state, training for next season begins tomorrow! See you on the slopes. Mark 
Dear MAST Athletes, Families and Coaches: We have never been able to train together into the month of March. What a treat. For this reason, I am disappointed that we have to cancel practice on Wednesday. Our coaches will be working the races at Wild that day. You are always welcome to ski anyway. You can find plenty of drills on our Instagram site to keep you occupied. We still have ample opportunities to practice this week and into next week. The bottom line: Keep Practicing. Ski racing summer camps cost a lot of money. $300-$400 a day. Treat the next week of training as though you were attending a ski racing summer camp. The cost: a gallon of gas/day...if you drive a dump truck. $2.69. We have been returning to the fundamentals: stance and balance, flexing, edging, carving, upper body discipline, staying over the outside ski, accelerating out of the turn, etc. We are prepping for next year and I am seeing progress already in just two days of training post-race season with pods 7/8. We are setting some drill courses that challenge you to work on specific skills, like your balance, your flex, your angles, your pole plant. So, make use of the warmer temps, lengthening daylight and the opportunity to train into March. Show up every day. We have at least five practices remaining. You never know when a breakthrough will come. You just want to be there when it does. One other tip: Check out this page on our website. There are a lot of great online sites that offer instruction on ski technique using the drills we perform during the season. Thhis is a great time to study these. No pressure training. Just take a deep dive into the skills you need to build and improve. https://www.mplsalpineski.org/technique--tactics.html Now for those going to sections tomorrow: Section Champs Update. Attached are run orders for both the morning race and the afternoon race. We still need some race workers. Morning Race (Washburn): Gate Judges (2) Afternoon Race (SW and MAST): Gate Judge (1) Starter (1) All course worker positions are filled but more are welcome. The temps are forecasted to be warm tomorrow. We are invited to provide additional course workers for each race. If you have been course working this year at our races and would like to join the fun of keeping the courses buff, please email me directly at markrobertconway58@gmail.com Race 1 Worker Sign Up (Washburn) Race 2 Worker Sign Up (SW and MAST) Gate Judges: Please take some time today/tonight to watch the gate judge instructional video that you can access on our website: https://www.mplsalpineski.org/volunteer.html Just scroll down to the section on gate judging and click on the links. There are several resources available there to refresh your knowledge of your role. Be sure to draw accurate diagrams of your assigned gates. No disqualification will stand without an accurate diagram of the fault. Parents and athletes: We have moved your arrival time up to 7:30pm. The trip is roughly a 75-minute drive if you take 35W to North Branch. We moved it up to give you time to tape your paper bib number to your MAST stretch bib. You will be booting up and bibbing up in the parking lot so I recommend that you ride to Wild in your race suit. Just this morning, I received these additional notes from the Meet Manager. Please read. 1. Let's make sure people have masks on and also keep our spacing 2. Remember only one seed at a time in the roped off start area so there can't be multiple athletes from the same team in the start area. 3. Race 1 teams: make sure after the race is over you leave Wild Mt as soon as possible so we don't have all teams on the hill at the same time. 4. I will have one print out per Team with final results after race and will provide them to Head coach within 15 minutes or so after protest period is over 5. Remember it is reverse order within the seed for second run. 6. Please remind your gate judges to be on time for the gate judge meeting and make sure they have a drill. Need to make sure we are keeping gates in the snow as the race is running 7. I plan to have live-timing turned on and if you go out to the website now https://livetiming.usskiandsnowboard.org/ the races are loaded. Section racers.... you are welcome to rest tonight. If you feel you need to ski today, attend the 3:30 practice. Just make sure you get your skis tuned and waxed and tuck yourself into bed early. You have an early morning. And remember, eat a good breakfast. We will not have any food for you this year. Bring a healthy lunch if you need to fuel up between race runs or after. Thanks everyone. I am really proud of this team: the athletes, the parents, and the coaches. What a wonderful season we are having. Let’s keep it going. Mark 
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