McThoughts: Music to the ears, the season starts next week

By Published On: October 16th, 2009Comments Off on McThoughts: Music to the ears, the season starts next week

By Hank McKee

Game on.

2010 is going to be one fantastic season to be a ski racing fan, and particularly a North American ski racing fan. We’ve had some clunkers along the way (think 1988)  but those days seem so distant now. This season, an Olympic year no less, our teams are big and strong and swinging their weight around. It’s exciting.

Lindsay Vonn is the undisputed best of the times. Ted Ligety has consistently been among the top three in his discipline for years now. Olympic medal winner Julia Mancuso has regained her fighting spirit. And the entire men’s downhill team is poised to erupt, led by Marco Sullivan.

Let’s not forget a Nordic Combined team that will send three former or current World Champions to the Vancouver Games or a freestyle team that has defined the sport – literally – from its inception. Cross country could pull off some upsets. In terms of ski wax, that’s the whole ball.

The sleeping giant to the north (except for Alaskans) Canada has some strong potential as well and the bonus of playing the Games at home. For sure the Austrians, injury hampered Swiss and a handful of others will have something to say about what medals go where, but the odds are better than usual a number of skiing medals will never have to cross an ocean.

The alpine World Cup starts next week. In all sports the week preceding the opener is chock full of great aspirations. Ski racing is no exception, at least not around here. I always get pumped up for ski racing season, but the PSI is higher than usual. My pressure gauge is pegged.

It’s about the phone call, the one that carried Bode Miller over the precipice and back into the Ski Team fold.

Two guys talking.

That’s what it took.

Two guys, on the phone, swapping ideas on a subject they both have an unquenchable passion for and suddenly there were no barriers too high not to step over. A couple of weeks later Bode Miller and U.S. Head Men’s Coach Sasha Rearick are sitting at the dais in front of cameras, microphones and mulling media to announce Miller is coming back to the ski team “family” and both are excited about it.
Wow.

Six months prior Miller was skipping the last month of his worst racing season ever, abandoning his self-created support team and wondering if he’d ever race seriously again. And there he was talking about having his best runs ahead of him, of achieving a level of greatness.

He even said the atmosphere of the Olympics – which he scorned last time around – can’t be beat for bringing out the best in athletes

So Miller returns to the U.S. Ski Team, which is big news, and there’s a lot of hoopla over it. Let’s not make that out to be more than it is. It’s more about what it gives us, the fans.

Miller has always wanted to be the best, fastest ski racer in the world, and The Team has always wanted to produce great ski racers. It was a natural fit. Miller can concentrate on doing what he does best, which is racing and the team gets back what is already the most successful ski racer it has ever had. Really, it was a no-brainer.

The Team also gets things that can’t be measured by medal count or World Cup points.

We asked Rearick if Bode could really help the younger skiers on the team. Rearick responded: “Bode can be helpful to the younger racers, the older racers and the coaching staff.”

That’s no small statement already and he was just getting warmed up. “Bode has tremendous experience. His experience is going to help the team. He knows lines, he knows where you can take speed and where you have to give speed away.  And he’s going to be able to share that with the coaches and the athletes. And having the benefit of that experience is going to be great.”

That was one aspect. Here’s another: “And in going through some tough times. Bode has had to go through a lot of adversity and I want to see him, through his actions, show the athletes and show the staff what it takes to be a professional at the highest levels.”

Isn’t that music to an old fan’s ears?

For his part, Miller seems to be having fun again and that is news any ski racing fan should be able to dance to.

“I’m excited for this new opportunity and it’s cool to be around a group of guys who are all pushing in the same kind of way,” he was recently quoted,

Maybe fatherhood has mellowed him, I don’t know and wouldn’t presume to speculate. I do know precious things tend to create their own sets of perspective. 

Having taken seven plus months off, it won’t be as easy to get back to race shape in such a short time frame, but if anyone can do it, Miller can. He has been focused on the task and, importantly, glad to be at it.

In his blog he wrote: “I’ve never push my preparation so late so we don’t know exactly how long it will take before I am in racing shape.”

Did you catch that “we” in there? That’s Bode saying the right things, and he surely is doing that. The U.S. Ski Team is “a world-class program,” and the team and his equipment supplier Head are “innovative and super forward thinking.”

No PR guy could fault those statements. Damage control hasn’t been called up in quite some time. This is good.

So, yeah, I’m pumped up.

The Nordic Combined team has the ability to kick butt. The downhill team has an Olympic course tailor made for its strengths. Ligety is going to be pushed this season from within the team. Experience says we can depend on Vonn to give us her very best every time out.

This season we may also, after all these years, get to see the very best of Bode Miller. That’s something, I believe, we’ve only seen glimpses of.

Bring it on.

Safe speed everyone.

Image by Eric Williams

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About the Author: Eric Williams