Crimson Skiers Start Season This Weekend As UVM Hosts First of February Carnivals

For some, February is a month to pick new courses and wait out the winter. For others, it is the most important month of the year because February is Carnival month in northern New England. That means that a lot of students at the traditional powerhouses such as Dartmouth, Middlebury and Vermont will have a chance to justify their acceptances to the admissions committees.

Harvard skiers, on the other hand, do not necessarily eat, breathe and run skiing. While many of their opponents in this weekend's Division I carnival at UVM have their sights on the Olympic games, the Crimson doesn't even have its own permanent coach.

Warming Up

In preparation for the Carnival season, members of the ski squad have been taking hour-and-a-half trips to Pat's Peak in Henniker, N.H., where they train along with other teams at a ski academy under a cooperative coaching system. The Crimson rents floor space in a dormitory at the mountain, which has helped throw the team into debt.

Despite these problems, Pat's Peak has worked out well for the skiers when they have found the time between exams to make the trek to New Hampshire. The area has a 35-meter jump, about 20 miles of cross-country trails and a mountain with a decent pitch.

Nordic Captain David Rand is optimistic about the team's prospects. "We lost one good skier in Ken Houston, but we've been working hard, especially Tim Hofer (the alpine captain), Andy DeMars and Eric Nordel," he said.

All of the skiers have taken part in the Dannon series races that have been held every weekend in January. Precise results below the top ten have always been difficult to obtain for these races, but Rand indicates that Crimson efforts have been encouraging.

Jumping has traditionally been the weak link in Harvard's effort at the carnivals, where a complex scoring system can badly hinder a college without accomplished skiers in all of the events. Rand was the only jumper on the squad last season, but he has recruited Matt Strominger and alpiner Ned Childs to ride the jumping boards this year. Neither has ever jumped in competition before and may not compete this weekend because of the size of the UVM jump.

The Crimson is the only Ivy League team aside from Dartmouth that competes in the tough Division I. The team usually finishes near the bottom of the ten teams and last year came within seven points of falling back into Division II.

The women begin their second year in Division I with a thin but talented squad. Captain Vera Fajtova and Kris Hodgkins lead the alpiners, while cross-country captain Maureen Devlin heads a nordic contingent that will miss Judy Rabinowitz, who has taken leave from Harvard to join the U.S. team.