As the summer winds down and kids begin to
transition from rambunctious trouble makers back to students eager to learn,
team HURT jumped on the opportunity to teach about skiing. With a trip to
Jericho, Vermont, athletes found out that learning happens everywhere.
The first day was full of fear conquering. The trails at
Jericho can be intimidating, but the team went in with full of confidence. By
the end of the week everyone enjoyed flying around the big sweeping turns. That
afternoon the team went cliff jumping at the Bolton Potholes and really learned
how to get past the imaginary wall in their brain holding them back.
Maybe the most important thing the team learned during the
trip was if you are unhappy with the way something is, do something about it:
the team was upset there wasn’t a camp shirt. So we while on our trip to
Walmart, the whole team bought matching shirts reading “Camp Vermont” so with a
few orange and green sharpies the team made official “HURT Camp Vermont” shirts.
Over the week the team met many high caliber athletes from
around the continent and hopefully learned by example. New York athletes such
as Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey were great models and Coach Halligan didn’t pass
up the opportunity to use these athletes as technique examples.
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| HURT watches Sochi Olympian Russell Currier |
Since the team was so close to Burlington, they decided to
check out Church Street after dinner one night. Not 4 minutes into getting to
Burlington, HURT’s Mikey Halligan almost got into a rap battle at The North
Face. Luckily Mikey’s intimidating beats from his phone were enough
to scare the challenger away. But it goes to show you: it pays to freestyle for
2.5 hours on your way to ski camp.
The whole point of the trip, however, was to watch the
biathlon Rollerski races and learn from the best. And thanks to cooperative
weather, there were great races.
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| Tim Burke Showing us how it's done |
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| New Yorkers Unite! |
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| HURT had an awesome opportunity to meet arguably the most successful biathlete of all time. Andrea Henkle-Burke is a multi-time Olympic Champion, World Champion and Overall World Cup Winner. |
The Trip ended with one last learning opportunity that
doesn’t have much to do with skiing but is an essential life skill. As the team
pulled up to the gas station to fill up for the ride home, athlete/team driver
Nino Manzella admitted “coach, I have no idea what I’m doing.” Referring to the
gas pump.
So as you can see team HURT is getting a jump start on the
learning as school is right around the corner.
