-Dashing through the snow may be a theme of a song connected with a certain December holiday, but the Red Clover Rovers took this year's Thanksgiving snow storm in stride as they held the annual Brattleboro Turkey Trot 3-mile road race on Upper Dummerston Road.
"When I got there, after almost sliding into the guardrail, folks were setting up," Fred Ross, one of the volunteer organizers of the race and longtime member of the Red Clover Rovers, said in an email to The Commons. "No one said anything about possibly not doing it."
Willow Sharma, 17, of Guilford, one of the standouts on the Brattleboro Union High School cross-country team this fall, was the first male runner to finish in a time of 18 minutes, 17 seconds. Sharma was just two seconds ahead of Spencer Knickerbocker, 32, of Marlboro, who was second. Jason Guerino, 25, of Vernon was third in 19:21.
Halie Lange, 29, of Brattleboro, once again was the first female finisher. She was 14th overall in 22:12 for her sixth win in the event and her third consecutive victory. Jennifer Sprague, 50, of Dover, New Hampshire, was second, finishing 15th overall in 22:21, and Denise Paasche, 61, of Brattleboro was third, finishing 18th overall in 23:25.
In all, there were 102 runners in the 3-mile race and 15 more runners who participated in the 1-mile fun run, which was won by Ben Calderwood, 18, of Hinsdale, New Hampshire in 6:57.
"There were a bit more than twice that who had signed up," said Ross.
As had been the case for the past several years, the Red Clover Rovers donated the proceeds from the race to Groundworks Collaborative and the Vermont Foodbank.
Back to the gym and the rink for local athletes
• The winter high school sports season in Vermont started on Dec. 2 with the first official practices for basketball and ice hockey. The first games of the season will commence by the end of next week.
• Brattleboro opens the 2024-25 girls' basketball season on Friday, Dec. 13, with a 5:30 p.m. game against the Burr & Burton Bulldogs in Townshend in the opening game of the Leland & Gray Tournament. The Leland & Gray Rebels will host their rivals, the Arlington Eagles, in the second game of the night at 7 p.m.
The Bears will play their home opener on Tuesday, Dec. 17, at 7 p.m. in the BUHS gym against Champlain Valley.
Bellows Falls hosts Mill River on Saturday, Dec. 14, in a 1 p.m. game at Holland Gymnasium, and Twin Valley is on the road on Dec. 14 to play Sharon Academy in a 3:30 p.m. contest. The Wildcats will play their home opener on Monday, Dec. 16, against the Proctor Phantoms.
• The Brattleboro boys open their basketball season on the road with games at St. Johnsbury (Dec. 13), Mount Greylock (Dec. 16), and Windsor (Dec. 19) before making their season debut in the BUHS gym against St. Johnsbury on Saturday, Dec. 21, for a 1 p.m. matinee.
Bellows Falls heads up to Wells River on Dec. 7 for scrimmages with Blue Mountain, Lakes Region, and Woodstock before opening the regular seson on Tuesday, Dec. 17, against Mount St. Joseph in the first round of the Green Mountain Holiday Tournament.
Leland & Gray opens its season in Townshend against Arlington on Monday, Dec. 16, at 7 p.m., while Twin Valley has scrimmages against Grace Christian School (Dec. 7) and Hartford (Dec.10), before opening its season at home against Twinfield/Cabot on Dec. 13.
• The Brattleboro boys open the 2024-25 hockey season against the North Country Falcons on Dec. 14, at 4:45 p.m. at Withington Rink. The Brattleboro girls will also open their season on Dec. 14; they will take on the U-32 Marauders at the Central Vermont Memorial Civic Center in Montpelier at 2:30 p.m. The Bears' home opener will be on Wednesday, Dec. 18, against Middlebury.
• Brattleboro's Nordic skiing team has two home meets scheduled on Jan. 24 and Feb. 5 at the Marlboro Nordic Ski Club. The course at the former Marlboro College was used last season, and while there was a little more travel involved than using the Brattleboro Outing Club's trails, the snow coverage and trail conditions were more consistent in Marlboro.
• No schedules were available for the Brattleboro bowling team, and for the newest winter sports offering at BUHS, girls' gymnastics. We'll pass them along when we get them.
Ski season begins in Vermont
• The abnormally warm and dry autumn in Vermont gave us the unusual sights of large brush fires in our fields and forests and shirtsleeve weather on Election Day.
But since mid-November, the weather has shifted to more seasonable conditions. With the big Thanksgiving Day storm delivering 12 to 16 inches of snow to Mount Snow in East Dover, Magic Mountain Ski Area in Londonderry, and Stratton Mountain Resort in Winhall, and with temperatures cold enough to make snow, some of the local ski areas were able to get the season started this week.
As usual, Killington was the first ski area in Vermont to open for the season on Nov. 14. The largest ski resort in the Northeast is now under local management, and had a successful Thanksgiving weekend when it again hosted a Women's World Cup event.
Stratton and Okemo Mountain Resort in Ludlow both opened on Dec. 1, while Mount Snow waited until Dec. 3. Magic was to open on Thanksgiving weekend, but postponed their first day of operation to Dec. 7.
Snowmaking is now critical to the local resorts, and they are investing a lot into their systems. In preseason news releases, Stratton said it spent $2 million on upgrading its snowmaking, which now provides coverage to 95% of its trails, while Magic said it added more snow guns to cover its main trails with the goal of providing enough snow for a December to April ski season.
Even with lots of snow on Thanksgiving Day, all the resorts said they were augmenting the natural snow stuff with the white from the snow guns.
As Mount Snow wrote in its online snow report at mountsnow.com right after the storm, "Some of you are thinking 'you're getting snow, so you can just open now, right?' We love natural snow, but what we need to open a trail and lifts is a good base. … Thank a snowmaker, they're out there building our base which will let you get plenty of turns in this season."
Brattleboro Ski Hill gets ready for another season
• The best bargain in skiing and snowboarding in southern Vermont, the Brattleboro Ski Hill at Living Memorial Park, is getting ready for another season.
According to their website at brattski.org, the volunteers who run the hill every winter have been hard at work preparing the hill for when conditions are right to make snow. They are in the midst of a GoFundMe campaign to raise $10,000 for snowmaking upgrades, and have raised about $3,700 so far. More information is available at their website.
Lift tickets are still just $5 for the day and kids 5 and under ski and ride for free. It's even cheaper when you buy your lift tickets in bulk, with a 12-ticket punchcard for $50. An individual season pass is $75 and a family season pass is $200.
The hill is open on select Thursdays, 5 to 8 p.m.; Fridays, 4 to 9 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Sundays and select school holidays, noon to 4 p.m.
The ski hill is 100% volunteer run - including snowmaking and grooming. If you'd like to learn more about volunteering, scheduling a training, or making a donation, email them at brattleboroskihill@gmail.com.
They are also looking for volunteers 15 years of age or older to serve on the hill's ski patrol team. Candidates must have completed or be capable of completing a provided American Heart Association First Aid/CPR/AED course or have equivalent medical training, and will be required to participate in additional site-specific training. Candidates are expected to make some type of hourly commitment to patrolling during the hill's hours of operation. Contact brattskipatrol@gmail.com for further information.
Randolph T. Holhut, deputy editor of this newspaper, has written this column since 2010 and has covered sports in Windham County since the 1980s. Readers can send him sports information at news@commonsnews.org.
This Sports column by Randolph T. Holhut was written for The Commons.