Mentioned earlier in the week that Mount Snow VT was ready to crank it up tomorrow, indeed they are…Peak Resorts must be on some kind of early opening kick; they’re also gonna spin at Wildcat in New Hampshire, I believe that’ll be first-to-open honors for the Granite State…still I suppose the biggest news this weekend is the kick off of the World Cup season in Soelden, see photo above, which doesn’t do justice to just how steep this thing really is.  Season opener also means the ski journalists named their annual “skier of the year,” and no surprise, it’s Marcel Hirscher.  The international association of ski journalists says Hirscher will receive the Skieur d’Or-Serge Lang Trophy, named after the founder of Alpine skiing’s World Cup in the 1960s, after winning the vote ahead of Ester Ledecka, who took Olympic gold in both Alpine skiing (super-G) and snowboarding (parallel giant slalom).  Hirscher succeeds Mikaela Shiffrin, who got the award last year after winning her first overall World Cup title…and with all of this world cup stuff in mind, here’s the TV schedule for the next month…

Oct. 27 4 a.m. Women’s GS – Soelden – NBC Sports Gold
Oct. 28 4 a.m. Men’s GS – Soelden – NBC Sports Gold
Nov. 17 7 a.m. Women’s SL – Levi – Olympic Channel
Nov. 18 7 a.m. Men’s SL – Levi – Olympic Channel
Nov. 12 p.m. Men’s & Women’s SL – Levi(tape delay) – NBCSN
Nov. 24 1 p.m. Women’s GS – Killington – NBCSN
Nov. 24 3 p.m. Women’s GS – Killington (tape delay) – NBC
Nov. 24 4 p.m. Men’s DH – Lake Louise – Olympic Channel
Nov. 25 1 p.m. Women’s SL – Killington – NBC
Nov. 25 4 p.m. Men’s SG – Lake Louise – Olympic Channel
Nov. 30 12:30 p.m. Men’s SG – Beaver Creek –NBCSN
2 p.m. Women’s DH – Lake Louise – NBCSN