27 January 2017 — Congrats to Matt Lillard, he’s the new GM at Mad River Glen VT. Matt learned the ropes at Okemo and later as assistant at Magic Mountain VT, and most recently was GM at Eaglecrest AK. His experience at Magic and Eaglecrest makes Lillard about as good a candidate as MRG could possibly hope for, since all three are known to take a serious punch from up-and-down seasons…speaking of Eaglecrest, yesterday’s Throwback Thursday I ran out of time before I could move up the Pacific Coast to our 49th State otherwise this would’ve been it. Owned and operated by the city of Juneau, Eaglecrest is a darn good example of what a community can do for itself if it has the right vision (and a good hill nearby I suppose). Serving up 1400′ vert with a group of chairlifts and buses from downtown, hard to call it a throwback but it does have that family atmosphere and fights with the aforementioned MRG for the “which ski area has the lowest percentage of snowmaking greater than zero” crown…and now to the rumors, locals are positively abuzz that Stowe VT is about to be sold to Vail Resorts Incorporated. Well it makes sense, because owner AIG has been trying to move it for years. This particular rumor mill has to be taken with a little grain of salt, however, because the same people are saying that Smuggler’s Notch Resort (formerly Madonna Mountain) is somehow involved and the two will be combined to create a true eastern mega-resort. So what makes this a tough pill to swallow is the fact that first, a long-time personal friend and key insider at AIG has heard nothing about it, and secondly, Smuggler’s Notch says they’ve heard nothing about it. But hey, you never know. AIG has become so disinterested in Stowe that it could be all wrapped up in that Chartis subsidiary and the AIG mucky-mucks have bigger fish to fry, so the deal may be done for all I know. Or it’s just speculative nonsense…remember when that “Rumor Has It” song was everywhere? That was over five (5) years ago. Wow time is moving too fast for me…much of the east struggling through warm temps, but not all the east; snowfields are open up on top of Sugarloaf, Maine for the first time in two years…opposite problem on the opposite coast; that’s Kirkwood CA in the photo above. If your chair is 12′ off the ground, and 15′ of snow falls, do the math…kudos and a shout-out to Terry Peak in the Black Hills of SD, they’re hosting the Wyoming Special Olympics today…let’s keep the accolades coming, also for Bromley Resort in Southern Vermont doing their 11th annual Wounded Military Heroes Weekend. This gives service veterans wounded in action an opportunity to ski and board with top instructors and equipment courtesy Bart Adaptive Sports, which was originally established through the Bromley ski school. Let’s raise a Pabst Blue Ribbon in their honor! Now if you don’t know why I added that part about PBR, check back Monday for a little bit of history…news just in from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, American Travis Ganong won the downhill today ahead of Kjetil Jansrud and Peter Fill. Also word of a competitor airlifted from the track; we’ll update when we learn more…