Unless you live in a cave you certainly heard by now that Mikaela Shiffrin won her 5th straight slalom on the Superstar course at Killington yesterday, making a magnificent second run to edge Petra Vlhova. In doing so, Shiffrin tied Ingemar Stenmark‘s record for 46 wins in a single discipline, his being GS victories. What you may not have heard about was Minnesota’s Paula Moltzan finishing 7th, which is pretty darn cool considering she skied for the University of Vermont team just a few years ago. Back to Shiffrin/Vlhova, it’s shaping up to be quite the rivalry. Reminds me a bit of the old Vonn/Riesch battles back in the day. Our photo above is courtesy Woody Bousquet, who finally got his chance to see the FIS World Cup circus in person. After having his plans shut down by COVID last year, Woody headed out to K1 Base on Saturday only to have the GS competition snowed out and blowed out. But it all turned around yesterday as Woody and son Ben got some time together on Kmart’s slopes in the morning, and then enjoyed the exciting second run with all the World Cup hoopla — I’m sure it was well worth the wait! As for the snowed out GS, it will probably be shoehorned onto the schedule in Courchevel…the boys meanwhile were up in Canada for a pair of speed events in Lake Louise, Austria’s Matthias Mayer topped the DH podium Saturday. A couple of notables in the top ten: Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and USA’s Ryan Cochran-Siegle both coming back from brutal injuries finished 9th and 10th respectively, glad to see that. Yesterday’s Super G was cancelled due to weather…and we’re wrapping up November with a bunch of openings ocean to ocean and border to border, a few notables this weekend were Taos Ski Valley New Mexico, Buck Hill in Minnesota (where Paula Moltzan got her start), Jackson Hole Wyoming, Gore, Whiteface and Windham in New York. A couple of early openers have added terrain, including Colorado’s Loveland, where the Valley section is now open…Magic Mountain Vermont getting a new haul rope strung on their venerable Red Chair, sez it’ll be on in time for the December mid-month opening. Meanwhile the under construction replacement Black Chair continues, they’re still doing tower work. Some grumblings among the Magic faithful regarding the time it has taken, but I say patience please! This is a tough job given the terrain, the pandemic, and fact that it costs a small fortune. If you haven’t skied Magic, you really ought to. Unless you’re one of those people who enjoy large crowds, long liftlines, and pricey tickets…just got word that Timberline in West Virginia opened for the Thanksgiving holiday, glad to hear it.