Bill Koche Festival 2009

What do you get when you bring together 300 young cross country skiing athletes, their engaged and supportive parents and volunteers and ask them to dress up as Trolls? You demonstrate that not only does cross country skiing create strong, healthy kids but it celebrates that when you are outside cross country skiing in the snowy winter woods with family and friends MAGIC happens! Of course it helps that the King Troll himself, Olympic Skier Bill Koche, (and the inventor of skate skiing) created a magical ski league and Bill Koch festival that encourages kids to have fun when skiing

Every four years or so the Bill Koche Cross Country Ski Festival comes to Notchview Reservation in Windsor, MA and when it does everyone gets Troll Happy. This past weekend the Magic returned to Notchview as hundreds of skiers wearing a variety home-made troll ears and tails descended upon the trails of Notchview for the annual Bill Koch Festival, a weekend of racing and fun for kids from 6-13. NENSA’s Bill Koch Leage provides a supportive environment for parents and children to enjoy the outdoors, community, each other, and introduce them to the world of Cross Country Ski Racing. BKL Events include both competitive and non-competitive events, with the emphasis on having fun and social events.

This 2-day festival marked my family’s fourth festival preceded by BKL festivals in Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. It is certainly the highlight of our winter and this year’s troll theme made it particularly special and eventful. In addition to the exciting skating and classical races that occurred throughout the day, there was the Ski the Magic adventure tour (with pancake and cookie stops), the terrain park (with jumps that Lorenzo helped build and Luca was determined to master) and the incredible Magic Forest, a tiny trail lined with elaborate hand-made troll houses and workshops. The toothless Troll master herself was always available to give troll lessons and award cookies to attentive students.

Throughout all of the festivities and happenings, every team including our very own, strong and very numerous Eastern Mass Bill Koch Ski league, was busy at their tents painstakenly waxing, reviewing the course, handing out bibs, layering, fueling and helping kids get ready and excited about their The races are divided by age (Lollipop, J5, J4, J3 and J2) starting with the 6-7 year old skiers affectionately known as the Lollipop racers for the gigantic lollipop that is awarded as a prize to all participants.

My daughter Valentina, a J5, was nervous as her race time approached. She had set a goal last year to be in the top three and when it was her time to ski she did very well arriving first in her skating heat and third overall in her classic race. I was very impressed by the comraderie and encouragement of her fellow teamates who surrounded her before and after her race giving her support in the starting line and congratulations after she crossed the finish line, breathless but incredibly pumped and psyched about making all the miles that she had skied this winter count. After discovering that she had come in 3rd, she could not contain herself and ran around sharing the news with every troll she could find.

Luca was equally pumped for his lollipop sprint seeing all of these cute kids lined up at the starting line led by Chris DeFrancis, papa troll, was a highlight of the weekend. Luca did a fine job, he was focused ahead and did his best to double pole and get his legs moving toward the finish line. His third place finish, the cheers, the excitment, the music and having his siblings chase him down the course was hopefully enough to keep him psyched to ski next year.

Cross Country skiing is a tough sport for kids, it takes lots of work and does not provide the typical thrills and immediate short term satisfaction of other sports. Thanks to the Bill Koch Ski League and festivals like this year’s BKL festival, hundreds of lucky kids will get the cross country ski bug ( or troll) for life.