The Whistler Podcast
Join host Mayor Jack Crompton for candid community conversations about current events, local government and everything Whistler on The Whistler Podcast. As part of the RMOW’s and Mayor Crompton’s broader work toward enriching the community fabric and community building in Whistler, the podcast provides a new channel to connect with Whistler residents to discuss topics of municipal and community interest.Twice a month, Mayor Jack Crompton will invite a community leader or special guest to join him at the Mountain FM Whistler studio to share opinions about current events and hot topics that are important to the community.
The Whistler Podcast
Season 2 Episode 25: Connecting with Whistler ski legend Rob Boyd
In this episode Rob talks about growing up in the Okanagan, raising his family in Whistler and his experience as a Ski Coach and Real Estate Agent. Rob also shares details on his extensive ski career including behind the scenes of his 1989 World Cup Downhill win on Whistler Mountain.
Today on the whistle podcast,
Speaker 2:Deus, uh, very colorful fella just turned 80, actually incredible. Still out there, skiing and charging all over, over the place. In fact, I think he got stopped by the patrols the other day on his birthday.
Speaker 1:Docking a line.
Speaker 2:Crap. No, no. He was skiing a little bit fast. Apparently all those buddies went, oh man. To lose. I wanna be just like you. When I turn in, gets stuck, get told to slow down with a ski patrol.<laugh>
Speaker 1:He's called step and I am Jack Crompton. And this is the whistle podcast we live. We work, we play on the traditional unseated territories of the Lil wat nation and the Squamish nation Cole STFU. What is going on?
Speaker 3:Not much. Just live the dream, waking up to my dog, attacking me and dealing with him all day. That's that's the dream right now.<laugh>
Speaker 1:And is your dog now? Like what? Six months? Four, Four months?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So getting better. Well,
Speaker 1:And when does a dog become fully grown?
Speaker 3:Like a year, one to two years? Basically the worst part I'm dealing with is the tea thing. The tea thing is just such a pain,
Speaker 1:Like chewing your furniture and stuff,
Speaker 3:Everything. Okay. Whatever he, he can put. Okay. So I, yeah, whatever he can put in his mouth he'll eat it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay. Yeah. All right.<laugh> um, we're talking to Rob Boyd today. Mm-hmm<affirmative>
Speaker 3:Yeah. The exciting
Speaker 1:One. The only Rob Boyd, which I think will be pretty fun. Thanks.
Speaker 3:So too, have some great stories for sure. I,
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Um, so let's get straight to ask Jack anything, ask Cole anything we'll with ask Cole anything. And mine is a little bit connected to what we just well directly connected to what we just talked about. Cole, tell us the most useful thing you've learned from raising a dog
Speaker 3:Patience. I, I don't have a lot of patience naturally and obvious sleep. Uh, dealing with a puppy has been a test of that, cuz I, you know, have a, not a short feed, but I, I don't, I get frustrated and then I don't want to deal with certain things. So with Giligan, you know, I've had to be patient with him cause he's a puppy and, and it's hard to remember that they're just, they're literally babies and they have no idea what's going on. So even when he's being an actual demon, I have to just take a deep breath and try and, and work with him, which I think is gonna teach me a lot, uh, moving forward too, cuz yeah. Patience is something that I've not been great at my whole life. And he has taught me a lot of about patience.
Speaker 1:That's a good answer. So yeah. Right over to you.
Speaker 3:Well, we're gonna be talking with Rob Boyd today, obviously. Yeah. Uh, now pine skier competed in the Olympics and everything like that. I wanna know. Cause all I, every time I think about pine skiing, I think of how, uh, you know, they always have to wear those BA those like the suits. Right. Does Jack Crompton have, or has ever had one of those suits?
Speaker 1:<laugh> you know, the answer is, is there is, is no. And thankfully, thankfully, no, I did those ski race as a kid. Yeah. And um, but back then we had stretches, had the big, you know, uh, gate pads on the legs and the knees had pads on them. Right. Um, and I always thought those were just the greatest things of all time. Yeah. Uh, and then I turned like, I don't know, 18 and I was done ski racing and I've, I've never put on, uh, a pair of stretches ever since. That's
Speaker 3:Good. Have you ever seen someone just like on a regular Saturday, just in, uh, in like a ski suit, like in like one of those stretches just heading down the day, Mary.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. Like, you know, ACE wears them all the like there's lots of people that, especially caper day, come on, man. Caper day. There's hundreds of those things lying around.
Speaker 3:I could never, I could never, I got too many, I got too many roles in crevices. I wouldn't be able to pull one off.
Speaker 1:It'd help you ski faster.
Speaker 3:That's true. I guess so<laugh>
Speaker 1:Yeah, we should ask Rob about that. Yeah.<laugh> uh, okay. Uh, onto last week's peak, I read you three headlines. You choose one. We talk about it. The first is, uh, an American company is studying Whistler's labor wo wo and promising solutions, uh, deeper in the article. The R O w has put up 4.1 million for the study. Second is no end in sight for the Cita sky transit strike and, and third costly white gold, beautiful CA project has fractured the neighborhood.
Speaker 3:Well, honestly, I, I hope that by the time that this episode comes out, the transit situation has been handled. I'm I know it's a lot something that a lot of people in town are getting real sick of. And I hope that the two sides can come to an agreement and figure it out. So let's switch it up. I wanna know more about this, this, the study or this, the labor study. Yeah. What's
Speaker 1:This all about? Well, we are recording on April fools day and it is the peaks, April fools joke<laugh> and they go through a process where they describe how, you know, we're gonna have robots and we're going to, you know, they, they spent 40 million and the big outcome of the study is that, uh, the way you solve labor problems is by having more people and, um, which is, is a, is a good outcome brand and Barrett, right? The very best April fool articles every single year. They're always classics.
Speaker 3:That was a good one. Um,
Speaker 1:Yeah. And, but I mean, he should actually I think, and this is my proposal. Braden Duwe is the editor. I, I believe that when Braden's on, in a couple weeks, we should talk to him about Brandon's April fool's jokes being released as a, as a book. Cause they're good. Yeah.
Speaker 3:That, that would,
Speaker 1:He's only done like five, so that's a book with five pages and all that. Great, sure
Speaker 3:Story. I honestly, when you read that and I was like, that's gonna anger a lot of people and uh, that's why. Great job. Good job, Randy. Wow. Got me. Well then I guess if we wanna talk about some real news, we can talk about the, uh, the, the beautification part. Is that an, is that a April fool joke as well?
Speaker 1:No, no, that one's serious. And it's challenging. We there's a process that the provincial government puts in place where if you want to, um, do a project in your, uh, community, you can go through this petition process. Um, and if you get 50% of the people voting in favor and 50% of the value of the homes voting in favor, those two things, then the, the, um, projects can move forward. And so there's a, uh, a bunch of people in white gold that moved through the process, got what they were required to get 50 and 50, uh, and want to move forward with the undergrounding of all of the power lines in white gold. Uh, and there's some people in the community who don't support that expense, but once the goes through the process, uh, will be responsible to participate in funding it. Uh, and so, uh, it's, it's been challenging, sad story in there about, you know, neighbors not talking to neighbors. Um, and you know, my hope is that we can find is to, to navigate these kind of community issues. C's been so strange, you know, you you're away from other people. You don't have those day to day human interactions. We've taught kids to be wary of, of, of other people. I think the impacts of COVID it going forward are, are something we really need to pay close attention to and, um, be careful about, uh, responding and, and caring about each other and taking care of our town. Now, you know, this is issue isn't related directly to COVID, but certainly the fracturing that's in that native neighborhood is, is important to consider. And it will, the process likely will be back in front of council for, um, either approval of it or maybe sending it back out to another petition to the, the neighborhood. That's a decision still to be made by
Speaker 3:Council. And for just a so, because again, I, I don't really know all the, the logistics of everything when they, when this sort of thing happens, the people that are affected by it who are, have to front the bill. How does that work? It gets costly to, to, to who the, the neighborhood or to everyone in Whistler
Speaker 1:To the neighborhood. Yeah. Okay. The neighborhood would, would receive the cost yet.
Speaker 3:Right. Okay. Yeah. I can understand why you wouldn't be thrilled if you voted no for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's interesting though, when you think, I mean, one<laugh>, there's two sides to every story, right? Yeah. The, the 50% is way more than we get out for a provincial or municipal or federal election. Right, right. Of total voters, and this is 50% plus in favor. Right. And so when you think about a, an election for prime minister, 40% of total people come out and then the prime minister got 35% of those votes. Right. Um, so it's sort of the uncomfortable reality of democracy is that we live in a place where we make decision together. And oftentimes, almost always those, uh, decisions have some people who support them. And some people who don't and sometimes it ends up creating rifts within community, which is so lousy.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That sucks. Um, that also is a good, uh, you know, chance to say, go vote whenever there's an election vote, whether it's, whether it's for a beautification process or for the leader of our country, get out there and vote. Exactly.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Yeah. For sure. Okay. Cool. Well, I think we should get to Rob Boyd. There are few people in Whistler who need no introduction, but Rob Boyd is one, uh, though I'll give one. Anyway, first it was Irwin and Murray next came Reed and pod Bosky followed by Brooker and then came Rob Boyd. Another link in the legacy of successful Canadian downhill racers. Uh, Rob was young in Whistler, but he spent time in the Okanagan before he moved here. He has dedicated his life to this town. Uh, after his retirement, he has moved into coaching and now into real estate. Um, he's had songs sung about him. Videos made of him. He's been highlighted on hockey Villa, which for a skier that's, that's saying something pretty impressive. Uh, welcome Rob Boyd. Thank you for doing the whistle podcasts.
Speaker 2:Good to be here.
Speaker 1:So I understand that we well, Rob and I have been going back and forth trying to get the date and time to chat, and we've both missed a number of times. And I understand that, uh, I missed when we established March 25th, you thought it was February 25th, which would have been a very special day. What, what is February 25th in the life of that
Speaker 2:Point? February 25th is a, uh, a secret day for the groomers the night before they groom the downhill track from top to bottom, including the weasel in the fall away on the day of Murray downhill to kind of commemorate, uh, a special day back 33 years ago now was the first Canadian male to win a world cup, uh, in Canada. And, uh, literally it was in my backyard because my dad, my mom, well, my mom was, uh, a nurse at the time. My dad was working for the mountain and we were staying in the staff, accommodations the house right beside like right across from the old gondola building right across the Creek. So, uh, I've shared the story with a few people before, but<laugh> after I won that race, I had a three, four day Scruff on my chin and my mom said, oh, Rob, you gotta get that shaved off before you go on the podium. So walk from the finish area, crossed our house, went and shaved chin and went back over except in my award.<laugh>
Speaker 1:February 25th. The day that you won the world cup downhill in, in, in Whistler. Uh, tell us about that day. I was, I watched a video of it and you finish, you pick up your skis and you go straight to the cam camera and you say, that's for you. Stem. Why was that in your head when you finished, why was Brian stem in your head when you finished?
Speaker 2:He had, well, obviously we were on the team for many years together. By the same age we, we, uh, came through the S and, uh, he'd had quite a horrific crash earlier that season in kits feel that's when he caught his ski in the net at the bottom of the style hanging and ripped himself almost in half, uh, was, you know, hit and miss with, or, I mean, very close call anyway, at the hospital, he managed to, uh, get him through and we would, we would chat, you know, on a weekly basis kind of thing and see how he is doing. And, uh, I dunno why that popped into my head in the finish area, but it did. And it's, you know, I just, I think it, it, it shows the, the friendship, the camaraderie, the family, that ski racing and that whole fraternity, uh, it sticks with you forever. I know there's many, many, many stories like the crazy Kocs and how they've stuck together and they get back together and have whether events or just for socializing. Same thing. We have a lot of, bunch of us guys get together. And in fact, last summer, there's a little fishing trip we do up at Stewart island was another local boy, Tommy Thompson. He's a guy and several of Whistler. And, uh, Chris Kent was there. Tous was there. Um, and, uh, a few of those came from the east and we got together. There was about 16 of us and, uh, yeah, it was a good three day fishing and, uh, swapping old stories and belling, the old tails<laugh>
Speaker 1:Who caught the biggest fish.
Speaker 2:Oh, who was it last year? Uh, was it to lose or was it, I don't remember the first year. It was me. That's good. Got a TA first time in when I was, when it was a Tae. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, uh, you're at the top of the downhill in your backyard, what do you remember about the race that
Speaker 2:Day? Uh, yes. Going back to that day. Well, it had snowed about 20 centimeters the night before the WEA workers cleaned the course up beautifully. It was, uh, really good shape. I had done my, uh, inspection run and I was going, yeah, I was a little nervous. I had won both training runs, so there was a lot of eyes on me and expectations. And, uh, that was back in the old days of the olive chair. And they'll go on from the bottom and I, all of us right beside the finish area, I'm like, well, that's easier. I'll just get on that. I don't wanna ride at the strange, I wanna ride with somebody. I know. So I happen to see bro, the bus stash in nowhere, come on, come, come ride of me.<laugh> road him up there. And then, uh, I had enough time to go for another free run. I decided to go up the red chair and I was going up. I think I was so, and I, uh, three quarters of the way up. And I look up to my right and above fronts as Meadows. There's a cliff band and there's this one little shoot, little dog league shoot and looked at, wow, no one skied that I had to go ski it. Yeah, I got time. Yeah. I, I could do that. So I had my warmup skis or my downhill skis or, or a pair of warmup downhill skis. The old peak chair had the mid unload got off mid, went along the Ridge on my way to the top of the shoot went and skied it. Woohoo. That's great. All right. Now I'm ready to race<laugh> and then back to the start orange chair, I believe I was with Dr. Jim DeMarco on that ride Del lose our local, uh, very colorful fellow just turned 80, actually incredible, still out to skiing and charging all over the place. In fact, I think he got stopped by the patrols the other day on his birthday
Speaker 1:Docking
Speaker 2:A line crap. Uh, he wasn't no, no. He was skiing a little bit fast. Apparently<laugh> all his buddies went, oh man, to lose. I wanna be just like you. When I turn in, he gets stuck, get told to slow down by the ski patrol. The start he gave me a couple of words of wisdom and into the start I went and, and those words were as, when you step into that start gate, Rob, you're gonna hear the biggest roar you've ever heard before. Get ready for it, use it to your advantage. And sure enough, he was bang on. I, soon as I stepped in there, number nine and ride what the, the whole course is lined with people. And, um, yeah, that, uh, that helped kind of focus. What I, what I found in my preparation for a race is that I do all my imagery, my visualization, kind of a meditation beforehand. Talk to the coaches, any course reports or any changes. Okay. Nope. Good. One last I kind of mental check and then I can, I feel like I can just pretty well turn it off and I go to autopilot. So I was at that point, I said, okay, here I go. And, uh, and then start dating big cheers and roars. And I could look around, gave a couple waves and nods sort of, of confidence and off I went. And, uh, I told this part of the story many times also when I came, I was doing pretty well up top, down through the weasel. Pretty good. When I came over the fall away. That's where that iconic picture is of my, my foot up over my head, little sideways. And I remember coming back down after that and thinking, oh, that was a bit of a mistake. Okay. I better really give her on the bottom part as it turns out. Uh, I was sitting in, I think, third or maybe in the fifth at that point. And if it wasn't for that mistake, I may not have pushed myself and tried to tuck further and, and take everything could outta the bottom part of the course. I may not have won, but, uh, yeah, I went from third, uh, fifth to third to that bottom section. I picked up a few tents and one, I think by three tents over second place. Yeah, it
Speaker 1:Was, it was point. It was, it was three tents, but you were, I mean, you made up huge amounts of time on the bottom. I had all, I watched, I watched it a again, just before we came on and I always thought the follow away thing was you cutting a corner and making up a bunch of time on the field. But really what, the way you tell it is, is when you watch it, is you just making up so much time on the flat, say like you were just flying down the bottom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was, it was really that bottom part. Like I said, when I, when I came off of that, it was kind of the normal line off of the fall away. And then my, my foot going up and landing and oh, I better, okay. I better really go. And I, down the, the sewer, the coach's corner, I tucked way further into that corner than I had before. And all the coaches and can't talk down fire, no he's gonna blow, oh my God. He made it holy. He smoked, see a lot of speed now. And then I was able to carry all that speed down at the bottom. And, and if you remember, this was, uh, Fort USS corner was before they put hot air in. Yeah. And there's, uh, there's a jump there always impressed me when I watched that and see how he absorbed that. And as soon I land I'm right in my tuck and a really good, low talk, I don't have that flexibility anymore.<laugh>, can't get down that low, but how I did that. And, uh, and in the last two little rollers, France hop and, and something else down below, and again, just managed to remain so low and absorb them really well. And, and I, you know, all that bottom portion is what, uh, gave me that, that advantage so much more speed down there.
Speaker 1:And the other thing that jumped out of me watching the video is Pearlman zer. And like the names of the people that you were racing against that day are just like, um, J deli. It was, it it's such a, it's like the list of racers that you beat that day, who was actually leading. Like, who did you, who was, who finished second?
Speaker 2:Uh, I think it was pyramid D was second. Uh, I say in Austria was, or was it Jelli was third. I dunno why. I don't remember.<laugh> I
Speaker 1:Should. Why would you remember? I, you remember who was on the top?<laugh>
Speaker 2:That's what matters, right,
Speaker 1:Exactly. Huh? Uh it's it's it's do you ever feel, I mean, it's such, it's such a corporate experience for our town. Like it's not just yours. It's shared with everybody in our town as this moment. That is just so us mm-hmm. Do you ever feel funny about everybody owning that day with you?
Speaker 2:<laugh> not at all, not at all. Were you, did you come to the 30th anniversary thing at Dusty's?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2:Yeah. And seeing all the people, I mean, um, Ray Brook bank, that's actually also her, uh, birthday every 25th. So it could be one of the reasons she, she makes sure that the, the runs groomed every year. Um, so all the, of groomers, uh, the patrollers, the doctors, so many weasel workers and volunteers, like so many people put time and effort into the preparation of that track, you know, from the net monkeys that are setting up the, a nets to, you know, the gatekeepers to all the side slippers, it just goes on and on. And of course the coaches, and it was just such an incredible, uh, culmination of everyone's efforts and positive vibes, if you will, to make it happen. Mm-hmm<affirmative>. And, uh, and so I absolutely, I, I share that, that, uh, accomplishment with everyone it's, it's, it's a, it's a community, um, story. It's a community win.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. I asked the question because, you know, skiing is obviously your team is around you, but it's, it's something you do on your own with your skis and, and this town and everybody who was around at the time definitely owns it with you.<laugh> feels like it's ours, which is kind of, Um, tell us about other races. We, I mean, I think we know what happened here. Where are your other favorite places to race in your life?
Speaker 2:Well, vulgar Dana for obvious reasons. That was where I had my first win and my second win and a third, two fourths and the seventh<laugh>. And I had some of my favorite pasta recipes from there who always stayed at the same hotel, the LP plan and the Dome's family, Louis deme. And he was the, uh, I believe the president of the local ski club and his role in the world cup race every year was to be in the finish and kind of guide the racers out of the corral to the media scrum or whatever. It might be weight on the other side of the fence. Uh, nowadays it's all testing and of the boot height and the skis and suits and everything else. But back then it was just shuttle him out of. And so he was in the finish all the time, um, uh, valor, Dana, you know, whether it's the, um, the camel bumps or the, the Telo is a really rolly section where I was fast there. I always credited my successes there to the food.<laugh> I, and that's why I have, I've recreated a few of the PA the dishes and sauces that they used to make. And, uh, we went, I went, when I was coaching with the national team, the ladies national team in would've been 2006 in January, we had a little bit of time off. Sherry came over with our youngest boy, Dylan and we to Valade and we stayed in the LP plant and we're welcomed with open arms. Oh boy, come back home. This is not great. You're coming to visit. And, um, and we were shown around, uh, I did the cell Aronda if you've never heard of that, it's the, the cell mountain range. It's like a full day tour where it's a combination of lifts and some perversing some buses, a little bit of walking across roads, more lifts. I think there might even be a train and you do this huge circum navigation of this tele, uh, range and back to the beginning. So we had left Dylan with, uh, babysitter, a babysitter there, and Sherry is the first time she'd really left, uh, Dylan alone. He came back and there, he was happy as a clam playing with little toys. Yeah. So you, your back great. We gave him some snakes. Why you give him his snakes, which we learned snacks.<laugh><laugh> little, little mispronunciation, but snakes is great. Anyways, that, that, that hill, you know, to go back to a little story there, the first time I won, I'll go back a little bit further to the year before where I was starting. This is my first year of dabbling in world cup. And I was starting number 56. I came away from the back of the pack and I managed to finish 10th, pretty incredible. The next year I was starting number 26 and I had done pretty well. Like top tenish in the training runs, uh, two of the training runs and the third run I was back away. I was back in the twenties or thirties, and I was, I was kind of off of myself. I was, I was angry. I was kind of beating myself up and our coach at the time Glentel and, uh, uh, HES stole took me aside, Rob coming come, and we wanna chat with you a little bit. And he said, Rob, calm down. Don't be so hard on yourself. You're way ahead of where you should be. You know, if you, if you just finish in the top 15 tomorrow, we're gonna be ecstatic. That is great. You're on track. You're, everything's going good. And that gave me, uh, quite a bit of comfort and confidence. Yeah. And a perspective shift, like, yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thanks. And, uh, you know, did my inspection a couple little sections I wanted to clean up a little bit and then boom came charging down number 26. And as I had alluded to earlier with the, the media scrum in the finish area, the top three, the top 15 was the top seed and may had already come down. And usually the races decided after the first 15 are down and Michael, a local guy, Italian guy was on the top of the podium, Marcus foyer second. And, uh, uh, Peter Mueller from Switzerland was third. And the media, the photographers already taken their photos back in the days when they had to rush back and develop their film and get it printed and put it in paper and all that stuff. So they're just about running outta there with their podium shot. And here comes this kid number 26. Oh, he's got some fast section times. Oh, what's happening here? Same thing. I was really fast in the bottom, came down, won race. Oh my God. I remember Peter Mueller grabbed me behind the neck. Why come from, is he got booted off the podium? Excuse me, Michael Meyer. You gotta go down to that, that step boss Meyer you're down to the other step. And, uh, and so that was kind of funny that one. And then the next year, um, I got to share the podium with Brian Stella that he was third and he actually went down. I believe he went down before me and he was winning and then Piman, Zeer GaN came down and, uh, beat stem. So that almost inspired me to make sure that I bumped him back. I came down that won the race. That that was a really special moment to be on the, on the podium of stem than me. May you know, it was the next year or was it two years later that, uh, stem had his bad crash? Yeah. So that's why was kind of on top of mind when I had that there. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So does Valina set up well for you as a skier?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. You know, there's a lot of rollers. Um, and so with the long legs and the ability to absorb the, the terrain and, um, and you know, it might be a little bit from my kind of motocross or motorbike and background where it worked the rollers and mm-hmm,<affirmative>, uh, really try and gain speed in all little micro terrain. And that's what, uh, that, that course has a lot of it. And so I was able to rework that stuff and, and bide while I was a pretty good glider, especially when it came to terrain, uh, micro terrain like that. And then, uh, you know, they get the camel bumps actually of the two years that I won. It was back when you had to really leap off the second camel bump to clear the gap, to land on the backside of the third. And I didn't believe I had enough power and strength to do that or confidence, whatever. So I would absorb them. And back then, and like I say, they were a little bit smaller. You could absorb them or know if you really had the Springs, you could jump over. So I actually absorbed, which caused a few other guys afterwards to think, well, maybe we should be absorbing them too. You know, boy's winning with that. But, uh, the next year I went back and I said, I gotta do it. I do it gonna be so fun to delete. So I did jump. And once I did, it was like, oh God, what was I doing? Sucking it up all these years.<laugh> and then, yeah, it was second and third that year there was back to back. My parents were over there for a podium. So, ah, it was, it was pretty good. Are
Speaker 1:There courses that, that don't set up well for you at all? Like, is there,
Speaker 2:Uh, I would say Boel Boal in Italy. It's always run on like the shortest days of the year around new year's, um, it's north facing and the other side of the valley from where the town is, uh, is a big cliff band that all the, a big mountain range that usually is bare of snow because it face itself, you get this gray, reflective light, even if it's sunny, it's almost better when it's cloudy, there have real true flat light, but even when it's sunny, you don't get any sun on the course. So this, this gray light that's reflecting back from the mountains just makes snow almost impossible to see. It's really long. It's over two minutes, it's really bumpy, not micro terrain. You can absorb it's like, you can't see it. So you're just kind of bracing against it. And when you, you probably know when you're, when you're seeing a flat light, you, you see a little bit more stiff, right? Like, oh, what's coming, what am I gonna hit? And so that makes it a really tiring course. Um, it's one of the ones I didn't like so much and, you know, kids feel, they talk about it being the toughest. I would say for those reasons I just listed BOM was probably tougher. Hmm. Yeah. Kids feel, kids feel is special. You know, there's a couple of really tough sections, but a bunch of gliding in between BOM is just fast all away and bumpy all away. And there's always something challenging turn coming up.
Speaker 1:So, uh, you grew up in the Okanagan and your family ran til ski area in Vernon for a long time. And I, I see that you, I didn't know this, I thought that you were Tilikum all the way, but it says in your bio that you skied a lot at silver star as well. Tell us about growing up in, in Vernon and your ski experience there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a, that's a really cool story where my parents, uh, being entrepreneurs and, um, creative<laugh>, uh, cavalier, even, um, folks, we had a, uh, started with a, a racetrack up there. Somehow my dad acquired a bunch of land. He actually had a stock car racetrack, uh, and ran, it ran for 6, 7, 8 years. But on about the second year, he decided to, uh, create a ski area, middle of ski area called telecom valley. And, uh, it had a tea bar, four 50 feet vertical had a rope toe at the beginning. Um, he brought in snow making apparently the first snow making in Western north America, uh, night skiing. Um, it was much closer to town, so it attracted a lot of school programs. A lot of people learned how to ski there. Uh, and certainly for us kids, I was number 4 0 5 kids. Um, our schoolwork may have suffered because after school we'd throw the books aside and go ski until 10 o'clock at night. My parents were so busy running the ski area. They didn't really have time to crack the whip and get us doing our homework. So it, uh, it played into my favor obviously. Uh, and my oldest sister Sue also because she got into freestyle and, um, I'm getting a few little stories mixed up here or overlapping there's, there's tons of stories that come out of there. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, she made, you know, she made the national team and I remember I used to follow around the little puppy dog and learn how to do three sixties and we'd build jumps and do flips and all these kinds of things, straight line the ski hill to see if I could do it. Um, I got my 10,000 hours probably before I was 10 years old up there.<laugh> mm-hmm<affirmative>. And, uh, so yeah, we had a little ski club there. It was the till tornadoes part of the Nancy Green ski league program back then. And, uh, as I advanced and, and got a little better in, um, we didn't, there wasn't really enough kids at til to, to really have a good club. So we moved out to silver star were part of the Vernon ski club, Michael McGraw guy from Vernon now, uh, or he's was the whole time, uh, was a coach, uh, few others that we went through there. And, uh, and then sadly in the late seventies, early eighties due to really high interest rates, we'd actually installed a chair lift and an Alpine slide tried to make it a year round resort, um, with a recession, high interest rates, couple of bad snow years, uh, bank just didn't really see our side of it and took it all. Mm-hmm<affirmative> so as luck would have it, I just wrote this to, uh, Hughes might who's maybe I shouldn't be getting outta it. It was sort of a little memory of, uh, Peter Alder. Peter Alder had run silver star in, I think maybe late sixties, early seventies. Uh, obviously my dad, Sandy and hand, got to know each other through ski, a managers, associations meetings, and that kind of thing. Peter had come to Whistler, I think in the mid seventies and was, was managing Whistler. Uh, one of the meetings saw my dad and said, oh, Sandy, that's too bad. What, what happened to the summer star? You know, wish could really use a good guy like you. Why don't you come him down and try it out for a seasonal, I'll find you a position. So that was in the winter of 81, 82 and, uh, things looked good. He was, he did a great job and things were starting to look better for him and, uh, or for the mountain and, uh, the economy. And so we stayed on the rest rest of us, my mom and my younger sister, the only ones left at home at the time we moved back down or moved down to Whistler and started things off, down to Whistler or restarted, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, telecom, you know, my dad also was the, uh, the Western distributor for SMI snow making incorporated. And so he actually apparently brought snow making whistle. Wow. Not a, the, the, probably the summer fall of 83 at a manager's meeting. He tabled the, the fall. Hey, what if we brought snow guns in? He almost got laughed outta the room, snow guns, and listen, we got more snow than we need. No, no, no. He said, hold on. It was actually Peter. I think he said, hold on, you guys shut up. Listen to Sandy. I think he might be honest something here. My dad said, listen, if we put snow making in, I I'm the distributor, I can probably talk to them. We keep get machines on a trial basis for, for a winter. If we like'em, if they're useful, we buy them. If not, we return,'em no charge. Well, that sounds like a pretty good deal. Let's do it. So they started making snow from like climbing flats down to the bottom, partly to elongate the season, be able to ski to the valley or earlier than the competition block home. And later into the year. And as luck would have it, we had a world cup race scheduled that year in 1984. And, uh, it was in March and it was kind of a warmish spring, lower part of block home and melted out. But you could still ski to the Creekside on whistle enough that there were able to hold the race in 1984. That was my first world cup
Speaker 1:Was on whistle in 84.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. 1984. That's a year of Billy Johnson's four win streak included in the Olympics in Sara. And he won that race.
Speaker 1:So, I mean, you had sort of, you, you guys cheated you, your dad was making snow so that you could race fast. Yeah. Yeah. That's outrageous.<laugh>, that's outrageous. There's a plaque for your dad on the Dave Murray downhill somewhere right here.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's uh, just, just beyond the timing flat on the left. So that Creek there's another one I don't know, uh, share or not, but<laugh>, they needed, they needed to get water from somewhere at the time. Of course there was no pipes or no infrastructure. So they said, Hey, what about this Creek? If we could make it big enough. Cool. We could pump water out of it to, to make water with the snow guns. Yeah, that sounds good. I believe there was someone involved from ski patrol. We of course have access to some explosions and BFO would not like to hear this at all now, but they, they managed to create a big enough pool that they could pump water out of and make snow in the bottom part of the track that year. And like I said, there's so many people that, that comes back to the community. How many contributors there are to the successes that we see. I mean, it's not just me. It's whether it's Ross and BARR Chalmers and, uh, Maryelle Thompson, what she's doing now, Ashley MC you know, it goes on and on. Yeah. Um, what I, what success in sport is driven by, you know, with the community takes a, takes a village to raise a child, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I, I, it's been so interesting just with the 20, 22 games and seeing all of these kids that either grew up here or, or spent huge chunks of their life training up here. I think I, I was asked myself, why are there so much, so many of them and, uh, part of it is the train and the opportunity, but I think part of it is seeing other people do it. And you believe that then you can yourself because you've seen other people, um, be an example of it. I spent a bunch of time when I was 20 in a small town in Austria that had, you know, four or five, um, world cup champions that had been there. And it, and you know, it's a town of 4,000 people. And I think part of it there too was see other people do that same thing that then I can believe that I can do as well. Which is, is sort of an interesting example for a community to follow. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's, you're a product of the environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah,
Speaker 2:Totally. And you're seeing, yeah. If you see the other guys doing it, like, oh, he can do it. I, I should be able to do it too.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I tell you, my younger son, Evan, he was watching very closely the Olympics and the whole, uh, slopestyle events. He's in a freestyle program of LACO. They've got the airbag, he's been learning tricks there. He's been in the park doing rails stock S I say to have metal grinding on metal, but you know what, it's pretty cool to watch. And he's, he's doing in the mouth. And he saying like, oh, so if we get the Olympics in 2008 years away, I'll be 20. And so you see the wheels spinning and it's inspired him incredibly. I, I, I, I didn't know he had that in him and what we'd want do that, but his, his goal this year to, to figure out a, uh, a quirk seven, cause he wants to do it in a competition at some point this spring he's got, wow, he's got his rails down pretty good. And he's just gotta get one or two good tricks. And, uh, the other day he is doing big back flips. And any chance actually Tuesday when it was sunny, this is, they only slowly had in like 25 years ongoing ski and no one's stopping me, like, okay, make sure your teachers know, get your homework done.<laugh> so he was up there with his palace. He's got a really good, uh, group that they're supporting each other. They're filming each other. They're they're having a really good fun time. Again, it's the environment that he is in, um, you know, the coaches and what they're doing and seeing how, uh, comfortable and calm he is in the air. There's no cat out the window, arms and legs FLA. Yeah. It's been really good, progressive, uh, coaching. And, um, and you know, it'll be interesting to see where he is at in, in eight years.
Speaker 1:That's what my daughter's 17. And she's been with the whistle valley snowboard club for a really long time and same deal. Her friend was in the big air and the slope style, like girl that she snowboards with all the time competing for China. Her name is Sophie. And you might, she came fifth. Yes. Was one of the greatest moments of the Olympic where she did this double under flip landed, went down to the finish line and she's in Beijing as a Chinese athlete. And she finishes in the finish corre and she's sort of like sliding backwards into the, um, the hay
Speaker 2:Bails.
Speaker 1:And then she flips over the hay bails into the, the stands<laugh> and she comes up back O so, I mean, she's got, she got a great score. It didn't interrupt her score, but her head sort of emerges over the top of the hay BAS and you see her just do this
Speaker 2:<laugh>
Speaker 1:It was one of the greatest moments of the games to watch somebody that, you know, my daughter spends a lot of time with actually doing that. You're right. It's the, it's the environment that you grow up in and it's seeing people do it in front of you. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's pretty special. Uh, tell us, uh, quickly about, uh, real estate what's going on in Whistler right now.
Speaker 2:Well, uh, anyone who's on any kind of a mailing list is probably well informed and aware of things, but, uh, you know, we've been on an incredible, uh, tear through, COVID go figure why, but I, I guess we know why people being able to work remotely, uh, uh, I think reevaluating where their lives are at those who were perhaps close to retirement. Maybe they had a weekend cabin up here and they had enough of the city. You know what? Let's take that retirement now and they're selling it out. Maybe they're keeping something small in Vancouver. And they're upsizing here in Worler. That's been driving the market. We've been seeing young professionals, the Airbnb through phase one properties and, and, you know, partly being able to cover all our costs, all their carrying costs through rentals, especially if they felt managed or even with, through some of the property management companies, they're able to keep everything covered. And of course the, the potential upside, the appreciation of the property down the road, um, it's very enticing and it's one of the things that's been driving the market. And also why we've got such a small supply of, of, uh, inventory. Mm-hmm<affirmative>, uh, what I don't like though, is where the prices have gone. And I was listening to the CDC the other day, and they were talking about it. And this, this D R P O direction regarding presentation of offers, basically blind bidding seller will review any and all offers on whatever April 3rd at be. Um, so everyone looks at it. They have time to look. Maybe they get an inspector in there to know what they're buying, even though everyone cautions. There's a lot of cautions to, to make sure you have a subject, you little financing, your inspection or something. So there's a way out, and you're not gonna get it. If you have that. Unfortunately, sellers are obviously enticed by a bird in the hand, oh, subject free. If I say yes to this, it's only, you know, 10,000 less than this other one, but I might have to wait a week to find out if they got the financing or not. So they're gonna take the bird in the hand. And so in some situations, you'll have a winning offer that might be say, 50,000 over what might have been the second place. So the other realtors and, and sellers for that matter are seeing, oh, well that one bedroom is sold for a million. And, you know, the previous one went for say nine 50 or something. That's going for mill I or price minded, a million. And then he gets blind bidding. And that one sells for, you know, a million, oh, now 1,000,050 is the selling price of a one bedroom. So it's on that CDC show. It was an interesting comment from this fellow who had missed that on a few properties. And when he heard what the winning offer was, it was like a hundred thousand. This is a house for his daughter or something in Vancouver. And it was like a hundred thousand more than his bid. And he was second. So he felt really bad for this guy that paid perhaps 70 or 80,000 more than he should have mm-hmm<affirmative> right. Mm-hmm<affirmative> I was only willing to go to a million, but that guy would go to 1.1. Hmm. Now the, the benchmark is set at 1.1. And so that's, I think it's a bit dangerous. And I think now with rates going up, we, I think we'll see a little cooling off. We're seeing more inventory start to come in the market now. And maybe that's because we're towards the end of the, of the winter. And with this big increase in, in values, people are perhaps looking to cash out now. So I think we'll see more inventory come on. I think we'll see a leveling of prices. If enough inventory comes back a market, we might even see a little downward pressure mm-hmm<affirmative>. But, uh, at any rate, I think we're gonna be in a bit of a, sort of a level and off plateau for a while, price wise, um, when it goes back up, who knows, what's the next thing that's gonna happen? You know, we've got some other global concerns going on that I think has a lot of people going, Hmm. Maybe we ought to just hold on for a little bit longer and see what's happening with the economy and what, you know, war across the other side of the world. What's, what's gonna happen there.
Speaker 1:These are strange days. It sounds like you really you're in, it sounds like you really enjoying the work.
Speaker 2:I am. I've, you know, I've having lived here in Wester for 40. It's gonna be 40 years in June. Wow. Um, yeah, seen a lot of development, a lot of changes. Um, many, many improvements of course. And, um, what's been kind of neat about, I mean, I've watched real estate. I I've, I've dabbled in a little bit in Whistler selling Vernon. I was gonna watch the market. And, uh, it was a, a decision when I think that, you know, I love coaching. I love giving back to ski racing. Uh, I love being there for my son actually. That's where I am right now in Panorama at a race series with him. And the, the unfortunate aspect of it is it's an expensive sport and, um, coaching doesn't really pay quite enough.<laugh> yeah. And I don't want it to pay more because it's an amateur sport. And, and so I couldn't really ask for anymore and had I had, I, uh, played my cards over differently and invested in more real estate at the right time and had some more passive income. I might still be coaching, but made the decision to get into real estate after talking with one of my old teammates D and apple gas and came, uh, um, and we're just chatting about it. And, and Mike Carney also from Squamish, he was also a teammate for many years in the national team. And he's been in, in real estate for many years and suggested it. So the seed had been planted many times and it got germinated about five years ago. And I decided, yes. Okay, fine, make a change. I'm gonna do it. And what I've learned, I I've really enjoy the learning curve of it. Um, it was certainly a change of lifestyle to have to hunker down and study for as many hours as I did. And glad, thankfully I passed in the first, uh, go round of the tests and, uh, hooked up with Maggie, the thorn hill real estate at the time, which now has become Vols. And one of the things I really enjoy about is for one getting to tour some incredible houses and getting some ideas for our own place, but, uh, you know, seeing an address for a listing where's that Ile would play, I don't ever been there. So how would a Google earth there Google map? I find where I'm going, oh my God, I never knew this was up here. This is cool. Yeah. Uh, you know, wedwood, I know it's outside of municipality, but I always thought it was kind of down in, in the, by the train tracks and the river and the power lines, but this, the, the last phase there up on the, on the benches up there, what incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Sound like huge. Like the, it feels like you're up. Well, you are, you're up out of the valley and it's, it's a much wider and open valley there than, than I had envisioned or thought or assumed. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's
Speaker 1:True. So, yeah. Huh. Well, Rob, I, I so much enjoyed listening. You talk about, uh, February 25th and I, um, am grateful that you are so generous in sharing that with all of us. We're, we're grateful as whistle rights to own that day and to own that grateful
Speaker 2:To have whistle rights, pushing her back in us too.<laugh>
Speaker 1:Uh, where can people find you if they want to, uh, find Rob boy,
Speaker 2:Uh, physically on the slopes or on the bike trails or, um, I'm easy to find, uh, search of my name online, uh, angle and vs, like I said, is the brokerage that I'm working with. Uh, fantastic. Really. It's actually a great match because they're such, they started in Germany, ELEN workers and, uh, they're such a great, um, international network. When I list the property, it, it goes out all over the world. All the E brokers often have access to listing like it's great exposure that way. Um, yeah, no, I'm, I'm usually around the valley. Um, always on my phone and, uh, easy to, easy to search up.
Speaker 1:Great. Well, Rob, we enjoyed this very much. Thank you for your time today and enjoy cheering for skiers in panel. It looks like you have something else you're gonna say go well,
Speaker 2:I, I do have interest as I kind of alluded to earlier with my son looking at what he, 30 mm-hmm<affirmative> do you have any insights on where things are at with that and the first nations and
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Well, right now it's an interesting time. There's been a, there obviously there's a municipal election coming up on October 15th mm-hmm<affirmative> and one of the members of council in Vancouver is running for mayor. And, uh, she has raised a plebe site vote in the city of Vancouver, um, as something that she wants to attach to the October 15th, uh, election. Um, one of the commitments that we made as local governments, city of Vancouver and the resu municipality whistle is that we would, uh, engage in this, uh, with the focus and the, um, goal of this being an indigenous led bit. And so for me, the Pleva site goes directly counter to the agreements that we've made in that MOU. It, you know, takes the leadership away from the Squamish lo wa um, mu women slave tooth. And so my hope is that that doesn't get on the agenda, um, until such time as you know, this assembly and this leadership has been able to take it forward. So in the last, uh, three months, our team has been working nonstop with the, uh, the host four first nations in the city of Vancouver to understand, uh, what this would look like. But we have some pretty natural advantages. Like all of the venues are built, so we don't have to put any energy or into, um, venues and it could potentially help us solve some of our major problems like transportation and, and housing. So there are opportunities, but I think we, we are not, um, wanting to do this in a, in a way that isn't thoughtful and intentional and well informed. And so, so we continue to dig into that and I continue to make the case that, um, if we are going to make agreements like we have in this MOU, then we should follow through on them. And, um, I'm hopeful that the city of Vancouver, uh, will, uh, be true to the MOU as it's framed. Um, but I do think that Olympics generally are shifting the way they're done, especially for winter games. I don't think we're going to see, um, in the future in the next 50 years Olympics going to fresh sites, every single, I think we're gonna see Olympics go back to park city, go back to Vancouver, go back to, um, uh, Albertville. I, I, I really get the sense that just the cost of putting these things on will require us to see a bit of more of a circuit in the, of the future and the IOCs having to change a ton about the way it does things, uh, to maintain social license. And I think that they are taking that really seriously. We're having the, uh, chief operating officer of the IOC along with the president of the Canadian Olympic committee, Dick pound, Katrina, uh, Clara Hughes, hopefully some local folks, uh, of doing a presentation on April 21st here in Whistler, cuz the Canadian Olympic committee's having there, uh, board meetings here. And so, uh, increasingly I think we'll see more conversations about what does Olympic look like in the future and, and where do we go from here? And I think that that, that April 21st, uh, event is gonna be really interesting in that regard, uh, thinking about, uh, Olympic games over the next 30, 40, 50 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I couldn, I couldn't agree more about, uh, having the venues in place already. Yeah. Versus is like even beyond saying where they transplanted a bunch of trees and put a resort in for the downhill, when the Olympics was over, they removed everything and replanted the trees, sacred trees or something like you said, I think that makes a ton of sense to be re revisiting past the Olympic venues where so much of the infrastructure's already in place. So many the, whether it's the hill, whether it's the jumps, whether it's, you know, the tracks, cross country, bobsled tracks, those are another big one. Yeah,
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Uh, I became pretty close with the Georgian community, uh, related to notar Kumar attach dying and, um, and my role as mayor and I was chatting to them previously and they used to have, like, they used to be the winter home for training Georgia did for the SS R and they had an old Bob sled track. And it's funny, the Beso, a friend of mine was telling me about the change in the build of tracks. You know, they used to be natural handmade, kind of a things can't do that anymore. And they cost hundreds of millions of dollars. So redoing that over and over and over again seems crazy.
Speaker 2:I think SIM it still has the one natural Bobat track. Isn't it? I think it's full.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And they still race it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's pretty fascinating. Natural bobsled track.
Speaker 2:There's an ultimate of garish also.
Speaker 1:There's one at garish.
Speaker 2:There's one in garish. Uh, yeah, we stayed one year in a, the hotel up near it. We'd go for our jogs up it, um, off the track. Well, yeah. See, I think about that, that area of, of Germany and those part of the German Alps, they just don't get snow anymore. So, you know, the tracks, the race track is covered pretty well. Uh, uh, the ski race track, but you go on the woods around there and this barely any snow and totally, you know, I don't think they'd have enough natural snow to be able to create a track there. Yeah. Must they made, you know, kinda like how we got away with making snow and Whistler and, you know, laughed my dad of the room. Oh, it's too warm to make snow in the valley. Cause no, hold on. There are cold days and that's when you make it when it's not snow and when it's cold and dry. Yeah. Yeah. It's the same kind of thing you could do that there, but they don't get along snow anymore much
Speaker 1:Has changed in the ski industry related to snow making. I mean, the, the idea that we will be open to the valley as long as we, uh, will be, even this year is just such a credit to decisions made, uh,<affirmative> in a context where people laughed the person outta the room who actually brought up the idea
Speaker 2:<laugh> yeah, yeah. You know, I'll, uh, kinda a, a, a linking this all together and, and certainly, you know, talking about green Olympics and trying to be more, um, respectful of the environment and that kind of thing, and CO2 missions and net, all that stuff and the sport of ski racing as great as it is outdoors and all that, it's a, it leaves a pretty heavy footprint from, like I said, the snow making, what does it cost to put all that stuff in and the energy to make the snow mm-hmm<affirmative> and the grooming to, I don't wanna be Debbie downer on this, but skiing is, is, uh, uh, I know, I think veil's got a, a big hill decline to try and get the net zero mm-hmm<affirmative> by 2030, I think, um, for all the resorts. Um, but there's ski racing, whether it's the, the products, the fencing, the energy that goes into preparing a track, it's, uh, quite overwhelming. I mean, along conversation, I hope the continues, uh, uh, well, 10 hour drive with my son on the way out here, we covered a lot of topics, but that was one of them. And even just, you know, driving here, I am driving my truck. Yeah. We had a lot of gear, red bikes and stuff in there as well. But thinking of the you of fossil fuelers are using on the way, could we drive it in a electric vehicle moving that way? What if we all go to electric vehicles, how many sites T dams is gonna be required to charge all those cars? Mm-hmm<affirmative>, you know, there's, there's a lot of things that<laugh> a young fellow like that, and an old guy like me are, we are banding back and forth quite a bit about it. It's, it's an interesting conversation. And, uh, you know, what would it, how many batteries would it take to have a snow cap be able to run for five hours, six hours on battery? Yeah. To be able to groom a truck, could you do that? Is it feed
Speaker 1:Or how, how do you get to Val garden? Yeah. Plane. So how are we actually gonna deal with, yeah. These are, I think the kind of conversations that need to have be had around things like Olympics and, and mm-hmm,<affirmative>, it's what I'm excited about on that April 21st conversation is, you know, we know we need to change and change dramatically. How do we do that? And it's those kind of conversations like you have with your kid on a 10 hour drive to a ski race that, uh, we're gonna have to have on a far more regular basis.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, uh, Rob, I think we, we have, we're gonna set a world record on the length of a podcast asked and, uh, I've enjoyed it a lot and I'm grateful that you've taken the time for us. So thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks Jack. I appreciate the invite. And um, if anyone has all the way to the end, thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:So I feel like there's like, oh, many other things that we can talk to Rob about. Maybe we should have stayed on for another hour, but<laugh>, I think we, you were right to say we should have him back.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, I think like we have the, the Jewit episodes we should have, uh, the Rob boy episodes. So give him a little mini series, cuz he's got probably so many more stories. Like I, we were talking about, we didn't even get into him representing Canada in Canada at the Olympics, which for, you know, we talked about the Olympics, but we didn't even talk about him wearing the Mabel leaf on the Olympic stage thought. That was interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah. 1988 Calgary that's for sure. Yeah. The, the stories I'd love hearing him talk about like, ER, Brien and, and even like to lose like all of the, this community of skiers who were so deeply connected to this place. He I'd love to hear him talk about Tomba. Do you know anything about Alberto Tomba?
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:So Tomba was this Italian ski racer? He was a, is like a SLM racer who was apparently just the most fascinating character ever. And he actually came over for dinner at my, with my grandparents, at my house I live in right now. And they tell all kinds of stories about older Alberto Toba time in, in, um, in Whistler. But I'm sure you, you could do a whole set of episodes of Rob just telling stories about ski racing and the Han and come. And like there's so many things that he could chat about. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I gotta say I he's
Speaker 1:A good storyteller.
Speaker 3:He's an amazing storyteller. And one thing that I, I listen to a lot of sports podcasts whenever they have athletes from, you know, from like, Rob's time, like the eighties, nineties, or even earlier than that, uh, and you hear them and they, they go through like their stats or, or their results. And they're not always spot on. I ha I was on like Rob's career races and everything he was saying was spot on how much he won by or who he knocked off the podium and what, like, everything was, it's incredible to see that they can recount the details of their, of their career. It's it's incredible. And he did a great job of it.
Speaker 1:<laugh> they say Wayne Gretsky remembers who was on the ice when he scored all of his goals. And he could tell you like where they were on the ice, not just on his team, but on other teams. That's great. It's like this sort of like, uh, ability to just know everything about your setting, which probably makes sense for world class athletes that they are, they have a special awareness of themselves in, in the game, if you will. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But that's, I mean, he scored what 900 goals, almost 894 or whatever like that to think about. I can't even think, I don't even know if I remember 894 things about my career<laugh>
Speaker 1:Or about
Speaker 3:Anything.
Speaker 1:I dunno if I know any 95 things about anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So that's incredible. Yeah. It's, it's remarkable. The recollection.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, okay. Let's, I'll get on that. I'll reach out to Rob and have him on, uh, again soon, cuz that was so, so much fun. I now know where I am going to be every February 25th for the rest of my life. Yeah.<laugh> which is at the top of the Dave Murray downhill skiing that groom from top to bottom.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And you'll probably be right there with,
Speaker 1:I didn't know that. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Cole. Well, I thought that was a lot of fun today. Uh, and uh, we will put those plans into action and see Rob Boyd back with us again soon, please. If you've got this far follow and to subscribe so that you get these in your feed on a regular basis, and that means you won't need to keep searching the internet for the next Rob boy episode, it'll just show up on your phone. Uh, again, Cole and I love hearing from you. So you know where to find Cole and I am at facebook.com/mayor Jack Crompton. The whistle podcast is brought to you by the resort municipality of whistle, sir, Mount FM. And we are grateful that you listen, have a great day.