Crazy Canucks
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The Crazy Canucks were a group of Canadian alpine ski racers who rose to prominence in the World Cup during the 1970s and 80's. Dave Irwin, Ken Read, Dave Murray and Steve Podborski burst onto the scene of a European-dominated sport and quickly earned themselves a reputation for fast and seemingly reckless skiing - and also for winning.
[edit] The Crazy Canucks
In the early 1970's the Canadian Alpine Ski Team elected to build a small, tight core of young ski racers to lead Canada on the World Cup. "Jungle" Jim Hunter and Dave Irwin were members of the 1972 Olympic Winter Games Team to Sapporro, who were joined in 1973 by Dave Murray and in 1974 by Steve Podborski and Ken Read.
While still racing in all ski disciplines, success came almost entirely on the downhill.
Led by Canadian Team alumni, Scott Henderson, the team showed early signs of promise at the 1974 World Championships (Dave Murray - 9th) and in Val d'Isere (Jim Hunter - 4th). By 1975, this young team had come together and began to quietly make a mark - Dave Irwin finished 6th in the pre-Olympic downhill at Innsbruck, Jim Hunter had multiple top 10 results, Ken Read with an 8th in a World Cup at Megeve, France and both Murray and Podborski had reached the top 20 in several races.
On December 7,1975 the long-awaited breakthrough came when Ken Read won the opening downhill of the season in Val d'Isere, France, with four of his teammates following closely behind (Irwin - 4th, Podborski - 9th, Hunter - 10th and Muray - 13th). Two weeks later, Iwrin proved the Canadian success was no fluke by winning the tough Schladming (Austria) downhill with a similar strong Canadian Team showing backing him up.
After the victories and a series of spectacular falls, Serge Lange walked up and muttered, "crazy Canucks". The name stuck.
The 1980 season was the watershed, with Read and Podborski dominating the team, while Irwin continued his series of spectacular falls. At Kitzbühel, Read won again, while Irwin took fifth. The following week on the Lauberhorn downhill in Wengen, Switzerland, Read won again in the first race and shared the podium the following day with Podborski for the first of many double-podium results for the pair. The team had extremely high hopes at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, but Read's binding popped open at the start of the run. However, Podborski earned the bronze medal, which was the first ever downhill medal by a North American male.
There was a transition year in 1981. Irwin and Murray were unable to repeat their earlier successes, while Podborski continued to compete with Read. In 1982 Podborski had earned an unassailable lead, winning the men's World Cup Downhill Champion title, the first time for a non-European. At the end of the 1982 season, Irwin and Murray retired. After the 1983 season, Read also retired after ten years on the team. Podborski followed the year later, after the 1984 Winter Olympics.
In total, the Crazy Canucks scored 15 World Cup wins and a total of 40 World Cup podium results, one World Cup downhill title (Podborski - 1982), three World Cup downhill season medals, and one Olympic bronze (Podborski - 1980).
The four members considered the "core" of the team - Podborski (Don Mills, Ontario), Dave Irwin (Thunder Bay, Ontario), Dave Murray (Abbotsford, BC) and Ken Read (Calgary, Alberta) were also joined by Jim Hunter (Calgary, Alberta) Gary Aitken (Rossland, BC) in the early years and by Todd Brooker (Paris, Ontario) in the later years.
Coaches of the Team were Scott Henderson (1972-1977), Heinz Kappeler (1977-1982), John Ritchie (1977-1983) and Joey Lavigne (1982-1984). Also key to this team was their long-serving serviceman from Fischer, Hans Ramelmueller who worked with all four athletes from 1977 to 1984.
[edit] Legacy
Although Team Canada would eventually fade from dominance, the training methods they pioneered were soon standard around the world.
Legandary 'Crazy Canuck' Ken Read was named to re-build Team Canada in 2002, taking over as President of Alpine Canada Alpin . Since then the team has slowly started to recover lost glory. in 2003, Canadian skiers Melanie Turgeon and Allison Forsyth won gold and bronze at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships. Canmore Alberta's Thomas Grandi started with two giant slalom gold medals in 2004/5 . The momentum than continued through the Olympic year of 2006 with several near podium finishes in Alpine events in Turin and a season total of 12 World Cup podiums. The 2006/2007 Alpine team then exploded out of the gate at Lake Louise Alberta in November 2006. Vancouver's Manuel Osborne-Paridis claimed the silver in the first men's downhill of the season stunning the heavily favoured Europeans .Teammate John Kucera of Calgary then did the almost unthinkable winning the super giant slalom the next day on home turf in frigid conditions in front of boisterous local fans . The gold medal run was the first Alpine victory for a Canadian male skier on Canadian soil in almost 20 years. The following week when the women came through Lake Louise Kelly Vanderbeek who had previously finished 4th at the Turin Olympics, continued to Own the Podium - 2010 by finishing 3rd.
In 2006, it was announced that Ken Read, Steve Podborski, Dave Irwin and Dave Murray would be receiving stars on Canada's Walk of Fame. They would all be inducted as one group. The only other skier on the walk is Canadian skiing legend Nancy Greene.
