Ethan Murphy hasn’t been officially cast into the role of head coach of the alpine ski team at Marble Mountain and nobody is pointing the finger at him, but it looks like he’s the guy to replace Steve May in the role for this season.
Murphy figures he’s the guy to take the leadership role because he’s the most qualified and experienced coach for the position.
The Corner Brook native has a long history with May so he was happy to be able to feed off the energy, expertise and fun the former head coach brought to the hill while he was in the position.
Murphy and May were Marble teammates when Murphy was getting his start in the sport. May eventually ended up coaching Murphy later on and the two spent the past number of years working together on grooming the next generation of alpine stars on the west coast.
Murphy appreciates all the work May put into developing young athletes and bringing the sport back to life a few years back when the club was struggling.
He’s happy that May provided a lot of direction and expertise that steered the organization in the right direction, and also made life easier by forging key friendships with other coaches throughout Atlantic Canada during his tenure.
He knows the athletes will miss him for the positive attitude he brought to the hill and also the fun atmosphere May created when he was showing athletes how to tackle the mountain.
“It’s going to be a big hole in our program for sure,” Murphy said.
Murphy, who is the head coach for the provincial alpine ski team, is hoping to get his athletes on the snow at Marble as soon as it opens because his goal for this season is to get his athletes on snow as much as possible.
A handful of Marble skiers have already attended a ski camp this season and a group is heading to New Brunswick in early January for a week-long technical camp where they will also compete in three races.
2017 is a big year for Marble skiers because it’s a qualifying year for the 2019 Canada Winter Games so Murphy is hoping to get his athletes committed to a number of key events this season, including attendance at a ski-cross event and a Super-G speed camp.
“Get the athletes on snow as early as we can and get as many miles as we can on snow,” he said.
