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<\/p>\nThe world\u2019s most decorated hockey player on violating his contract to ski, the upside of losing, and fighting resort development in BC. As told to Jake Bogoch, editor of Skiing Magazine.<\/p>\n
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Published January 23, 2009 04:19PM<\/p>\n
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To say that Scott Niedermayer plays hockey is like saying Shakespeare dabbled in theater. Niedermayer is the only hockey player to win every trophy possible for a North American, including Olympic gold, four Stanley Cups, the Conn Smythe trophy for postseason MVP, and the Norris trophy rewarding the best defenseman. But when the hockey season ends, the Anaheim Ducks captain pursues his other passion\u2014ski touring in his native BC. <\/p>\n
I grew up skiing in Kimberly, BC. It\u2019s only 30 minutes from where we lived in Cranbrook. My parents would take us up on Saturday mornings and drive us back early in the afternoon because we had hockey games on Saturday nights. <\/p>\n
If we get knocked out of the playoffs early I\u2019ll go skiing, just not right away. Once the pain and disappointment are dulled, I\u2019ll go touring with buddies in Cranbrook during May. It\u2019s not chest-deep but it\u2019s warm, the days are long, and it\u2019s stable. Getting knocked out of the playoffs is how I got into backcountry skiing. <\/p>\n
The NHL contract is pretty standard. Teams make a large investment in you and they want to defend themselves in case you get hurt because you were playing, say, pickup basketball. Basically the rule is \u201cYou\u2019re not in trouble unless you get hurt.\u201d So I\u2019ve done very little skiing during the season. <\/p>\n
During the NHL lockout in the 2004\u20132005 season, I took my family and spent the whole winter in Fernie. It wasn\u2019t a great snow year, but we didn\u2019t care. It brought back a lot of memories. <\/p>\n
I heli-skied in Alaska for a week. I\u2019ve also been to New Zealand twice. My wife and I skied on the South Island on our honeymoon. Since I have the summers off, and that\u2019s when they get their snow, it worked out perfectly. <\/p>\n
I telemark, snowboard, and alpine. I have four boys and, when they started skiing, I had to alpine. It\u2019s easier to manage the chaos that way. <\/p>\n
I hired a helicopter to photograph me with the Stanley Cup on top of a mountain in Cranbrook. I did it in 2000 when I won with the Devils, then again with my brother [Rob] two years ago after we won it together with the Ducks. We flew to Fisher Peak. On top, the heli had to hover about three feet up and we jumped out. The photos tied the Stanley Cup to the mountains and my home. <\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been outspoken against the Jumbo Pass development near Cranbrook. I know some of those fighting it and donated a small amount of money to their cause. These are scenic, beautiful areas. I\u2019d like to keep it that way for my kids, and their kids. The Kootenays are special and there\u2019s no sense in making it look like someplace else. <\/p>\n
I sat out three months last season as a test-drive for retirement. I\u2019d love to hang out with my family more, and ski more. But I have a competitive side and I was watching my team, which was struggling a bit. That was hard. We\u2019d just won the Stanley Cup. It came down to realizing that my playing time wasn\u2019t going to last forever. <\/p>\n
Skiing is like skating. You\u2019ve got edges. You\u2019re gliding. Even if I haven\u2019t skied in a while, I put on my boards after the hockey season and I\u2019m OK. <\/p>\n
I ski with a group of guys from Cranbrook. We\u2019re all friends from the old days. They do a lot more backcountry skiing than me. But one day I\u2019ll be back in the saddle. <\/p>\n
\u2013 SKIING MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY\/MARCH 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world\u2019s most decorated hockey player on violating his contract to ski, the upside of losing, and fighting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,51334,54704,54706,54705,54707,54708,51341],"class_list":{"0":"post-451211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-parent_category-adventure","11":"tag-tag-adventure","12":"tag-tag-athletes","13":"tag-tag-fernie","14":"tag-tag-skier","15":"tag-tag-skiing-magazine","16":"tag-type-article"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116035404113475567","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}