The Program: The Nobles Alpine Ski Team consists of boys’ and girls’ varsity and junior varsity teams. We compete weekly against eight other ISL schools, each squad vying for the league championship in this season-long competition. We also participate in the highly competitive Class A New England Championship field, skiing against the other 14 top independent school programs across the region.

Philosophy and Expectations: Working hard, improving one’s racing, developing really positive team chemistry and simply having a lot of fun as a team are the four cornerstones of our program. In doing so, we hope that each racer develops a consistently strong work ethic, approach and attitude towards their skiing and racing. Although we face altitudinal as well as latitudinal challenges in eastern Massachusetts, we feel that we offer an incredibly focused, productive and successful program nonetheless. We are open to accomplished free skiers looking to learn how to race as well as to those who have already raced for many seasons and are looking to get more on-snow time during the week, while also experiencing team racing.

The Team: The team consists of 24 racers, ideally 12 girls and 12 boys, with seven of each racing varsity and five racing JV. The strongest four finishers’ place points are added together and counted to determine school placing in varsity events and each team’s top three finishers are counted in JV races. At the New England’s (NEPSAC’s), each varsity team enters its top five racers in both giant slalom and slalom events and counts its top three finishers in each discipline, standings again determined by adding the three placings together.

Preseason Training and Holiday Camp: Before the snow flies, the team works out with the strength and conditioning coach, spins, plays soccer, team handball and Ultimate. We do tucks, we review best ski tuning practices, we hold the Wall Sit Championship of the World and we do snow dances encouraging Ullr to come to New England early and often. The on-snow portion of the season usually kicks off with our holiday camp, held either before Christmas or after New Year’s depending how the calendar falls in a given year. The team spends three days on snow, free skiing, doing drills, and training in gates. Venues used the past few years have included Cannon, Waterville Valley and Okemo. In early January, the second semester begins and everyone is fired up to begin the competitive portion of the season.

Ski Team room: The team has a dedicated space in the Morrison Athletic Center (MAC) that includes ski racks, cubbies for each athlete’s gear, a video monitor, four sharpening set-ups, two waxing stations and two scraping and polishing stations (see video link under Photo Gallery, below).

Beginning in January, we have a mandatory hour-long study hall on Mondays for all racers in Classes II-V before heading out to train at Nashoba Valley (Wachusett or Pats Peak on occasion) from 6:00-7:40. We are back on campus around 8:30.

On Tuesdays, the team stays on campus and does a rotation consisting of a workout (cardio, plyo, yoga), video review and ski prep for the next day's race. Afterward, there is an optional team dinner and the team is usually back on campus by 6:15-6:30.

On Wednesdays, we race each week at Nashoba Valley, leaving campus by 2:00 and returning by 6-6:30, depending on time of race completion as well as traffic encountered.

On Thursdays, we have a work-out block for those excused from Friday training (and any of those racers training on Friday who also wish to participate).

On Fridays, those athletes participating in a weekend race program are excused from practice if they wish, and those that are not participating in one, train at Nashoba. Everyone is excused from practice on the Friday before each of the two winter holiday weekends (Martin Luther King and Presidents’).

Results: In the winter of 2023, the girls' varsity won their 20th ISL title in the last 21 seasons. The girls also won the Class A New England's out of the 10 schools competing (after losing out in a tie-breaker in '22). The boys' varsity finished 1st out of the nine schools in the ISL, their 4th title in the last 14 seasons, and finished sixth of the 12 teams competing at Class A's.

This past winter, the girls again won the ISL, finishing undefeated and earning their 14th consecutive title and 21st in the last 22. They also repeated as New England Class A champions in this year's field of 11 schools, with very strong results in both events, going 1, 2, 5, 8 in the Slalom and 1, 4, 5, 6 in the GS. The boys did very well in a huge rebuilding year, finishing in the middle of the pack in both the ISL and the New England Class A fields.

 

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