And Finally, the Slush Cup

After a fairly uneventful Sunday, with most of us going to bed early after Sam's party the night before and the End Of Season party the day after, we woke up to Monday May 19th, the final day of Sunshine Village's season.

I was working at the base in the morning, so duly went down the gondola as I had done every week since the beginning of December.

As one might imagine, not many people who were visiting Sunshine Village on the final day were here to ski, let alone take lessons. And the instructors weren't that motivated to be teaching them, either... however, I was able to sell a couple of beginners' lessons to those who didn't quite understand what the Slush Cup is all about. For the rest of the time I helped the guys at Guest Services sell tickets, and at 12:30 I rode back up the gondola for the final time...

On reaching the top, I could instantly see that the village was jam-packed full, and that it was also tipping it down with rain (I really felt for those poor Brazilians who I'd just sold an afternoon Discovery lesson to!), but I fought through the crowd to the Old Sunshine Lodge to see Shannon and Dayna.

Our mission on Slush Cup, while at the top, is to tell people where the lockers are, change money for the lockers, remind them that all the ATMs in the village are broken, prompt them about what time the Slush Cup kicks off, act as a lost property centre etc etc. We duly did this until about 1:20 when the slushing actually began, then we started taking it in turns heading out to watch.

This is how the Slush Cup works- 60 competitors, male or female, skiers or snowboarders (or even a monoboarder) take it in turns to slide as fast as they can down Pandemonium (where the BOZO Cup took place), hit and small jump, then try their best to skim across the surface of an icy pool trying to reach the other side. There are prizes for the Best Costume, Excellent Enema and of course, prizes for the few who succeed in staying (relatively) warm and dry.

The first gentleman to take the plunge was this guy, who is in his forties and has been doing the event for 21 years... Still, he's obviously not practiced enough (or maye drunk too much) and he still ended up in the drink... You can also see the Ski Patrolers as temporary lifeguards.

Snowboarders have a much harder time than everyone else, partly because they look stupid since they are going sideways, but more importantly they've got a much smaller base and less control once they hit the surface (as this guy is about a millisecond from doing). Normally there's a huge splash, everyone in the front row of the crowd gets wet (a bit like the pantomime really!) and they emerge looking sheepish not even half way along the pool. Then get dragged out by ski patrol and make their way (illegally!) to the hot tun.

Kyle Armstrong, one of our most qualified and youngest ski instructors (and also one of my Level 1 course conductors), took the plunge in a very unusual way. I imagine it would be no difficulty for him to skim across the top just like everyone else, but this year he decided to do it switch (backwards). It was a great disappointment when he ran out of speed mere feet from the end, and despite '9s' from the judges he didn't win a prize. Above, he is looking suitably annoyed...

So the event went on for a couple of hours, with the crowd kept partly by the excellent DJs, but the copious amounts of booze seemed to help ignore the drenching rain. On the desk, we were taking it in turns as we gave people change and watched others get soaked. But it was soon over and time to pack up the desk (and the rest of our stuff) one last time. We signed out at HR, and then we were no longer employees of Sunshine Village...