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Weasel Workers set up shop in Creekside

Alpine volunteers welcomed into hospitality hotspot

When the Olympic torch passed through Creekside on Friday (Feb. 5), it swung past a huge tent containing some of the hardest-working volunteers around, unwinding and enjoying each other’s company after a day of effort on Whistler’s Olympic alpine ski venue.

Weasel House, the hospitality centre for the approximately 1,400 ski race volunteers who will be serving the Olympic and Paralympic Games, is up and running in a roomy tent on the tennis courts near Alpha Lake.

Even though the full volunteer workforce hadn’t arrived yet, the atmosphere in the tent was already warm and convivial on Friday thanks to those who had started tackling the big job of honing the racecourse and installing equipment.

“The Weasel House is fantastic… It’s better than we anticipated,” said Weasel Worker president Patrick Maloney, who spent the past 10 months working on the project with alpine chairman and long-time leading Weasel Worker Owen Carney.

Maloney said he was particularly delighted to have the 82-by-82-foot tent decorated with Canadian flag banners signed by members of ski racing clubs around the country with inspirational messages for the Olympians, along with banners from the other supportive sponsors of the hospitality centre and additions such as televisions.

Weasel House replaces the Weasel Beer Tent, a long-time fixture at Whistler races, as a venue to welcome all of the alpine race workers at the Olympics and Paralympics. The facility is expected to be open every afternoon from 4 to 7 p.m. in February and late March.

Maloney said he expects the tent will have a festive atmosphere, allowing volunteers from all over the world to relax and bond with each other after their long days of labour. They’ll swap war stories from each day on the hill, and get refreshed and rehydrated so they’ll be able to get up the next day and do it all over again.

“Weasel Working is tough work, there’s no way to get around that… It’s a good place to relax,” Maloney said.

New volunteers will leave here with “friends they’ll have for the rest of their life,” he added.

Maloney, who is serving as a crew chief for the Games, spent Thursday (Feb. 4) moving around tons of equipment in back-breaking efforts with a fellow crew chief and friend from Oregon, vineyard owner Lloyd Piercy, whom he met last year while volunteering at Val d’Isere. That’s just one example of these enduring friendships forged over European ski races.

Bill Scott, a dedicated and long-standing Weasel Worker and stepfather of rocketing Canadian Cowboy Manuel Osborne-Paradis, gave a stamp of approval to the new, much bigger Weasel House.

“I think it’s wonderful. We’ve been partying away up here for a goodly number of years, and this is quite a bit nicer than the old place,” Scott said.

Maloney sang the praises of all the people from the Vancouver-to-Pemberton corridor who stepped up to help the Weasels on the project, with individuals, businesses and entities like the Resort Municipality of Whistler – which helped them secure the tennis-court space for the tent – offering support and contributions.

“It’s amazing and it’s humbling,” Maloney said of the response.

“I’ve got emails from England, Florida, Colorado, California, all over B.C., Alberta, Ontario, Quebec – all over the place, people have responded,” he added.

They raised about $200,000 in cash and in kind to run the facility, but with a lot of people to look after and a long period to keep it open, they still need about $100,000 more in donations to get to the end, Maloney said.

To contribute, check out the options for donations at www.weaselworkers.com, or contact Maloney at patrick.maloney@rbc.com or Carney at Carney’s Waste Systems in Squamish.

The Whistler Weasel Workers have been champions of building and maintaining alpine ski race courses since the early 1970s. Members have served at everything from Olympic, World Cup and world championship events around the world to Canadian championships and NorAm events.

Maloney estimated that more than 50 per cent of the approximately 1,400 Olympic and Paralympic alpine race volunteers are Weasel Workers. Members hail from Whistler, Pemberton, Squamish, Vancouver, Smithers, Vancouver Island, Alberta, Ontario and well beyond.

“These are people that have been working races here for years, decades in many cases,” Maloney said.

Long-standing members such as Carney, Scott and Karl Ricker – the father of World Cup champion snowboarder Maëlle and the person Maloney guesses is the longest-serving Weasel — are among the people with many entertaining and inspiring stories to share whom new volunteers will get to meet in Weasel House.

Maloney, who has been a Weasel Worker for about 11 years, said one of the reasons behind running Weasel House is to help “build a team for the next 25 years,” by showing the new faces at the Games the abundant hospitality and camaraderie that Weasels have and inspiring them to pick up the torch.

Scott, who says he got involved because all of his friends were doing it, now finds that wherever he goes to volunteer, “I like to make sure that nobody’s kids end up in the bush, including Manuel. Plus it’s still lots of fun.”

Even though the veterans are still capable of working hard, Scott thinks it would be nice to get some new recruits involved.

“I think (Weasel House will) help, it’s so much fun. Work hard all day and then come down and have a beer, everybody’s having a drink and telling lies and just generally having a good time,” he said.

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