Owl’s Head Hoot the most popular rite of spring for skiers/boarders
Kormans recognized for generosity
Throngs of people came to celebrate, hoot, and holler at what has been dubbed the most popular spring event for skiers, boarders, and curious onlookers in the Townships over the past weekend.
The Owl’s Head Hoot has been an institution since the early 1970s. It is more than simply a splashy affair. It has been a homecoming for generations of families and friends who opted to make the resort their base for skiing. The Hoot, organized by the ski patrol as its main fundraising event of the year, is traditionally followed by a barbeque dinner hosted by the Owl’s Head Ski Club. This year’s fireworks display after dinner, thanks to the shared cost by the Kormans and the club, were beyond spectacular.
Adults, children, and babies clad in costumes and Eastereverything paraded on the slopes and through the crowds. It
was a good thing, considering the cooler temperature, that the Virgin Hill Airstream was set up at the base to serve coffee and hot drinks.
For so many, the Hoot was a time to celebrate the two people who made it possible for everyone else. Fred and Lillian Korman have been there from the beginning. Owl’s Head is and will always be their owlet. They’ve never skipped a beat in their hands-on management approach. It was the consensus from so many of the “old-timers” that it is because of their open minds and generous hearts and their determination to guard the integrity of a family-focused resort with reasonable rates that has endeared the generations who keep returning.
Would it not be for the Kormans, there might never have been the tremendously successful Adaptive Ski program or the Special Olympics program. They have welcomed and honoured the Canadian Armed Forces’ Soldier-on participants. Students from the Mansonville Elementary schools reaped the benefits of learning to ski at Owl’s Head in years gone by. Since its onset in the 1970s the Owl’s Head Ski Club has been permitted to set up racecourses on a weekly basis and the Kormans have opened the doors for club fundraising activities. For a period during the 1990s they even permitted the now defunct Sherbrooke Ski Club to operate its activities on the hill.
Those who know the Kormans agree that even though Owl’s Head is under new management since March 28, after 52 years, the Kormans will always “own” it. People can look forward to seeing them again next season. Top left, this skier looked like he was going for a headfirst plunge into the pool of slushy water.
Top right, bare-back Jake Savage (a third generation Owl’s Head skier) executing a double 360 before taking the plunge into the ice water underneath during the annual Slush Cup at the Owl’s Head Hoot.
Virgin Hill’s Airstream set up at the base of Owl’s Head to serve up their famous coffee and hot beverages to skiers and boarders in return for donations going to the local ski patrol.