Star snowboarder at head table of B’nai Brith dinner

Lauren McKay might be a little mesmerized by the company she’ll be keeping Monday night, but it’s unlikely that most of them can do what she does.

So maybe B’nai Brith Sports Celebrity Dinner MC Jim Ralph should ask Toronto Maple Leaf Connor Brown, Tiger-Cats coach June Jones, Basketball Hall of Famer Bill Walton and ‘Touch ’Em All Joe’ Carter how they’d like to stand at the top of a mountain with both feet locked onto a slippery board that sometimes has its own mind, then try to negotiate their way downhill through a series of gates, without ski poles.

We can guess what their answer would be.

McKay, one of Canada’s leading young ascendant snowboarders, will be at the head table for Monday night’s 67th edition of the dinner which, over its distinguished history has raised well over $2.5 million for various charities.

“I’m so thrilled,” McKay told The Spectator this week, as she prepared for her Grade 10 exams at Westmount Secondary School. “I’m really flattered that they chose me. I’m excited to meet such high-achieving athletes. I want to talk to them and listen to how they’ve prepared and what they’ve gone through to get to where they are. I think it will really help me, in my own sport.”

She’s already doing pretty well there on her own. In 2016, she won the U.S. under-16 national slalom championship and the Canadian U-15 grand slalom championships. Last year she won both the slalom and GS at U.S. Nationals.

She’s on the Ontario junior development team and has been selected for various high-performance camps.

So far this season, in her first year of eligibility for both the NorAm (the tier below World Cup) and Junior Nor-Am circuits, McKay has third- and fourthplace finishes in the junior ranks, and five top-8 finishes in the senior events.

She was recently chosen to compete in the Ontario Winter Games, for athletes 12 to 18. The games are centred in Orillia, but snowboarding will be held at Blue Mountain on March 1 and 2.

By then, McKay will probably have digested what she learns from the pro athletes Monday night and added it to her impressive catalogue of competitive skills.