Can I start this off with an apology? I do love covering the high school sports teams around here, but there is one week each year where I really have to back off for a bit and focus on something else.
That something else being X Games.
Yes, it’s that time of the year where the biggest names in snowboarding, freestyle skiing and snowmobiling converge on Buttermilk for ESPN’s winter spectacle. Beginning, well, Tuesday, and going through Sunday’s events, I’ll more or less be living at the base of Buttermilk, probably having eaten way too little and having had one or two (or 12) too many Monster Energy drinks (I mean, they are free to media).
The actual competition gets underway Thursday and includes the event that should bring the most local interest. The men’s ski halfpipe final is scheduled to begin at 7:45 p.m. Thursday and will feature Aspen’s own Alex Ferreira (see Thursday’s upcoming edition of The Aspen Times Weekly for a fun Q&A with our local superstar). The Aspen High School graduate will be among the favorites, especially with our other local ski pipe superstar, Torin Yater-Wallace, recovering from his Dew Tour injury.
Now, just because my focus will primarily be on X Games and not freezing to death on the side of the superpipe (seriously, it gets cold out there), that doesn’t mean there aren’t some preps to talk about this week.
Let’s start with Tuesday, when Aspen basketball is set to host Gunnison in games that were originally scheduled for Friday but were postponed because of the snowstorm. The AHS girls (3-6) will play Gunnison (4-7) at 4 p.m. A win would be another huge step forward for a Skiers’ program that is certainly having its best season in quite a while.
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The AHS boys (4-7) will then play Gunnison at 5:30 p.m. The Cowboys are 9-2 overall and already 3-0 in Class 3A Western Slope League play, making this a difficult task for the Skiers. Gunnison beat Basalt on Saturday, 67-48. The Longhorns edged Aspen earlier this season, 44-40.
The Basalt basketball teams are off until hosting Cedaredge on Friday night, the same night AHS is set to host Olathe.
As I wrote about the other day, AHS hockey will close out its regular season with six straight road games, beginning with a trip to Summit (4-8) on Friday. That’s an important league game for both teams.
Saturday is a busy day for preps, but most everything is on the road — which is all for the best, as that’s a full day for me over at Buttermilk. Is anyone else secretly a big Chainsmokers fan? Hoping I can catch two seconds of that concert Saturday night after the women’s snowboard superpipe finals (aka the Chloe Kim show).
So that’s that. We’ll keep you updated on the preps as much as possible, but I do apologize if things are a bit X Games heavy this week, as they should be. Some of you might be over the whole X Games thing, but honestly it’s such an amazing and fun event and we are incredibly lucky to have it here in Aspen (as my dear friend Erica Robbie also made a note about on Page 2).
At the very least, come out to Buttermilk on Thursday night to support Ferreira.