About Us
The Nakiska Alpine Ski Association was founded in the summer of 2009, bringing together four Calgary-area ski racing clubs who all agreed to re-organize their programs to work collaboratively to build Canada's best alpine ski racing development system. In 2009-2010, NASA's clubs each focused their programs on a specific age group, maintaining independent boards of directors and professional coaching staffs. NASA began operations employing two full-time program directors who dedicated their services to the member clubs, designing and building programs, mentoring and training coaches and steering the direction of all clubs and programs.
In the Spring of 2010, it was very clear that the NASA system was a huge success; with greater athlete numbers, increased efficiency and a streamlined approach focused on athletic development as the top priority, all four of the founding clubs experienced success on and off the snow. In 2010-2011, NASA added a fifth member club, the K-Squad Mogul Insitute, which offers our performance level athletes an alternative freestyle option for their competitive aspirations. With an enthusiastic membership, NASA and the clubs opened registration for the 2010-2011 season in the spring of 2010 and very quickly met and surpassed the previous season's registration numbers!
New in 2011-12 NASA added yet another member club to the organization, the Mount Allan Ski Team. With growing number of athletes at the KD level and the restructuring of the KD program as a Performance Level program it became apparent that there was a need for a separate independent club dedicated to the needs of the athletes at this level.
6 clubs and 300 members strong, NASA enters the 2011-2012 season as a leader in the Alberta Ski Racing scene looking for continued success and enjoyment of competitive snow sports for our athletes, coaches and parents.
NASA Athletes appeared on City TV in the fall of 2009 to demonstrate
dryland training and to promote our clubs and programs
NASA's member clubs are independent non-profit organizations and all maintain independent Boards of Directors who employ professional coaches and draw upon parent volunteers to deliver programs to their age group. The clubs contribute resources to the non-profit NASA organization for the purposes of employing a Program/Technical Director, Kinder Program Supervisor and a Program Administrator. NASA is governed by a board of directors, comprised of members from each of the clubs to ensure open communication and equal representation and decision making for athletes at all levels.
The programs delivered by the clubs are overseen by the NASA's program director to ensure consistency and quality across the system. While maximizing efficiencies and dedicating professional staff at each level, NASA's goal is to raise the bar in the standard of athlete and ski racer development in Alberta while keeping the cost of the sport accessible to as many families as possible.
NASA's member clubs and the age groups they deliver programs to are as follows:
The Skimeisters Alpine Racing Club delivers the Nancy Greene Ski League programs for athletes age 5-9 years old.
The Mount Allan Ski Team delivers the Kinder Development program for athletes age 8-10 years old.
The Paskapoo Alpine Racing Team delivers the K1 program for ages 11 and 12.
The Kananaskis Alpine Ski Team delivers the K2 program for ages 13 and 14.
The National Alpine Training Centre is the home of our FIS team for ages 15 and older.
The K-Squad Mogul Institute offers mogul-specific competitive freestyle programming for athletes aged 10 and older.