BLAKE HUGHES
Women’s Ski Jumping Team Director
blake@usanordic.org
The annual tradition of the Springer Tournee in Park City and formerly Calgary that was started in 1998ish by Gregor Linsig and Corby Fisher to connect to two clubs, Altius Nordic Ski Club and National Sports Foundation (Now Park City Ski & Snowboard) has turned into the premier event for our community in the United States. In the begin it was small and just the two clubs participated in back-to-back weeks in Park City and then everyone moved to Calgary for the second round of competitions. Four competitions in total on each hill to emulate the real Four Hills Tour in Germany and Austria.
Many of you have, or at least have seen, the famous “Springer” T-Shirts. This has become a fun tradition that started with the first Springer Tournee. Everyone knows you get a T-Shirt when you sign up for an event and this was no exception. These shirts were special because there was always an inside joke (or two) that only a handful of people were privy to. Usually, it was just Gregor and Corby that knew what was going on and they were steel vaults when it came to cracking the code (Seriously, Gregor just told me the meaning behind one from the 6th year). As time went on, more coaches got involved with helping the design and the inside jokes. Even causing another coach to start his own off-brand Springer shirts because he wasn’t included in the process.
The design was passed on from Gregor and Corby to fellow Park City coaches and when I started working for the Club in Park City, I was given the honor to start designing them myself. This is no small feat; I have spent the whole year jotting down notes in my phone and saving imagines and ideas I thought would work well for every shirt to be created. On the flip side, it’s also come down to the last day, and needed to just make something to have something and those are some of my favorites.
I have been making them since 2012 (Shaka Bra) and it has been a pleasure to create them and it makes me smile every time I see one that I have created, especially if it’s one of the older shirts. But as everything goes, they are forgotten, and designs lost, and we have been trying to find each of them from the last 22 Springer Tournees. So, that is my challenge to you, do you have a Springer Shirt from every year? Send them in and let’s see if we can complete the collection. I know there is a group of us that would love to see if we could find all the shirts.
