Friday, February 8, 2002
Memories in the moguls
Heil's parents still see their little girl coming down the hill
By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
SALT LAKE CITY -- Randy and Heather Heil will look at the moguls course early Saturday and see the same picture from different places.
As they wait for Canada's youngest Olympian to try to win Canada's first medal of these Olympics, the parents of the Spruce Grove skier, who was rookie of the year in her sport last year, know they're going to look into the snow and see an even younger Jennifer Heil.
BOBBING HEAD
"I'm going to look up there and see this little head bobbing through the moguls when she was just a little girl on one of our trips to Panorama,'' said Randy. "She was just a natural. She just took off. We put her on the bunny hill, but at that stage, kids have no fear. She went from the greens to the black diamond runs in almost no time. And that little head as she came bobbing through the moguls ...
"Actually, you couldn't even see her head. She was so little all you could see was the top of her toque coming through the moguls. She was three feet high. She thought what she was doing was normal.''
Heather will see the same kid, as a five-year-old, in Fernie, B.C., with the family.
"When we pulled into the parking lot there was three feet of snow on the cars. She couldn't get to the top fast enough. She took off through the powder and all you could see was her head. All those ups and downs and watching this little head ...''
Jennifer was going down ski hills long before those preschool runs.
"She started riding in a pack sack on my back when she was a year old,'' remembers Randy. "She was two when she first put on skis at Lake Eden. She was just a natural.''
Being the youngest on this Olympic team is nothing new to Jennifer. "She's been the youngest in everything,'' says her dad.
He laughs now about when she was the youngest to make the Alberta team.
"She was in tears,'' he said.
"When you make the Alberta team they give you a team ski suit. The smallest suit they had was about six sizes too big. She started to cry, it was so huge on her.''
Randy remembers taking a car load of the Edmonton-area skiers to Canyon in Red Deer.
"When we got there it was 20 below. When we got to the parking lot, the kids were all saying, 'I'm not going down.' Then I heard this little tiny voice from the back which said, `I am.' ''
Heather says while it's true her daughter was a skier from the get-go, she was much more multi-sport than most people might figure.
"She played at everything. She did gymnastics. She swam with the Baracuda Swim Club from the time she was six until this past summer. She's run cross-country. Volleyball. Basketball. All those school sports. As a little girl playing on the monkey bars, there was always a balance, that co-ordination and that mental attitude.''
There wasn't much mention made of the Olympics around the Heil house.
"The O word didn't come up too often," admits Heather.
Jennifer, who is the toast of the Edmonton bedroom community where banners urging her to Salt Lake success hang at Spruce Grove's City Hall, says when she did think of being an Olympian, it was down the road.
"The Olympics are still like a dream to me. I'm only 18. I feel, partly, still a kid. I didn't even think about being at these Olympics at this time last year. I was thinking maybe 2006 ...''
Randy and Heather will both be there Saturday morning looking up at the moguls run not knowing what to think. But they both believe they will see a little girl coming down the hill before they see her Olympic run.
TOUGH TO WATCH
Both parents admit they don't watch Jennifer the same way.
"It's difficult for me,'' says Randy. "As a parent it's exciting and terrifying at the same time.
"It's like your little girl is standing on the edge of a cliff. I'd rather not be there. Tell me how she's done. Heather spends more time going to her events to watch her ski than I do. She doesn't find it as terrifying. I find it so difficult to be on the hill watching her.
"But, it's the Olympics. How can you not be there?"
2002 Games Freestyle Skiing Coverage
