Top Five Fridays: November 21, 2025
A Blizzard athlete boosts off a natural feature on what appears to be the all new Canvas 118. We’ll tell you all about this exciting new lineup in highlight #3! Image: Blizzard Skis on Facebook
#.5 The SkiEssentials.com Black Friday Sale is LIVE, and the Savings Are Massive:
Our annual Black Friday sale is happening NOW. If you want to steer away from ski news and start shopping deals immediately, we won't be offended. Promise.
Hello, and welcome to Top Five Fridays, the November 21, 2025 edition! This week, we’re starting things off a little bit differently as we have some news that we think will make you all quite happy: our annual Black Friday sale is officially underway!
While every year we do our best to bring you the biggest deals possible during the holiday season, we have to say, this year feels like our best offering yet as we have several ways to save. For example, we’re offering $50.00 off all Ski & Binding as well as Snowboard & Binding sets. When you shop our board/ski & binding sets, which are already discounted, you’ll quickly realize how insane of a deal they become when you take an additional $50 off.
Need boots too? No worries - we’ve extended the same deal to packages. With our Black Friday deals, you can take $50 off select ski, snowboard, and XC ski packages. Still not sold? Crazy, but ok. How’s this: we’re also offering free base treatments on 2026 ski, snowboard, and XC skis - a $200 value, and that’s before you factor in the fact that you’ll never need to pay for a hot wax.
Of course, not every year is a “new gear year.” We get it - if you got a new set of skis or a new board last year, they’re probably still working just fine. For those of you in this category, fear not: we’ve also slashed prices on thousands of products in our Outlet. Whether you need a new jacket, poles, ski bag - or heck, maybe you find a pair of skis that you don’t need, but just really, really want - with the gear we have in there and the prices it’s available for, we’re sure you’ll find a deal that’s meant for you. Anyways, what we’re really getting at is this: as is the case every year, now is the absolute best time to buy new ski gear, and we highly recommend taking advantage of our Black Friday sale.
#1: FIS World Cup Update: Shiffrin & Moltzan Meet Their Goals While a World Cup Rookie Earns His First Points:
It’s another year, another reindeer for Mikaela Shiffrin as she starts her slalom season with a win in Levi. Image: U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team on Facebook
Still with us? Impressive! Personally, we’d be scouring the site for deals right now. But no matter, for those of you who are still with us, let’s get into some ski news!
This week, there was quite a bit going on in the world of skiing - so much so that our fourth highlight this week is a double theme, double header featuring a trio of stories that we felt were too important to leave out but that we simply don’t have space to cover in full this week. As for the other highlights, well, we’ve got big news coming out of Finland where the second Alpine World Cup race was held last weekend, as well as Palisades, Tahoe where a new freeride competition has been announced, and Austria, where Blizzard will be building their freshly announced, brand new “Canvas” skis. We’ve got a lot to cover this week, so let’s dive right in!
First up this week, as is always the case this time of year, is coverage of the latest results from World Cup alpine racing. When we left off last Friday, we were less than a day away from the first slalom race of the season, which we figured would be a big one for both Mikaela Shiffrin and Paula Moltzan. For Shiffrin, there was a touch of added pressure as she had previously declared that she was planning to focus extra hard on slalom events this year in preparation for the Olympics. As such, expectations were through the roof for the first race of the season. For Moltzan, the race was significant for two reasons. First, she finished in second in the first race of the season - a giant slalom in Soelden. Secondly, that result, paired with thoughts she shared last week with Olympics.com in which she suggested that she wants to become a regular podium threat this season, added a little extra pressure to see if Moltzan could continue having the type of season she dreamed about. As it turns out, both of these athletes met the high expectations.
When all was said and done after the slalom race in Levi last weekend, Mikaela Shiffrin had won the event by a tremendous 1.66 seconds. In the world of slalom racing, that’s about as big of a win as it gets. For perspective, 1.64 seconds behind the second place finisher (Albania’s 19 year old competitor Lara Colturi), was 10th place finisher Katharina Liensberger. Feel free to wrap your head around the implications of that statistic if you’d like, or, if you prefer the more blunt version, here it is: Mikaela absolutely smoked the competition. In doing so, she also grew her stable by one, adding her ninth reindeer and officially tying Santa’s count. While that guy chose to name his ninth ‘deer “Rudolph”, Shiffrin went with something equally as cute: “Winkie”.
As for Moltzan? While she didn’t quite make the podium in Levi, we’re of the opinion that she still achieved her goal of becoming a regular podium threat. Afterall, she did finish in 4th place, just .15 seconds off of 3rd. If the goal is to threaten the podium, well, it doesn’t get much more threatening than that.
On the men’s side of things, we noted last week that while technical races aren’t the specialty of the U.S. men’s team, there are two athletes rising in potential who we were keen to watch in Levi: Ben Ritchie and Jett Seymour. Unfortunately, things didn’t go to plan for these two athletes as Jett Seymour’s time of 58.57 seconds left him outside of qualification, while Ben Ritchie crashed out on his second run. But, the results from the race weren’t all bad. In lieu of Ritchie or Seymour earning points in this race, it was Alpine C Team member Cooper Puckett who was making just his second World Cup appearance ever and finished in 26th. While his World Cup career is still young, that early result has immediately caught our attention, making his name one that we’ll be looking out for as the season progresses.
Speaking of which, now that the Levi races have been held, the rest of the season will be coming at us fast. This weekend, both the men’s and women’s circuits are in Gurgl, Austria for another round of slalom races. As was the case last week, our attention will be on Shiffrin, Moltzan, and the entire U.S. Women’s team, as well as Ritchie, Seymour, and now, Cooper Puckett. To preview this weekend’s race schedule, click here.
#2: Natural Selection Ski Announces Palisades Qualifier Event, Details Regarding Final Roster Remain Unknown:
Next up this week is followup coverage to a story we shared just under a month ago, when Natural Selection Ski announced that it will officially be returning to Alaska for year 2. Alongside that announcement was the somewhat cryptic news that in addition to the Alaska event, it was sounding like NST was planning on hosting a qualification event in order to fill out the roster in Alaska. This week, we learned more details about that.
In a social media post that went up on Wednesday of this week, Natural Selection Ski announced the “Super Sessions” - a qualification event being held at Palisades, Tahoe. This event, whose format we expect to duplicate the head-to-head bracket style format of other NST events, will feature a total of eight athletes - four men, and four women. Within those two divisions, one winner will emerge and be given the chance to compete at the Alaska event. All in all it’s a pretty small field, which is potentially out of necessity given the event’s format.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an NST announcement if we weren’t somehow left with lingering questions. When you run the numbers between this week’s announcements and the news we shared back in October, you can see that there’s still quite a few roster spots left to be accounted for. Between the four male athletes who autoqualified for this year’s event by making semi-finals last year, as well as the two female athletes who autoqualified by making finals - plus the one winner from each division in the Super Sessions, it means that the event has accounted for five male and three female competitors. Very odd numbers.
Digging into the press release put out by the Tour, it doesn’t sound as though they’re planning any more Super Session events. Instead, it suggests that more riders for this winter’s event in Alaska will be selected via wildcard and slowly announced over the course of the winter. In addition to that, the press release also shares that coverage of the Super Sessions event will be broadcast on Redbull TV, with the winners from the event being, “revealed in the episodes as they premiere leading into Alaska’s final event.” So, rather than being shared in a singular event format, it sounds like the Super Sessions will be released episodically. Very interesting.
As with all things NST related, each new announcement is shrouded in mystery, bringing forth new questions to ponder. Those questions will undoubtedly be answered in due time, but for now, you can know what we know by checking out the latest news on the Natural Selection Tour website.
#3: Blizzard Skis Has Just Announced Their First True Twin Tips in Nearly 10 Years, With the Debut of Their “Canvas” Collection:
Our third highlight this week might be something you’ve already read about, but it’s one we’re particularly excited for: Blizzard has just announced an entirely new series of skis.
When you work in the marketing department of one of the largest ski retailers in New England, if not the country, you’re fortunate enough to be pretty clued into the ebbs and flows of ski development. In most cases, this means a brand will release a ski, let it live for a few years with just topsheet updates, and then either tweak some things with the construction or shape to give it a personality adjustment, or change it enough that it becomes a new model. Rarely though, do we see entirely new lineups of skis being developed from the ground up. Such is the case though with Blizzard’s new “Canvas” series.
Just yesterday, Blizzard finally pulled the curtain back on a project that they’ve been working on with athletes over the course of the last few years. Initially referred to as “Carte Blanche,” the project was focused on giving the brand’s youngest athletes the chance to develop an entirely new ski that would target a market that Blizzard felt they weren’t a part of: young freeskiers. While the brand had previously offered the Peacemaker and Gunsmoke skis, which were soft, playful twintips, it had been nearly a decade since the brand offered anything similar. Since then, as you might guess, ski technology has continued to develop, meaning that while the brand hoped to re-engage the younger market, it also wanted to start fresh, giving its freeski inspired athletes the chance to create something new.
The result of these efforts is the Canvas series: three skis that aim to bring terrain park inspired playfulness to the whole mountain. Set to be released in 100, 108, and 118 mm widths, the Canvas series hopes to be the answer for skiers who aren’t hellbent on charging down the mountain, and would rather surf, slarve, and slash their way down it.
At the moment, these skis are slated for full release at the start of next season. That said, there are a limited quantity of early release Canvas 108’s coming available in mid-December. While we won’t have many, we do expect to have some on hand. And, while we weren’t able to include the ski in our Ski Test last year, some of our testers were able to get on them, and let’s just say, they skied away feeling impressed. If you’re interested in picking up a pair, keep an eye out for an announcement in the next few weeks. Until then, we recommend heading over to Blizzard’s website to learn more, or the coverage from Ski Mag.
#4: Continuing Coverage: Ski Patrol Unionization Continues its Upwards Trend While Liability Waivers Once Again Face Legal Challenges - This Time in Colorado:
Last week, 93% of Jackson Hole’s ski patrol signed a petition to unionize. It’s unclear whether or not the K9 unit was included in the process. Image: Jackson Hole on Facebook
Finally, we’re rounding things out this week with a bit of a double header as we want to quickly share three stories that continue the conversation around two themes that we’ve discussed at length over the past couple of years. While these stories might’ve warranted full coverage during a slow week, as you can tell, this wasn’t a slow week in the world of skiing. Still, we want to squeeze them in to keep you in the know as these stories continue to develop.
First up on this list is continuing coverage of the unionization of ski patrollers in North America. In recent years, the trend for ski patrol outfits at major mountains across North America has picked up some serious steam, particularly after Park City’s patrol showed the powerful impact unions can have when it comes to negotiating things like wages and healthcare coverage. This week, we have two stories that continue this conversation.
In Jackson Hole, a petition was submitted to the National Labor Relations Board last week in which 93% of the resort’s eligible patrollers had signed on in support of unionizing. While this news doesn’t mean that the patrollers are officially unionized, the overwhelming support from their members does indicate that it’s all but inevitable, marking one more major mountain whose patrol has unionized. Jackson Hole News and Guide has more on this.
In other ski patrol unionization news, Telluride’s patrol unit, who has unionized, has just unanimously voted to authorize a labor strike. That move, as you might guess, comes as a result of stalled contract negotiations, mostly centered around compensation. As a result of the possible strike, there is already talk of scabs being brought in to temporarily replace the local patrol, echoing the same type of chaos that occurred in Park City a couple of years ago. This one has the potential to get spicy. For more on this, check out the reporting from Teton Gravity.
Finally, the last topic we want to briefly touch on in this week’s news is that of ski resort liability. As our summertime readers know, ski resorts in Oregon are currently in the midst of a stressful scenario as they have just one insurance option available to them as a direct result of state laws making liability waivers all but unenforceable. This week, we learned that the liability issue is now set to be tested in Colorado as well, where the state’s Supreme Court has just ruled in favor of hearing a previously thrown out case in which the plaintiff is suing Vail Resorts for an incident that happened at Breckenridge. In this case, the plaintiff was hit by a resort employee on a snowmobile as they rounded a blind turn in what they claim was an act of gross negligence. Again, at the center of this case is the enforceability of the waivers that the plaintiff signed when purchasing their Epic Pass. For more on this one, check out coverage from The Aspen Times.
#5: And Now, Your Edits of the Week: Trading Places: Watch Alex Hackel Learns to Carve While Ted Ligety Learns to Butter:
Whether You Love Urban Rails or Backcountry Booters, “Too True” from Entourage is Well Worth Witnessing”:
*** Warning: Contains a handful of language infractions, mostly in the soundtrack. ***