Top Five Fridays: November 28, 2025
Mikaela Shiffrin is off to a heater of a start this season as her two slalom victories really haven’t even been close. More on that in highlight #1! Image: U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team on Facebook
A special week calls for a special broadcast! In lieu of our typical weekly video report, Jeff and Bob are doing a live Black Friday Q&A. Grab your favorite snack, a bevvy, a list of questions, and a comfortable place to sit down and watch these two experts answer all of your hard hitting questions!
#1: FIS Results - Shiffrin Continues Explosive Start, While the Men’s Speed Season Finally Gets Underway:
Hello, and welcome to Top Five Fridays, the November 28, 2025 edition! This week, not only is it a very special Thanksgiving episode, but it’s our annual Black Friday edition as well! In case you somehow missed it last week, it’s worth noting that we currently have a ton of amazing deals available on the site, especially if you’re looking for 2026 ski & binding combos. We won’t spend too much time here taking you through all of our deals, as we did that already last week, but just know that we’re currently offering some pretty ridiculous prices on new ski & binding combos, ski packages, snowboard packages, and an insane amount of products in the Outlet. If you or someone you know is in need of new gear this year, today is definitely the day to throw something in your cart and make it happen.
With that all said, let’s jump into some ski news.
First things first this week is continued coverage of World Cup alpine ski racing as the season continues to heat up with multiple races and results to discuss. Taking it in chronological order, last weekend Gurgl, Austria hosted both the men and women in a pair of slalom races, marking the third race of the season for each gender. As a quick reminder, the story on the women’s side so far this season has been split between Mikaela Shiffrin’s laser focus on dominating slalom events ahead of the Olympics, and Paula Moltzan’s quest to become a regular podium threat. With a first place finish for Shiffrin and a fourth place finish for Moltzan in the Levi races, those goals were off to a great start early in the season.
Last week, those storylines continued to gain strength as Shiffrin once again took home the gold in Gurgl, this time beating the rest of the competition by 1.23 seconds. While that gap is slightly less than last week, it’s still a remarkable split, demonstrated by the fact that within the next 1.23 seconds, another 7 competitors finished. To put it somewhat differently, there was the same amount of time between Shiffrin and second place, as there was between second place and eight place. In other words, just like last week, Shiffrin didn’t just win the race, she absolutely smoked the competition once again.
As for Moltzan, she too continued her quest for consistency. While she missed the podium for a second week in a row, which we are sure frustrates her, she finished in 5th, giving her her third straight top 5 finish. If Moltzan’s goal is to be a consistent podium threat, then we have to think this result accomplishes that.
On the men’s side, the bad news is that not much happened in Gurgl. Once again, noting that technical races are not the strength of the team, it’s with only slight dismay that we share the fact that none of the 3 Americans who raced in the slalom event qualified for finals. But, it’s not all bad news for the men’s team.
After the Gurgl events of last weekend, the World Cup quickly relocated to North America, setting itself up at Copper Mountain, Colorado. There, the men competed in a Super G event yesterday, with a Giant Slalom race on the schedule for later today. Over the course of the weekend, the women will line up next, first with a Giant Slalom race tomorrow, followed by a Slalom race on Sunday. While we’ll have to wait until next week to share a recap of most of these races, we do know the results of the men’s Super G, which finally gave us something to be thankful for for the Men’s team.
In that race, the men’s speed team that we’ve been waiting to see was finally able to get on snow and show us what they can do. While the top 9 results in the race were mostly dominated by Austrian and Swiss athletes, who put four and three in the top 10 respectively, the U.S.’s Ryan Cochran-Siegle managed to sneak into 10th place, earning a top 10 result for his first race of the year. Also earning points in that race were River Radamus in 22nd, and Kyle Negomir in 24th. While no podiums were threatened in this particular event, it’s still good to see a few Americans finishing well into the points for the first time this season. From here, we’ll see if they can carry some of that success into today’s Giant Slalom race before the women take the courses at Copper. You can preview this weekend’s races here.
#2: Vail Resorts Hires lululemon’s “President of Americas”, Celeste Burgoyne, as its New Executive Vice President:
It quite literally only took the first 12 seconds of this video to understand the value that Rob Katz sees in Celeste Burgoyne. Replace the word “store” with “mountain” and the strategy becomes clear as day.
Next up this week in the world of ski news, is a trio of updates that come from the resort side of life, although each story is distinctly different, to be sure. First up on that list is an update we caught shortly after hitting publish on last week’s article, when it was announced that Vail Resorts had just hired Celeste Burgoyne as their Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer. Now, to be fair, when we first came across this story, we didn’t really expect to cover it as typically it would be a little too niche for most of our readers to care about. But, upon learning more about Burgoyne, her new position, and factoring in Vail’s recent financial reports, we found more than enough intrigue to make the story worth sharing. Let’s start with Burgoyne’s backstory.
Way back in 2006, Burgoyne joined lululemon as the company’s first General Manager, tasked with growing its business in the United States at a time when the company only had a total of 10 stores in North America. Since then, Burgoyne has overseen the growth of the brand as it exploded from those 10 storefronts to its current footprint of 767 stores worldwide. In addition to the massive expansion of the brand, Vail’s press release also states that Burgoyne is directly responsible for $7.5 billion in revenue. All of this, of course, gains more value when we consider what the lululemon brand is. While it would be impressive for Burgoyne to have grown any company at this scale, lululemon is a lifestyle brand, meaning that this type of growth requires a unique ability to tap into the wants and needs of an aspirational, active, lifestyle focused demographic. It’s a vastly different marketing style than growing say, a pharmaceutical company, and takes a certain skillset that, in theory, should be relevant to the world of skiing.
Now, let’s introduce Vail’s side of the story into the picture.
As we know, Vail’s been going through some turbulent waters in recent years, as their meager revenue growth is reflective of price increases despite decreases in sales themselves. As a result, while Vail is stable as a company, both Katz and the company’s shareholders see trouble ahead if they don’t course correct and re-engage with their target market. That’s been a focus of Katz since retaking the helm back in the Spring, with efforts like the Epic Buddy Ticket aimed at making skiing more affordable to first time and occasional participants.
The hiring of Celeste Burgoyne seems to be the next step in Katz’s efforts to get back on track. In the press release from Vail, Katz is quoted as saying, “Celeste's deep appreciation for the connection between brand, guest experience, and revenue will be critical as we continue to reimagine how we connect with our guests, reignite our resort brands, and accelerate growth in both lift revenue and our ancillary lines of business.” It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to get the message: Burgoyne’s role is to help Vail strengthen its connection with its customers - a concept that took a significant hit under Kirsten A. Lynch’s leadership.
All in all, it’s a pretty interesting story once you read past the headlines. This story isn’t just about the fact that Vail hired a new employee for a C level position. Instead, it’s a story about how Rob Katz continues to be focused on re-establishing consumer trust with the Epic brand in an effort to curtail some of the troubling trends facing the company. To do that, he’s hired an incredibly successful leader in Celeste Burgoyne, who took lululemon from a niche yoga brand to a global, household name. While we don’t know what happens next, we do know that Katz continues to be making encouraging moves since resuming leadership at Vail. For more about this, check out the press release from Vail resorts, or this coverage from TownLift.com.
#3: Mad River Glen Looking to Double in Size Through Rare Opportunity to Purchase 1,100 Acres of Adjoining Land:
Looking at this map really puts into perspective just how significant the purchase of this parcel would be for the resort. If you'd like to make a donation to support the purchase of this land, click here. Image: Mad River Glen
Our third topic this week is a story that hits close to home, as it comes to us from the fabled Mad River Glen, a ski area located just 45 minutes from our offices here in Stowe. There, news broke this week that the cooperatively owned ski area has suddenly come into a rare opportunity in which they could more than double the size of their ski area. To fully understand this story and how this opportunity came to be, we have to step back in time, to 1995, when New Hampshire based businessman Les Otten had just purchased Sugarbush Resort, making it the third ski area in his growing portfolio.
As rumor has it, Mad River Glen’s former owner Betsy Pratt had run into Les Otten in town, and Otten inquired about purchasing the resort. Possessing an infamously defiant spirit, Pratt reportedly blew smoke in Otten’s face and gave him a firm “no.” Provoked by that incident, Pratt decided to encourage locals to create a co-op so that she could sell the resort back to the skiers of the mountain, giving them ownership forever. We all know what happened from there, as the effort was quickly successful and in 1995 the ski area became the first one to operate as a co-op in North America.
One detail that’s been missed in the retelling of this story though, is that when the co-op was formed, Betsy didn’t sell them all of the land. As it turns out, Betsy had the foresight at that time to recognize that the local co-op wouldn’t be able to afford to buy the entire parcel from her. So instead, she decided to split her property roughly in half, selling the developed portion to the co-op while retaining an undeveloped 1,100 acre parcel just to the East of the trailed terrain. When Betsy passed away back in 2023, the land was passed onto her children. Along with that transition however, came a clause: if the Pratt kids ever wanted to sell the land, the co-op would have the right of first refusal, meaning they would have a chance to buy the land by making a largely similar offer. Enter, this week’s news.
In a barrage of news coverage this week, we’ve learned that the Pratt children received an offer to purchase the land back on October 16, 2025. That offer, which was made by Lyme Mill Brook LLC for $2.5 million, triggered the right of first refusal clause, giving shareholders of the co-op 30 days to decide whether or not they wanted to purchase the land instead. After two meetings were held on October 29th and November 10th, the shareholders strongly agreed that they wanted to exercise the right and purchase the land. Now, they have until January 15th to raise the money needed to secure its future.
As such, the mountain has gone public with its fundraising efforts. According to the fundraising page set up to support the effort, the mountain has already raised $602,432.000 towards its goal. While that amount is technically enough for the mountain to put a downpayment on the property and finance the rest of the purchase, the co-op hopes to raise all, or almost all of the funds needed ahead of January 15th. As the resorts marketing and events manager Ry Young told Ski Area Management that, “After 30 years, the co-op is in its strongest financial position ever and we do not want to leverage that safety net.” In other words, while the co-op is currently in excellent financial shape, they don’t want to jeopardize that success by adding a significant financial burden in the form of a loan. While the resort is functioning fine as is, adding a few hundred thousand dollars worth of expenses for the next several years would be too risky of a move for the ski area to handle.
Of course, one huge portion of this story that many are wondering about is, “what will happen to the land once the mountain owns it?” At present, this parcel of land is used as sidecountry terrain, offering access to an area that locals call the 19th hole. Looking ahead, it sounds like there are no immediate plans for changes to the terrain in terms of adding new lifts or trails. Instead, the hope of the co-op is that the terrain will be conserved into the foreseeable future, continuing to exist as sidecountry terrain for those willing to make the hike back to the resort at the end of their run.
While it may be a regional story, it’s certainly an interesting one in several ways. From the complex backstory involving a defiant and shrewd owner, to the concept of a small, community owned ski area having the rare opportunity to double in size, there’s a lot going on here that we think skiers far and wide can appreciate. To learn more, check out the information page on the Mad River Glen website, or this coverage from Ski Area Management. If you’d like to contribute to the cause, you can do so here.
#4: Three Weeks After Selling Ragged Mountain, Pacific Group Resorts Buys SilverStar from POWDR Corp:
It’s another year, another reindeer for Mikaela Shiffrin as she starts her slalom season with a win in Levi. Image: SilverStar Mountain Resort on Facebook
Finally, our last bit of ski news this week also has ties back to our home state of Vermont. If you read along with us just a few weeks back, on November 7th, then you might recall our coverage of Jay Peak’s owner, Pacific Group Resorts (PGR), selling its New Hampshire ski area, Ragged Mountain, to a group of local owners. This week, we have another story regarding PGR that we can’t help but think is directly related: just three weeks after selling Ragged Mountain, PGR has purchased SilverStar Mountain Resort in British Columbia.
Now, if the name SilverStar rings a bell, but you can’t quite place it, it might be because the resort was formerly owned by POWDR Corp., and was listed as one of the few ski areas that it was interested in selling at about this time last year. While we hadn’t heard much follow up regarding SilverStar until this week, we now know that PGR has made the purchase and POWDR has offloaded yet another one of its ski areas. For both companies, it feels like a perfect move. For POWDR, who is looking to partially divest its ski portfolio, it’s a step in the right direction. Having sold Killington last fall, entering serious negotiations with the town of Nederland, CO to sell Eldora to the municipality, deciding not to sell Mt. Bachelor, and now offloading SilverStar, POWDR has essentially completed its partial divestment process of all of the ski areas it had stated intentions to sell.
For PGR, the acquisition of SilverStar gives the company its second British Columbia based ski area, and arguably one of the strongest pieces in its portfolio. While we don’t know the financial details of their divestment of Ragged Mountain or the addition of SilverStar, the optics are the PGR has upgraded its portfolio, quickly adding value. Now, the company’s roster includes SilverStar Mountain Resort and Mount Washington Alpine Resort in British Columbia, Powderhorn Resort in Colorado, Wisp Resort in Maryland, Wintergreen Resort in Virginia, and Jay Peak here in Vermont. Looking across the portfolio, while PGR may lack the quantity of large resorts that companies like Alterra and Vail possess, it’s hard not to recognize the quality and local importance of each of these ski areas. Moving forward, that’s a core value that PGR hopes to lean into: continuing to be stewards of mountain communities. As skiers who are somewhat local to Jay Peak, which the group purchased back in 2022, we have to say, PGR does seem to do a tremendous job at managing ski areas in a way that honors their ties to the community. For more on this story, check out the report from CoastMountainNews.com.
#5: And Now, Your Edits of the Week: Manon Loschi Shows Why She’s One of Freeskiing’s Most Exciting Upcoming Athletes in “ENDORPHIN”:
MAGMA’s Latest Film is an Absolute Knockout. Watch “TKO”:
*** Warning: Contains a handful of language infractions, mostly in the soundtrack. ***