On December 7th 1975, Ken Read became the first non-European male to win a World Cup Downhill race. I was going to present this topic on the next Friday Night video, but on this anniversary, I thought it deserved a full post (plus I wasn’t able to embedded the clips in the post). There are a bunch of audio and video clips in this post, click and enjoy.
The Blizzard of Aahhs movie featured on the last Friday Night Video on Ski Mad World influenced a number of North American skiers. Like Blizzard, Crazy Canucks did the same thing a decade earlier. Starting on this day in 1975, they were going to start capturing the imagination of young Canadian skiers. Although there was recent Canadian success on the Women side with Betsy Clifford, the country hadn’t had a skiing fever the late sixties with Nancy Greene and her Olympic medals at Grenoble and her consecutive overall World Cup titles.
The Crazy Canucks weren’t the story of one skier, but a team affaire. New blood named Ken Read, Steve Podborski, Dave Irwin and Dave Murray joining veteran Jim Hunter on the team. In the 1974-75 season, three Canadians made the Top 10 in the season’s nine downhills.
That was about to change Big Time on the first downhill of the 1975-76 season. Ken Read blazed the Oreilly-Kiily course to finish first by over half a second. That wasn’t all in that race, 4 Canadians would place in the Top 10 and Dave Murray finished 13th.
1 Ken Read (CAN)
2 Herbert Plank (ITA)
3 Bernard Russi (SUI)
4 Dave Irwin (CAN)
5 Werner Grissmann (AUT)
6 Philippe Roux (SUI)
7 Michael Veith (GER)
8 Karl Cordin (AUT)
9 Jim Hunter (CAN)
10 Steve Podborski (CAN)
Ken Read talks about it 10 years later on CBC Sports.
One victory and a total of four in the Top 10 in the first race, better than the entire previous season. In the next downhill in Madonna di Campiglio, Italy, Dave Irwin would placed 4th and Read 11th followed by Murray, Podborski and Hunter in 15, 16 and 17 places. One week later in Schmalding, Austria, it would be Dave Irwin time to win by a huge 1.61 seconds. Dave Murray would place 7th. Here is a video clip of Irwin’s run from Radio-Canada’s archives.
For the remained of the season (5 races), Canadians would placed skiers in the top 10 in four of them. Two races where two would be in the top 10 and one race where three of them would crack the top 10 and Jim Hunter would win the bronze. The name ‘Crazy Canucks’ came from the European Press as they were seen as skiing recklessly and taking chances. Canada had a modest ski team in the 70s, coach John Ritchie decided to focus all the limited resources on the Downhill and only the downhill, Alpine skiing glamour event. It paid dividends for the next 8 seasons.
Summary of the 1975-76 season:
1st place: 2
3rd place: 1
Top 10: 15
It was the start of a new era of Canadian skiing where kids like me started to imitate these new idols by tucking and skiing straight down to runs to the despair of Ski Patrol across Canada. My first pair of ski that I bought with my own money where Fischer Racing Cut, like the Crazy Canucks.
1976-77 season:
Top 10: 0
1977-78 season:
1st place: 1*
2nd place: 1*
Top 10: 12
*Read and Murray reached the top two steps of the podium at one race at Les Houches, France in February 1978. All the other top 10 were shared between Read and Podborski.
1978-79 season:
1st place: 2
2nd place: 1
3rd place: 3
Top 10: 16
The first race of the season saw Read and Murray finish 1-2 again with Irwin and Podborski also placing in the top 10. Here is an radio interview on the CBC Radio. Podborski’s first win came after the winner Ken Read was disqualified due to his speedsuit. Here is the CBC News prior to Read disqualification. Murray was also DSQ.
1979-80 season:
1st place: 2
2nd place: 1*
3rd place: 1*
Top 10: 11
*Read and Podborski placed 2-3 in the second Wengen race. Read won the first race the previous day. Steve Podborski became the first non-European male to win an Olympic medal in Downhill (bronze). Ken Read was heavily favoured, but lost a ski in the first turn. I remember seeing it live on TV. Read finished 2nd in the World Cup Downhill standings. Here is the story from CBC Radio News.
1980-81 season:
1st place: 3
2nd place: 2
3rd place: 4
Top 10: 16
On the 5th year anniversary of that historical win at Val d’Isère, the Crazy Canucks did it again. Read and Podborski placed 2-3 on the podium followed by fellow Canadians Chris Kent, Dave Irwin and Dave Murray in 4, 5 and 7 places respectively. Ken Read would crash in Garmish in early January and would see him out for the rest of season. 8 of the 9 podiums that season were Podborski’s which would see him being edged out for the title at the last race of the season.
1981-82 season:
1st place: 3
2nd place: 2
3rd place: 4
Top 10: 18
Read was back. After two years finishing second for the World Cup Downhill title, Steve Podborski would finally capture it in 1981-82 with three victories and two silvers. In 4 of the 10 races, Canadians placed 2 racers on the podium (Pod-Read: 3 times, Pod-Irwin: 1). Two of the original Four Crazy Canucks retired at the end of this season. Younger Canuck Todd Brooker placed 3 times in the top 10 and reached the podium for the first time.
1982-83 season:
2nd place: 3
3rd place: 1
Top 10: 12
1983-84 season:
1st place: 1
3rd place: 2
Top 10: 11
Podborski calls it quits at the end of the 1984 season and with Read that retired the previous season, they had 13 wins and 34 Downhill podiums between them.
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Ken Read (1974-83): Canada Ski Hall of Fame
5 wins
14 podiums
35 top 10 (5 in the combine)
In 1979-80, Ken Read finished 2nd for the Downhill World Cup title. During that season Read finished on the podium 5 times, winning 2 races.
Steve Podborski (1974-84): Canada Ski Hall of Fame
1 DH title
1 Olympic bronze in 1980
8 wins
20 podiums
42 top 10 (2 in the combine)
In 1980-81, Podborski finished 2nd for the Downhill title even if he finished on the podium 8 times, winning 3 races. However he won the title of the following season with the same amount of wins, but 3 fewer podiums.
Dave Irwin (1974-82): Canada Ski Hall of Fame
1 wins
2 podiums
9 top 10
Dave Irwin had two of his podiums in his 2nd second, but suffered a few crashes resulting in injuries. His last podium was a 3rd place behind Podborski’s 2nd in Whistler during his last season in 1981-82.
Dave Murray (1974-82): Canada Ski Hall of Fame
3 podiums
11 top 10 (3 in the combine)
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Videos:
Great 10 minutes story on the Crazy Canucks.
CBC’s Fifth Estate (Broadcast Date: March 6, 1979): The ‘Crazy Canucks’, more famous in Europe
Historica Dominion: The Crazy Canucks
CBC News (Broadcast Date: Jan. 18, 1980): Irwin tumbles, Read wins
A great long interview with Peter Gzowski prior to Ken Read’s last race.
CBC Radio Interview (Broadcast Date: March 11, 1983): Ken Read retires
Here are a series of Crazy Canucks clips from CBC and Radio-Canada, some of these clips are feature separately in this post.
CBC Digital Archives: The Crazy Canucks: Canada’s Skiing Heroes (7 television clips & 6 radio clips)
Les archives de Radio-Canada: Les Crazy Canucks, ils sont fous ces canadiens (10 television clips)
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Sources:
The Canadian Ski Museum: Ski Hall of Fame
Radio-Canada and CBC Digital Archives
Lang, Serge (1986): 21 Years of World Cup Ski Racing: The Inside Story of World Cup Ski Racing by its Founder Serge Lang, Grafton Books, London, 200p
Podborski, Steve with Gerald Donalson (1987): Podborski!, McClelland Stewart, Toronto, 237p
Read, Ken with Matthew Fisher (1987): White Circus: A Skiing Life with the Crazy Canucks, Key Porter Books,Toronto, 216p
William Johnston: The Dream Never Dies (documentary), 1980, 79min
CBC Sports: Great Canadians Alpine Skiers, 1993, 78min
Randy Bradshaw: Crazy Canucks (TV Movie), 2004, 93min
Fantastic research and good memories, MPS. Have you seen the made-for-TV movie on the Crazy Canucks? I think it is called just that, The Crazy Canucks. CBC drags it out every now and then. If they were thinking, they’d put it on TV tonight instead of some schlocky Christmas special.
Hi SBR,
If you look at the sources (and the Ski Movies section), the title you seek is the CTV TV Movie directed by Randy Bradshaw called Crazy Canucks. It’s roughtly based on one or a few chapter from Ken Read’s excellent biography, White Circus.
If you want a movie, try to find the documentary ‘The Dream Never Dies’ which is a behind the scene look at the Crazy Canucks in the 1979-80 season.