White Circus: A Skiing Life with the Crazy Canucks

Robert Barney was Professor of Physical Education at the University of Western Ontario in London.

For over a decade the followers of the epitome of world downhill ski racing, the FIS World Cup Circuit, thrilled to the success and legend-building activities of that group of reckless young Canadian daredevils known to the world’s alpine racing community as the Crazy Canucks. Clad in yellow form-fitting racing gear, the devil-may-care crazies served to build a Canadian legend of skiing excellence unrivalled at any other time in the nation’s history.

White Circus is a co-authored account of the rise of Canadian men’s fortunes on the FIS circuit between 1975 and 1985, after decades of national frustration, disappointment, and failure in international men’s alpine ski competition. Ken Read (the principal author), the most successful of the initial group of Canadian skiers to be referred to as Crazy Canucks (others were Jim Hunter, Dave Murray, and Dave Irvin) rose to national team status in 1973 and remained at or near the top of international ski prominence for almost ten years. White Circus is an account of Ken Read’s life from the time of his early training under the guidance of his family to his departure from World Cup performance for challenges every bit as fulfilling as those on the icy slopes: university (Western Ontario), marriage (Lynda Robbins), and career (television analyst and government sport administrator of the Canadian Olympic Association). Read’s account (written with Matthew Fisher, a freelance journalist) documents life on the “white circus” tour: its demanding training regimen, mental preparation for competition, lively social atmosphere, and the perspective of fitting the “go-for-broke” style of the Crazy Canucks against a backdrop featuring the precise technical expertise of the world’s greatest skiers from the traditional superpower countries in downhill skiing — France, Switzerland, and Austria.

Read lays much of Canada’s success in the l970s and early l980s to Scott Henderson, an unparalleled identifier and moulder of young talent. “Give me the chargers, I’ll drill the basics,” was Henderson’s indelible theme. In that regard Henderson was eminently successful: Henderson’s “chargers” and their successors won 18 individual World Cup events over an 11 -year period.

Read also renders a perceptive analysis and comment on a variety of important issues and dimensions of World Cup skiing, among them the problems of ski equipment sponsorship by manufacturers, the critical technology involved in ski competition, the media’s treatment of skiing in competition with other sports, government sponsorship of ski athletes, and the hierarchy of individual World Cup races.

White Circus is a captivating and absorbing book illuminating to both skier and non-skier. It should be read by all who have an interest in sport, whether that interest is active or vicarious. Surely Canada’s Crazy Canucks deserve high-profile treatment in the yet-to-be-written pageant of Canadian sport history.