October 14, 2008 – Your name is Dave Wood and you have been the Head Coach of the National Cross Country Ski Team for 10 years. You took over after the 1998 Olympic debacle in Nagano, Japan when Canada’s Head Coach from Norway was let go, and the results for both the Canadian men and women were no where – very bad to say the least.

Four years later at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games Becky Scott won Canada’s first Olympic gold medal EVER. Fast forward to 2008 and Canada has four more Olympic (2) and Nordic World Championship (2) medals along with three Junior Nordic World medals that have been produced under the programs you’ve directed. You are the best coach in the history of Canadian cross-country skiing. But, not anymore!

Just 16 months before the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, Cross Country Canada (CCC) has decided to move you over to a newly developed Team Leader position – a designated position that usually comes into being at the World Championships and the Olympics. You have been replaced by Arild Monsen, another Norwegian coach, who has been acting as your assistant since May when he was hired. He is the newly designated Head Coach and I would question his qualifications, especially when I see the money he is being paid – better than $100,000, including sizeable benefits, a number of air tickets to travel home and be with his family, and bonuses for each medal he produces in 2010 at Vancouver.

As far as I can see the best thing is that his contract only goes to 2010. I don’t blame Monsen for signing this deal, but the bosses at Cross Country Canada, Executive Director, Al Maddox, and Tom Holland, Director of High-Performance, are out of bounds on this one. Not only on the size of the dollars that they’re paying – Monsen has never been anything more than a regional coach in Norway – but making these numbers public is unprofessional in my books. Yes, Monsen has other assets, but they don’t equate to that kind of money. I’d like to ask Dave Wood how many bonuses he received for the many medals his program brought to Canada, and if he’s been paid that kind of salary. If he hasn’t – why not, as he’s won more medals in the last six years (2002-2008) than most of the other winter sport coaches in Canada? I know that they’ve out-produced Alpine Canada for medals these past six years.

As far as I can tell Monsen is now the highest paid coach in the world (or close to it), but he’s yet to prove he’s worth it. He was probably in $65-$75,000 range as the assistant coach but with his new title designation his salary goes up $50 or $60,000. Good for him! This movement in Canmore may be driven by some athletes or “other” strings in the overall financial equation, or a combination of the two, but the pressure has sure shifted to produce the kinds of results we’re used to come a year from this February. I wish them all the best in getting the job done.

I know David Wood very well as I brought him into the program, as our waxing technician, and he is a real rough cob. If you don’t want to hear what he thinks then don’t be around him, but look at what he has done. A Canadian coach has built a real Canadian program over the past 10 years but it all seems to have been brushed aside while setting the program back 50 years once again. This was the way Canadian sport operated during the 60s and 70s – I watched it from south of the border when I was running the U.S. Ski Team before coming to Canada for 11 years in the early 80s and slowed the merry-go-round down. What a shame and an embarrassment for all Canadian coaches, race organizers, volunteers etc. who have been a part of this process – you just aren’t good enough, even though you’ve proven you are.

For more on Canada’s coaching change CCC release and Canadian Press.