With the arrival of a new coach and the addition of some high-tech new equipment, the Jasper Freeride club is looking to build on past success and take its freestyle skiing to a new level this winter.

“We’ve just managed to secure an amazing, amazing coach for the upcoming season,” said club past-president Cam Jenkins. “We’re really, really excited. I’ve been bragging.”

Nic Bazin, who is originally from Quebec and spent last season as head coach of the Whistler Blackcomb Freestyle Ski Club, arrived in Jasper last week to join the cadre of coaches on the Freeride team. A certified level-three mogul coach, level-two aerials coach, and level-two trampoline coach, Bazin has also coached recently with the Vancouver Freestyle Club.

In addition, Jenkins said the club recently secured provincial funding that it used to purchase some high-level electronics to use in training.

With $5,000 from Alberta’s Development Initiatives Program, the team bought a new laptop computer, upgraded its video camera and acquired “Dartfish” video software. Put together, the new gear will allow team members to fine-tune their skills by analyzing video recordings of their performances, comparing them to each other, and even to recordings of top-level athletes.

“It’s a really, really cool training tool,” Jenkins said. “With the Dartfish software we can take, say, Alexandre Bilodeau’s (gold-medal) Olympic run, and do a side-by-side comparison.”

With the new equipment and new coach, Jenkins expects the club to continue to grow and continue to produce high-level freestyle skiers. He said the team only had about eight members when he took over as club president seven years ago, but now registration for the upcoming season stands at about 65. About 45 of those are from Jasper and Hinton, he added, and another 20 athletes that come out from Edmonton.

“Last year we had 10 coaches,” Jenkins added. “We really do have good coach-to-athlete ratios.”

A strong performance at the Canadian Freestyle Junior National Championships hosted at Marmot Basin last March helped the team develop that much further, he noted.

“That was a huge event for the community, for Marmot Basin, for our club,” Jenkins said. “Alberta beat out B.C. and Quebec, which are typically the freestyle powerhouses. And we only see it getting better.”

He said a full 50 per cent of the 2011/12 Alberta Freestyle Ski Team came from the Jasper Freeride club, and the next generation of top-level skiers is in development. Kids as young as six years old can join the club to learn to ski moguls, big air and slopestyle.

The team also does some halfpipe training but without a full-time halfpipe at Marmot Basin that event tends to get less attention, Jenkins said.

The club’s first weekend of training takes place at Marmot starting on Nov. 26. Jenkins said the first big provincial meet will take place Jan. 14-15, 2012 at Red Deer’s Canyon Ski Resort.

Parents interested in registering their kids with the club can call Dianne Korber in Hinton at at 780-865-3462.