THE HISTORY OF PROBUS SKI LEGENDS
Additional Information
PROBUS Ski Legends was the brainchild of Dan Braniff of the Blue Mountain Men’s PROBUS Club. In 1997, he realized there were many in the Collingwood area whose partners no longer skied and sought compatible “ski buddies”.
Dan was quickly joined by an enthusiastic team of Jim Hamilton, Gary Adams, Ron Harding, Stan Holba, Gord Hanson (all from Blue Mountain PROBUS), and eventually, Kathy Kilgour. Their mantra was, and still is: “no one should have to ski alone”. The concept took wings, and within a year there were representatives from the area's PROBUS Clubs on the coordinating committee. Currently, there are some 200 Legends members from 14 PROBUS clubs. Each club is represented on the Legends General Committee.
Initially, the group met at the South Base Lodge of Blue Mountain Resort. It was quickly evident that Legends was a social group who loved to get together. Toronto Ski Club soon became our base and has been a wonderful host for our activities ever since. We encourage Legends to take their coffee breaks on ski days about 10:30 a.m. at Central Base Lodge. Our members are issued Legends stickers for their helmets and skis, so we are readily recognizable on the lifts and at coffee breaks – remember – “no one should have to ski alone”.
In addition to skiing at the Blue Mountain, members asked us to arrange access to Private Ski Clubs. So, we began offering Ski Days at the private ski clubs. These include: Devil's Glen, Alpine, Craigleith, Osler Bluff, and Georgian Peaks.
Ski travel outside Ontario was introduced in 1998, through the expertise of Ron Harding and efforts of Gord Hanson and our first Legends ski trip to Sun Peaks took flight. Gord, through Merit Travel, continued to organize annual trips to the Canadian West, the USA, and Europe until the spring of 2010, when John Lash took over as trips organizer. Our largest trip saw 72 Legends going to Sun Peaks! We continue to offer between 2 to 4 trips a year.
Please see our Events Tab for details on trips, ski days and social activities.