The Nordic Ski Team is something most NPHS students don’t know much about. The New Prague skiers travel to Prior Lake to train and compete with their team. The team is very welcoming of beginners and helps them learn how to ski, the proper form, and more. The team itself trains with two different sets of skis- one for classic skiing, and the other set for skate skiing. Classic skiing is just like the cross-country skiing most people know about, where the skier goes across tracks already in the snow. On the other hand, skate skiing is done outside of the normal tracks, on groomed sections off to the side of the classic ski tracks and the skier has to skate across. With each set of skis, they have a set of poles and boots. The Prior Lake team offers rental gear if a student cannot or does not wish to purchase their own. 

Their season gained new rules since COVID-19, now including social distancing, masks, and smaller, triangular races. COVID also caused them to start their season later than normal and were grouped into pods, making it difficult to get to know the rest of the team. They would usually have pasta dinners and lots of team-building activities, but COVID decreased the team-building activities and took away the pasta dinners and the team trip to Michigan.

The team frequently practices at Cleary Lake, Highland, and Murphy Parks, where they do time trials, long-distance skis, technique and form drills, hill workouts, and intervals.

Their races are often at parks with ski trails such as Highland, Murphy, and Valleywood, where they ski five kilometers through the cold and across the snow. The team won most races for their boys and girls, varsity and JV races this year. Some team members even were sent to the state competition. The team itself placed #4 in the state.

Even with the COVID restrictions, the cold, and the challenging sport in itself, the team still managed to have a lot of fun, build a lot of great relationships, and win a whole lot of races!