And the winner is…

And the winner is…

Wow! Another year to honour, ridicule and remember. This may be the last year of the Maxies as we know them. At the rate things are going, if I want to keep this up I might have to rent Millennium Place next year, buy a tuxedo, an SUV, a 5,000 square foot house and ramp up my income by an order of magnitude or two just to feel at home in this town.

But there’s less left of the year than it takes to recover from a hangover anymore so… the envelopes please.

Best On-Mountain Improvement: Snow! Long rumoured to be a no show, El Niño redux finally comes through like Scrooge with some of the white stuff. I’ve seen cokeheads spill more powder than fell in all of November and much of December fer chrissakes. Okay you bandito, deliver the other couple of feet we need to stop Colorado from making fun of us or we’re going to sic Immigration on you.

Best Disappearing Act: Whistler. No, we’re still here. We just disappeared from the official name of the bid for the 2010 Winter Olympics. You ought to see what those BidCorp guys can do with an elephant, a scantily-clad assistant and a couple of hundred million of your tax dollars. Abracadabra, dude.

Second Best Disappearing Act: A good part of the coaching staff and some of the men’s downhill team at the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics. Recognizing it was throwing good money after bad, Alpine Canada axed most of the coaches, dispersed the team and skipped the final race of the season after something more closely resembling a Marx Brothers movie than Olympic skiing made the beaver blush. Full marks though for putting a racer in the president’s chair, a coach who knows the word WIN – and few others – in charge and focusing on rebuilding.

The Student Becomes the Master Becomes the Student: Rob Boyd opts for the smaller time and casts his future as Head Coach of Whistler Mountain Ski Club’s K2s, passing on a chance to work in the bigs with CAST. Not only will he get to shape a brighter future by staying here, but we’ll still get to ski with him.

Mobius Remembered: Whistler’s sustainability initiative. No exercise in recent memory has so succinctly managed to define what it’s all about by its mere execution. The consultants must think they’ve died and gone to consultant heaven.

Everett Dirksen Remembered – Part I: A million bucks for a muni Web site?

Everett Dirksen Remembered – Part II: A million and three-quarters bucks for the Fire Mahal? Oh yeah, and an extra $6,800 a year for "green" hydro.

Everett Dirksen Remembered – Part III: Nine million bucks for a boob job on the Conference Centre? Phase I? For those of you too young to remember, Mr. Dirksen was the House and later Senate Minority Leader in the US. He said, "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it’s real money." Of course he was dealing with the whole US budget, not Tiny Town’s.

The Duke Would Be Proud Award: To Gordon Campbell for his touching display of democracy in pissing away millions of bucks on a referendum carefully worded to support his underlying philosophy on native relations – the only good Indian is a dead Indian. Still don’t understand why what’s good for the treaty negotiations isn’t good for the Olympics though.

Cheatin’ is Only a Sin If You Get Caught: To the World Economic Forum and a good part of the municipal power structure. I’d explain but it’s only a column, not a feature. Wonder if they ever got back to us on that invitation we sent them?

Bad Choice… But a Good Start Award: Tourism Whistler, for not letting a little thing like a potential conflicts of interest get in their way. So RezRez – an offshoot of Intrawest – gets awarded a five-year contract to run the reservations TW used to run. Intrawest has properties and ski rental businesses that compete with the property and rental businesses of other TW members, who, as we all know, pay mandatory taxes, er, fees to TW. Hummmm. On the other hand, if TW doesn’t feel it needs to do reservations, maybe it’s a good time to look at the rest of its mandate. Probably a lot of other things it’s doing we can farm out.

Best New Bidniz: Old biz, new clothing. The Daily Planet’s Marketplace store is more than a sequel. Karen and Martin have created a serene island of funk in a location sorely in need of funk. Saved a long drive to Function Junction too.

Best New Restaurant: Wow, this is spooky. Another extension of a well-known com-oddity. Uli’s the latest to take on the locationally-challenged eatery in Whistler Creek Lodge. If anyone can do it, Uli can. Reasonable prices, good food, nice portions. In beautiful, downtown Creekside.

Best New Adventure: ZipTrek. Ya got speed, ya got exposure, ya got scenery, ya gotch’er high wire act. Can’t wait to do it at night… during a snowstorm… belly down… head first.

A Truly Touching Act of Altruism: Petro-Canada elects to do a little reno while the Husky is in full teardown mode, leaving Whistleratics who burn diesel or premium go-juice no choice but to drive to Pemberton or Squamish. Dale Eaid, advertising and promotions co-ordinator, says, "We are really doing it for the people of Whistler." Thanks Dale. By the way, if you want to do something for us, lower your damn prices. Why is our PetroCan the highest priced station from Vancouver to Prince George?

The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword Award: Michel Beaudry’s stunning Whistler: Against All Odds . Great stories, great photographs, great execution, everything about this effort makes you want to burn all the superfluous crap being built in this town to the ground and get back to where it all began. Buy it, read it, then send it home to your Mom and Dad. It’s the best shot you’ll ever have at explaining to them why you’re here wasting your education and why you’re not coming home.

How’s That Again: To all the letter writers in town. Ya make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside just livin’ in the same place as you. Sure, we might have had a few more controversial issues to kick around this year, but da people really found their voice. There were weeks when Pique staff barely had to write any news at all there were so many letters. And if you don’t think they mattered, ask Hugh. Keep ’em coming; e-mail’s cheap.

Dorian Gray Award: I wanna see some ID. Toulouse is 60! Yer jokin’.

Rabbit Forever: "Leave no turn unstoned." What more needs to be said?