Brad's Latest Posts

After the race was over on March 11 in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, I had a strange suspicion that it could very well have been my last day of skiing for the season. The knee pain I had experienced throughout the season became so bad that I could barely walk, let alone charge down a rough, icy slalom hill. The toughest part to swallow was knowing, deep down, that surgery may be necessary to get to the root of the nagging pain. Even more difficult to accept was the immediacy of any surgical procedure to ensure that my recovery time did not disrupt my long term goal of standing on top of the podium at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, less than 20 months away. I flew to London, Ontario on March 29 to have Dr. Bob Litchfield perform micro fracture surgery. As it turns out, the pain I was experiencing was due to the fact that the cartilage in my knee had been damaged, and while I was skiing, the femur and fibula bones were rubbing against each other. Anybody that has experienced bone-on-bone pain can attest to the agony I was experiencing on a daily basis.

Thinking back to the initial conversation I had in early December with Keith Bradford, Communications Director at Alpine Canada, it’s hard to believe that all of the pieces fell into place to make the race weekend in Wengen such a remarkable success.

Now is probably a great time to bring you up to speed on what exactly I am talking about. Back in late November, arguably one of my biggest fans, 8-year old Gage Ferguson, posted a video message on Facebook wishing me good luck for my upcoming World Cup slalom race in Beaver Creek, Colorado. His message was simple but extremely sincere. He wanted me to be the best I could be, and ski faster than everyone else. In a follow-up e-mail from Gage’s mom Jenn, she wrote that Gage was wondering why I didn’t have a sponsor on my helmet, and how come he couldn’t be my sponsor. It was a cute gesture from a young boy, and I’m pretty sure that’s as far as both Gage and Jenn thought it would go...