The Mad-City Ski Team won the national team title for the fourth consecutive year at the 35th Division 1 Show Ski National Championships, Aug. 7-9, at Shorewood Park in Loves Park, Ill. Mad-City, which has won five national titles in the past six years, tallied 2,131.64 points in the 14-team field by sweeping box scores for Dock & Equipment, Pick-Up Boat, Towboat Driving, Showmanship, Overall Show and Sound Crew, and earning top-scoring awards for Ballet, Jump and Swivel. Mad-City’s Paul O’Connor (Belleville, Wis.) – who won the national freestyle jumping title and performed several incredible feats, including a 720-degree helicopter; a two-ski mobius; a one-ski mobius; a one-ski front flip; several tricks on his wakeboard; and centered the team’s four-tier pyramid – received the Skip Gilkerson Award, presented to the top male performer at the Nationals.
The team is now eligible for the US Olympic Committee Team of the Month award for August 2009.
On Friday 8/14, Mad-City hosted a learn to ski day for members of the UCP of Dane County. For the team, it was a chance to share our enthusiasm for the sport with others, for the people learning to ski, it is an experience of a lifetime.
Channel 15, the local NBC affiliate, came by and produced a nice news story about the clinic which you can read about here. There is a video with the story as well… click on the link just below the headline.
The Mad-City Ski Team competed at the 2009 National Water Sk Show Tournament at Shorewood Park in Loves Park, llinois the weekend of August 7-9 with the goal of winning a fourth straight National Championship.
Welcome to the Future
The plan began nearly a year earlier when Matt Heilman decided to run for show director again. He had a vision of reinventing show skiing. The team had been running the same basic act order for several years and it had worked well, but he wanted to try something different, very different. Everyone knew it was risky, but everyone bought into the plan. The show planning started in the fall with brainstorming sesssions to come up with new act ideas and a new show running order. Everything was considered from the things that could actually work to the completely and totally off the wall. After several meetings, a new running order was come up with and a list of new act ideas to try out in the summer.
As the winter progressed, the team worked hard at the indoor practices, with many new girls learning how to climb while others practiced more. The goal was to build a five high and that meant everyone needed to work on the climbing… everything needed to be smooth and everyone needed to be sure footed, know exactly when to climb and where to go.
Meanwhile, the search began for futuristic music, something that in and of itself is hard to define. A lof of people associate techno with futuristic music, while some futuristic movies use complete orchestral scores and others have a mix of harder metal as futuristic sounding music. Finding the right mixture of music for the show was something that began in the spring and continued up through Nationals. Sixty minutes of techno music was not an option.. a variety of styles and types were needed that all fell into that futuristic style.
The Climb
As the Mercury Open rapidly approached with July and State right behind it, the team really took to working on the new act running order. It hadn’t been changed in years and the new order meant people needed to go different places at different times and boat drivers had completely new patterns. The new order meant a lot of change for everyone.
The team was finally able to test out the new order at the Mercury Open at Traxler Park in Janesville, WI, where we skied a very good show. We found a few things we wanted to tweak in the running order and came up with more new ideas. Although we did not win the tournament, we found out a lot about our show and the team.
With the Mercury Open completed, the team set it’s sight on the State Tournament. A few more changes were done to the running order and a few new acts were introduced… doubles around the boat and a doubles couple towing a swiveler. Work continued with the goal of a five high with a double top being completed successfully a few times, but when it came time to ski state, clean was better than something that wasn’t consistent yet. The hard work payed off though as the team was very succesful at State, winning our fourth consecutive state championship and fifth in the past six years (more details here).
All of this was just a precursor to setting our site on a fourth consecutive National Championship. The team knew that winning Nationals was never done easily and many teams had really set their sites on beating Mad-City this year. Teams would come armed with five high pyramids, two doubles tops behind the same boat, and other truely incredible acts. Mad-City would need to ski an incredible show to defend it’s title.
More work was done on trying some more new acts for the show. The team experimented with a lot of ideas before finally settingly on a new act for the show. New comedy skits were dialed in and the last tweaks to the music were completed and a new ending intro unlike anything ever done before became a reality. Nationals arrived and Mad-City was ready.
I Gotta Feeling
Friday morning of Nationals arrived and it was cold and raining, but the skiing started for the Indvidual Competitions regardless of the weather.
Ann Tieman took to the water first for Mad-City as she competed in the Swivel Competion. She practices nearly every morning before work, swivel skiing as the sun comes up with her husband Russ driving the boat. And her hard work and determination paid off as she skied a phenomenal swivel set and became the National Swivel Champion.
The next people on the water for Mad-City were Carly Cates and Paul O’Connor who were competing in the Doubles Competion. They skied a very good routine and ended up in the 7th place overall.
Next on the water for Mad-City was our Jump Team. They skied an incredible jump act, but ended up taking 2nd to the Bad Water Ski-Ters who had also beaten them at State.
The last competition of the day was the Individual Freestyle Jump Competition. Both Paul O’Connor and Dan Benz were competing for Mad-City in this competition. Paul ending up winning the competition by landing a two ski mobius and one ski mobius jump and Dan Benz placed 7th. Videos of all of their jumps are below.
Friday night the team met back at hotel for our team meeting. After eating dinner, the team was treated to Adam Schaler and Matt Baumler’s new comedy fill. The skit, corregraphed by Taryn Garland, also featured Justin Mushel as the fourth member of the dancing quartet. Once the team recovered from witnessing the debut performance of the Ballet Ski, the team went through all of the details of the show one last time, practicing all of intros one final time and one last inspriration speech from our Show Director, Matt Heilman.
The Future is So Bright
Saturday morning, 5am, alarm clocks all across the hotel start going off as Mad-City wakes up. The skies are still dark, but that is OK because the sun has not yet come up yet. However, the air was filled with rain, lots of rain. At 6am, the team gathered under a tent at the ski site preparing for our show. Not knowing what the weather would do, we had to plan as if the show would happen on time. The first team started their show ontime, but about 10 minutes in, lightning was detected and everything stopped. Mad-City continued to prepare for their show though. After about an hour delay, things resumed and Mad-City began our setup as the sun started to come out and heat and humidity began to climb.
Missed by many at the state tournament, Mad-City brought back the preshow dance. Here are some of the ladies of Mad-City dancing to Liquid Dance by A.R. Rahman of the Slumdog Millionair soundtrack. This dance, as well as the team’s ballet dances and the ending comedy dance were all choregraphed by Taryn Garland.
One thing that doesn’t show up well in the video, is at the end of the show, every single member of the team is on stage for the ending intro. Having every single member on stage for the end of the show is something unique to our show. Here’s a picture that shows that better than anything else.
Everybody on Stage for the Ending Intro… Together Everyone Achieves More
Needless to say, the team was very happy with that performance. Both pyramids up, down and clean back to the beach, 23 in ballet back to the beach and 3 awesome jump acts and a competely new montage act, not to mention a comedy act that the crowd loved. One comment heard on the webcast was that “Mad-City had set the bar so high, others would have to take chances.”
After a wild weekend of weather, Badgerland managed to finally finish their show on Sunday night after the final weather interruption of the weekend when some truly scary looking clouds rumbling with thunder moved through the area. When their show resumed, the sun came out, and for the remainder of their show and the awards, the weather was as everyone hoped it would have been for the entire tournament. Sunny, not really humid anymore and upper 70s.
With the points finally tabulated, the results were announced. Mad-City’s year of hard work towards a fourth consecutive National Championship paid off in a big way.
The first award given out was the Skip Gilkerson award for the most outstanding male skier of the tournament. Paul O’Connor was the receipient of this prestigious honor. In our ski show, he performed many incredibles feats including a 720-degree helicopter, a two ski mobius, a one ski mobius, a one ski front flip, several tricks on his wake board, several other jumps over the ramp and centered a four tier pyramid.
Paul O’Connor – 2009 Skip Gilkerson Award Winner
The next awards presented for some of the highest scoring acts, with Mad-City winning three of them. Ballet, Jump ans Swivel.
The Mad-City Girls – 2009 Best Ballet – 446 Points!
Dan Benz, Paul O’Connor, Tony Wang and Gary Pickney – 2009 Best Jump Act for Jump 2
(Jeff Jacobson, not pictured)
Joey O’Connor, Ann Tieman, Brea Imse, Laurie Taschwer, Kristen Block
2009 Best Swivel Act
The box scores were then announced and Mad-City won them all… Dock & Equipment, Pick-Up Boat, Towboat Driving Showmanship, Overall Show and Sound Crew. Sweeping all of the box scores is a tremondous feat as it really shows how the whole team performed at an incredible level.
Sarah Jahn, Roc Cates, Meg Cates, Amy Kothes, Adam Jermain, Laurie Logan
Best Dock Equipment
Pat Walters, Pat Jahn, Dave Zink, John Kothe
Best Pickup Boat Crews
Gary Pickney, Don Heilman, Cyndi Pickney, Jerry Wesner, Tony Wang, Bobbi Wang, Sue Heilman
Best Boat Drivers
Jim Jermain, Eric Wedige, Adam Schaller, Matt Baumler
Best Audio Crew
When the final results were announced for the overall placements of the teams, Mad-City took 1st place overall, winning by nearly 280 points over the 2nd place team, Wonder Lake out of Illinois. It was truely an epic achievment a year in the making.
Matt Heilman – Show Director for the 2009 Mad-City Ski Team
Accepting the the National Championship
The 2009 Mad-City Ski Team
Matt Heilman, our show director, pointed out to us before Nationals that Mad-City had a chance to do something unprecedented in show skiing this weekend. That was win 8 titles in row over the course of 4 years. That means win State four years in a row and Nationals four years in a row. 8 titles in 4 years. That level of consistent achievement is something that hadn’t been accomplished by anyone before.
2009 Show Ski Nationals Individuals Running OrderThe Mad-City Ski Team is competing at the National Show Ski Tournament this coming weekend at Shorewood Park in Loves Park, Illinois (near Rockford). The tournament features 14 teams from around the nation.
Mad-City will take to the water at approximately 9am on Saturday morning and will have one hour to perform our water ski show which features barefooting, human pyramids, doubles, trios, ballet, free style jumping and swivel skiing. The team has won the National Champioinship the past three years in a row and four of the five last years (Championships in 2004, 2006, 2007 & 2008).
For people not able to make it to Shorewood Park on Saturday morning for our show, the entire tournament will be webcast by a collobaration of USA Water Ski and the US Olympic Committee. The webcast can be viewed here (the link will start working at 730a on Saturday.)
The team also has members competing in the individual competitions taking place on Friday at the tournament. Ann Tieman will be competing in the swivel competition, Carly Cates and Paul O’Connor are competing in the doubles competition, our Jump Team is competing in the team jump competition and both Paul O’Connor and Dan Benz are competing in the free style jump competition.
The tournament results will be announced late Sunday afternoon, probably between 5 and 6pm. A highlight clip of our ski show, similar to our state clip mentioned below, should be ready sometime late in the afternoon on Monday.
In July at the Wisconsin State Show Ski Tournament, the team took 1st place for the 4th consecutive year giving us five state championships in the past six years (2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009). At the tournament, the team was recognized for having the best ballet act, jump act, pick up boat drivers, dock & equipment personnel, audio presentation and most outstanding female skier (Kristen Block). You can view a short highlight clip of our State Championship show here.
For those of you who don’t know much about the Mad-City Ski Team, it is made up people from Madison and surrounding communities who all love to water ski. We have members as young as 6 years old and as old as 60 and the team has been around since 1963. In addition to performing free ski shows at Law Park throughout the summer and competing in tournaments, the team is the primary organizer of the Clean Lakes Festival which has raised approximately $70,000 to help clean up the Dane County Lakes, hosts learn to ski clinics to introduce people to the sport of water skiing and also hosts a disabled skier clinic.
You can check out our website for more information about the team.
If you have any further questions, please let me know. I can be reached via email at this address (eric@madcityskiteam.com) or via phone at 608.225.9154. This weekend, the phone would be the best way to reach me as I’ll have limited internet access while I’m in Rockford.
Mad-City’s Ending Pyramid at the Wisconsin State Tournament
The Mad-City Ski Team is competing at the National Show Ski Tournament this coming weekend at Shorewood Park in Loves Park, Illinois (near Rockford). The tournament features 14 teams from around the nation.
Mad-City will take to the water at approximately 9am on Saturday morning and will have one hour to perform our water ski show which features barefooting, human pyramids, doubles, trios, ballet, free style jumping and swivel skiing. The team has won the National Champioinship the past three years in a row and four of the five last years (Championships in 2004, 2006, 2007 & 2008).
For people not able to make it to Shorewood Park on Saturday morning for our show, the entire tournament will be webcast by a collobaration of USA Water Ski and the US Olympic Committee. The webcast can be viewed here (the link will start working at 730a on Saturday.)
The team also has members competing in the individual competitions taking place on Friday at the tournament. Ann Tieman will be competing in the swivel competition, Carly Cates and Paul O’Connor are competing in the doubles competition, our Jump Team is competing in the team jump competition and both Paul O’Connor and Dan Benz are competing in the free style jump competition.
Ann Tieman competing in Swivel at the Wisconsin State Tournament
You can check out more details regarding the tournament in these two documents. They contain all of teams and indivuals competing, including the running order:
The tournament results will be announced late Sunday afternoon, probably between 5 and 6pm. A highlight clip of our ski show, similar to our state clip mentioned below, should be ready sometime late in the afternoon on Monday.
In July at the Wisconsin State Show Ski Tournament, the team took 1st place for the 4th consecutive year giving us five state championships in the past six years (2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009). At the tournament, the team was recognized for having the best ballet act, jump act, pick up boat drivers, dock & equipment personnel, audio presentation and most outstanding female skier (Kristen Block). You can view a short highlight clip of our State Championship show below:
Interested in joining Mad-City? Email the team at info@madcityskiteam.com to find out how to join. Include some info about your water skiing experience or if your brand new to the sport. People of all skiing abilities are welcome to join, but the more we know about you, the better we can answer your questions about joining the team.
Upcoming Shows
The 2010 ski season is just around the corner. Our first show of the year is the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. Put it on your calendar now!
Comments Off 
Themocracy