Rave's Unlikely Journey to the VHL

[tcookie 675]

It’s March 7, 2021, and a just-turned 21-year-old Lichtensteiner stands atop the slopes of Austria’s Saalbach-Hinterglemm. He’s the second-youngest skier in the field today, and he has a chance to do something remarkable.

 

He steadies himself in the starting gates and prepares to receive the countdown. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath of the crisp, cold air and envisions the line he wants to take… and then it’s time.

 

Out of the gate, the start feels smooth, controlled, perfect… everything is going according to plan. He’s confident and sharp in his turns, gathering speed, and staying precisely on the line he wants. He doesn’t know it yet, but the pace he’s on in the top half of the course would give him a silver medal time and a spot in the 2022 Winter Olympic games.

 

He may not know it's a silver-medal pace, but he does know that this run feels pretty darn good. His mind wanders a little, feeling what it might be like to ski in Beijing, and - no! His left ski cuts out too far on a turn. He recovers to stay on his feet, but the next turn is no better and produces a huge, pronounced wobble. He doesn't fall, which is probably good for his knees, but... it can't save his time. One lapse in focus… it’s over. He’s already distraught as he crosses the finish line, unable to fight off the tears welling up in his eyes. The announcer calls out, “Phillip Rave, time of 1:27.49. 22nd position out of 27 skiiers,” but he doesn’t hear. He doesn’t need to. He already knows. By the end of the event, he’s 36th.

 

A few months earlier, Rave was the talk of the skiing world. 20-year-olds don’t ski in world cup events very often, and while Rave was very much a super-G specialist, he’d captured two top-five finishes in the season’s first three super-G events by posting blazing-fast times of 1:02.04 at Val-d'Isère (4th) and 2:27.51 (5th) at Alta Badia. Just for reference, 2021 World Cup Champion Alexis Pinturault won Alta Badia with 2:27.19. The most dominant skier of the next three seasons, Marco Odermatt, finished fourth with 2:27.47.

 

You see, four years ago, Phillip Rave had very different aspirations for his life - and he was right on the cusp of making his dreams come true. But after that hot start, he struggled badly for the rest of the 2020-21 season, culminating in his worst finish of the season at Saalbach-Hinterglemm, and the barriers to Rave’s success were now on the mental side. He was starting to become resigned to defeat, to feel like he would simply never be able to grab the opportunity that was right in front of him. Now, every race was just a disappointment - another failure to earn that Olympic qualification berth that had become his life's sole mission.

 

Rave did have one last shot at qualifying for the 2022 Olympics. It would have taken the ride of his life at Lenzerheide, Switzerland, eleven days later. He never left the gate that day, as fog and heavy snowfall forced the FIS to cancel the race. Rave raced in his second career world cup giant slalom event a couple of days later at Lenzerheide, though by then, he had no chance to qualify for the Olympics anyway. He crashed out of the race halfway through, and he’d never ski competitively again.

 

Today, Rave says some combination of being burnt out and not really knowing how to handle expectations contributed to his demise as a skier. “I mean… yeah, I was good - I’m not gonna sit here and tell you I wasn’t,” he laughs. “I had some results that, looking back, are pretty unbelievable for someone my age. I started that season off skiing so well in the super-G and I started hearing my name… people talking about me all the time. I just didn’t know how to handle it. I wanted to be great so badly. I wanted to compete at the Olympics so badly… and I just put so much pressure on myself. I couldn’t handle it… and everything fell apart. I was terrible for the last four months of that season, and by the end of it, I felt like I hated the sport I’d loved my whole life.”

 

Rave took what was planned to be a brief mental break from skiing and got back on the skating rink, instead. Oh, did we mention he was a world-class speed skater in his youth, too?

 

This time, it wasn’t speed skating, though. Rave was taking a more serious interest in hockey. But come on - a world cup skier switching careers and actually succeeding at playing professional hockey at the highest level? Even for someone with the natural athletic gifts that Rave has, that was preposterous.

 

In just a few years, the progress that he has made is remarkable - or probably more accurately, unprecedented.

 

There was about six months of training and a season spent with a semi-pro team in Austria - where Rave occasionally looked like the best player the league had ever seen and also occasionally looked like he’d never played a game of hockey before in his life; a fascinating combination of athleticism, talent, and baffling inexperience.

He showed enough, improved consistently enough, over that time frame to earn himself a look from the VHLM’s San Diego Marlins.

 

And the more Rave played, the more he looked like he belonged. Just two levels away from professional hockey’s highest tier - the VHL - Rave was excellent, stepping right into the lineup of the VHLM’s best team and putting up 76 points in 72 games. He was drafted by the VHL’s Malmo Nighthawks 17th overall in the S91 draft. He was picked even higher - 9th overall - by the Cologne Express in the VHLE draft, and he would spend a year there further refining his skills, albeit playing much less than he did in San Diego while focusing on learning the game more and developing his overall skillset.

 

And now, if you go to a hockey game some 1500km north of the slopes upon which he posted his best-ever finish in world cup skiing in Val-d'Isère, you can watch Phillip Rave take the ice in a Malmo Nighthawks jersey. 12 games into his second VHL season, Rave has 8 goals and 16 points.

 

Not too shabby.

 

He now understands the game. He takes advantage of his athleticism and powerful skating stride to protect the puck, to find open space, to fend off defenders in front of the net. Rave isn’t physical, but he’s kind of a power forward anyway. And he’s very, very good at it.

 

“I’m the kind of person that… when I set my mind to something, I put every fiber of my being into it,” says Rave. “That’s why what happened with skiing was so hard on me. That was my life on those slopes. That’s why not qualifying destroyed me. That’s why my “break” turned into this. It’s not always a blessing… there was simply no way I could be that hard on myself and continue skiing. It would have been terrible for my mental health. But… it’s helped me pick things up quickly my whole life. It’s certainly helped me with hockey. My life for… basically 3 years straight was, ‘how do I get better at hockey?’ I watched so much film, read, practiced… it was an obsession.”

 

He smiles and adds, “I guess it’s worked out for me.”

 

Phillip Rave seemed destined to reach the highest level of competition in his chosen sport. And through his dedication, perseverance, and natural athletic ability, he has found a way to get there after all.

 

Just what we expected.

 

Well… almost. We didn't expect the skates.

 

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1300ish words, this week and next

Edited March 26 by tcookie

[Chillybro 9]

This is amazing, love it man!

[tcookie 675]

Thank you! It was fun to write something a little more creative for this one!

[tcookie 675]

Claim week 2/2