Summer Sports, Winter Snow: The Battle Begins

Last Wednesday (Sept. 22nd) was the official first day of fall, but Park City is obviously ahead of the times when it comes to the seasons, as well as everything else. When trees have been bursting in fiery orange and red explosions for weeks, and the air has been steadily chilling, everybody know it's fall here. What not everyone knows is that those burning trees are the first volley in the yearly battle between snow and sports. Soon, huge snowstorms will come in like hulking battleships and bombard the hills with great drifts of snow. Most of the town will rejoice, "Ski Season!", and the rest will grown and pull out their shovels. Because the key to sports is practice, but the problem with practicing is that generally, it's much easier to practice on a field that's NOT covered with icy piles of snow. So the dutiful teenage athletes will troop out to the frontier, armed with shovels and gloves, to try to reclaim the precious fields. But it seems the winter gods take a spot of dead grass or green astro-turf as a personal affront, and will immediately retaliate with salvos of freezing winds and sleet. The brave jocks will resort to any means, any trick to keep those fields clear. Tarps, wheelbarrows and sleds are all converted to ambulances to carry away the defeated snow drifts. Parents, siblings and any unfortunate passerby are drafted for the war effort. Various coaches debate strategies like general, whether to start on the outside and work inwards, or cut stripes through the middle to let the ground heat up underneath. Basin Rec officials  prevent war crimes against the innocent grass fields caught in the middle. The sports teams hold out as long as they can, bravely shoveling and hauling the snow away, then retreat from the fields in shame or glory at the end of the season, and pull on their ski-boots. Until spring, that is.