Jasey-Jay Anderson | A new dose of adrenaline

Jasey-Jay Anderson is part of the select club of Olympic gold medalists. Yet he hates the limelight. That’s why he prefers to stay in the shadows, in his quiet lair, to realize his ideas. Like a love song, the chorus is intoxicating, but it’s every note of the melody that orchestrates its success.

It was mid-November, heading north. Where A15 becomes Route 117, where fall turns early into winter. Only a few hours before the first snow. In Lac-Supérieur, near Tremblant, it is impossible to see the Anderson family hideout from the road.

A sumptuous wooden property sits at the end of a gravel road that stretches for hundreds of meters. Upon arrival, an overjoyed female German Shepherd circles around the still running car. Seated, the dog waits. Her master comes to join her, dressed in a gray jacket in the colors of his company ICI Ski.

A wave of the hand and a reassuring smile confirmed the location’s accuracy. “Are you okay with dogs?” Because it is certain that you will end up with hair on your coat, ”says Jasey-Jay Anderson.

To the right of the path, next to the main house, half a dozen wild boars run around in their enclosure. In the distance, the hens are heard. Before starting the tour of the property, excited by the approaching ski season, Anderson points to Mont Tremblant, visible from his land. “There are clouds there, but there is already a layer. I don’t think it will take very long. »

If the former snowboarding world champion is impatient for the mountain to put on his “corduroy”, it’s because he now devotes his life to skiing. For 12 years, he has been at the head of the ICI Ski company. A modest but ambitious project. A project that has made the 47-year-old a reference in the world of alpine skiing.

With his wife Manon, he manufactures high performance skis. A hundred pairs per year. All are made by hand, but above all with heart. “We make skis that have a personality,” says Anderson.

Everything happens in the huge family property. Their cocoon for twenty years. From imagination and development to engineering and manufacturing.

It is in the numerous workshops that the magic operates. Everything has been thought through. Everything was built for a reason. Each room, each door, each tool has been crafted with care and detail. It makes work easier and organizes everyday life.

Gear, machinery, materials and skis, lots of skis, whether black, gray or khaki, decorate the many working rooms. These are the twelve labors of Jasey-Jay. Each door opens on a mission. Each closes on a finely accomplished work.

Anderson revels in what he does. He talks about it with passion and love. It’s obvious. It does not stay in place. He touches, points, arranges, tests and polishes everything that comes to hand, while continuing to tell his story. He never stops.

A local business

Anderson wants his company’s identity to remain intact. It’s essential. ICI Ski is high quality custom made skis that can benefit skiers in all conditions offered by the mountains of Quebec and Canada. The production is limited, but the success is exponential.

The craftsman wants to know the people who will benefit from spatulas cooked by the sweat of his brow. He maintains a close relationship with his clientele, because each pair is unique. Every skier deserves this attention.

The snowboarder has always been curious. As far back as he can remember, he sought to understand how the material he used was designed. He wanted to know its properties, how he could improve it, modify it.

In 2011, he started to make and use his own material, because he “didn’t like what was on the market”.

He also insisted that this report not be an infomercial. He doesn’t want it and he doesn’t need it. He is not active on social media and the company’s website is stripped down to the bare minimum.

All he wants is to make the best ski possible. It’s his new obsession since he stopped competing. He replaced the quest for medals with the desire to come up with the best possible idea.

This is what gives him the dose of adrenaline sought by so many former champions. “It takes 80% of my time,” he says.

He says that producing a single pair of skis, from the first stage to the last, requires 16 hours of work. Anderson is at the top of his game. He now has a mastery that is making people jealous on the market. “Twelve years ago, I had a vision, but I didn’t know how to do it,” he explains with a pair of black skis in each hand to demonstrate several properties of his equipment, such as shockproof, characteristic of ICI Ski.

The pleasure of creating

One who has become a master in the art of popularizing the smallest details related to his company insists on the idea that his favorite task is to develop his parts.

He can talk at length about blocks, cores, laminates, wood, carbon and aluminum, but the drawing board is where he has the most fun.

“I am a developer. I don’t consider myself a salesman or a maker,” he says in the doorway, after transferring wooden models from one room to another.

Back in the entrance to his main studio where a tapestry of skis covers the white walls that surround the cement floor, Anderson leans against a demonstrator model to continue the conversation. When thinking about what he might create, Anderson goes it on instinct. There are so many possible combinations and elements to try out. “I throw [fléchettes], he says, mimicking the movement, to try different tricks. »

Very precise in its manufacture, it explodes in the imagination and the improvement of its skis. He loves to take a pair fresh from the workshop, go to the mountains to try them on and come back to work to make the necessary modifications.

Even when he goes skiing for fun, with family or friends, it’s hard to give up. ” It’s impossible ! I’m still thinking,” he said, putting the skis he had taken back on their rack.

Before and after

Anderson marked the history of snowboarding in Canada. He remained active for over 20 years. The highlight of his brilliant career remains his gold medal at the Vancouver Games in 2010. He says he won it with a board “that was far from ideal” for him.

His last Games were PyeongChang in 2018. He became the first Canadian athlete to compete in six Olympic Winter Games. He never wanted to utter the word “retirement” officially, because he didn’t want to face all the media attention it would generate. One of the most successful snowboarders in history upped the ante until last year, but as he nears 50, Anderson believes he needs to move on and talk about his career at the past. Traveling has worn him down and it is with his family, at home, that he feels most alive. That he feels the most useful.

He keeps precious memories. Especially since everything he learned serves him in his new passion. “It guided me to what I do today,” he explains.

All his days are devoted to ICI Ski. He gives himself body and soul to it, because deep down he knows that it will be ephemeral.

Leaving the workshop through the back door, Anderson stops. Before him, the promised land. His house, logs, his workshops, his animals. He contemplates the panorama he has built with his hands.

“Sometimes we stop on the balcony, we look at all that and we say to ourselves that we have a good life”, he underlines, hands in his pockets, looking at the ground, as if he were too humble. to recognize his success.

A handshake, and in the distance, the sound of trucks moving down the gravel driveway. A new material order arrived at its destination. The dog takes to her heels and welcomes the visit by circling around the vehicles.

It wasn’t even noon and even though he had his day in his body, Jasey-Jay Anderson was gone. In these peaceful places, the sun still shines and the new refrain of his life began to sing when the first snow finally fell.