TSC Canadian National Team Alumni

Welcome to the National Team Members Bios Page of the Toronto Ski Club. As we mark a century of unwavering dedication to snow sports, our journey from the early 1920s to the present day stands as a testament to our enduring commitment. Our club's story is one of continuous evolution, from our roots in ski jumping and telemarking competitions to the remarkable achievements of our members on the National and Olympic stages. Guided by the vision of our forefathers and the expertise of esteemed individuals like our head coach, Rob Crossan, we've cultivated a legacy of excellence and resilience.

Throughout these years, our focus has remained steadfast: to nurture the talents of our members and to support them in reaching their fullest potential. Our programs, known for their quality and depth, have been instrumental in shaping champions and instilling a profound love for snow sports across generations.

As we celebrate our 100th anniversary, we do more than just reflect on our storied past; we reaffirm our pledge to foster the spirit of snow sports within our community. The narratives you'll find below are more than just accounts of individual prowess; they are the embodiment of our club's ethos, each story a chapter in our collective saga of ambition, perseverance, and triumph.

Join us in honoring these remarkable individuals whose journeys and achievements continue to inspire and propel us forward. Here, on our National Team Members Bios Page, we celebrate not just the heights they have reached but the enduring legacy they help us to build for generations to come.

Richard started racing at Loretto Ski Club before moving to the Toronto Ski Club when he was 6 years old. After great success in his early years, Richard was selected for the SOD team. Richard was a speed specialist and won his first Mont Sainte Anne race in 1993, reducing his FIS points to the best in the world for his age. From there he moved on to race multiple downhill races across North America and in the Europa Cup. Richard participated in the World Juniors in Switzerland in 1996, placing 10th overall and the top Canadian, in the downhill event. Things continued to progress for Richard, winning both Mont Sainte Anne FIS downhill races on January 29th and 30th, 1998.

Richard was a member of the National Development Team but unfortunately had to retire at the end of 1998 due to multiple injuries and surgeries.

Richard is married, has two children, and lives in Collingwood. He is an active TSC member and continues to coach young athletes at the Toronto Ski Club.
Born in Waterloo, Ontario, Todd Brooker learned to race at the Toronto Ski Club and made the Canadian National Team in 1977. He competed on the World Cup circuit from December 1981 to January 1987. A younger member of the 1980s Crazy Canucks, Brooker won two World Cup downhill races in 1983, finishing ninth in the season's overall downhill standings. Two years later, he won the downhill race in Furano, Japan finishing seventh in the 1985 downhill standings.

Brooker’s rise to world-class prominence placed him 13th at the 1982 World Championships, and ninth in the downhill in both the 1984 Winter Olympics and the 1985 World Championships.

After returning from a knee injury, Brooker's ski racing career ended in Kitzbühel in January 1987 with a horrific crash. Brooker finished his World Cup career with three victories, seven podiums, and 15 top-ten finishes, all in downhill.

Todd now lives in Thornbury with his family and is a real estate agent in Collingwood.

In 1973, at the age of 8, Kellie Casey moved to the Collingwood area with her family and promptly began training for a career in freestyle skiing.

She attended school in Thornbury and Meaford before transferring to Collingwood Collegiate for Grades 12 and 13. At age 12, she decided that her main skiing interest was not freestyle but rather the challenging downhill events. She began competing in the Toronto Ski Club racing programs, her firm goal now was to be an Olympic downhiller.

In 1980, she made the Southern Ontario Division team. She graduated in 1982 to the Ontario team and began racing internationally. Her top finishes in the Pontiac Cup series of 1982 and 1983 earned her a place on the development squad of the national team in 1984. In 1985, she became a member of the Canadian National Alpine Ski Team and began a regular tour of competitions on the prestigious World Cup circuit. She competed and trained throughout the world, proudly carrying the name, Collingwood through many countries in Europe and America as well as into numerous major ski centres in North America. Injuries prevented her from a serious run at the 1984 Olympic Games in Sarajevo. In 1985, she placed 4th in Canada in the downhill. In 1986, she won the overall downhill title in the Nor-Am International series. In 1987, she vaulted into the 1st seed in the World Cup Downhill standings with 5th, 8th, and two 12th place finishes in Europe just before the Olympics. She capped her bid for Olympic selection later that year with a 2nd place finish in the Canadian Championships.

At the Calgary Olympics on February 18, 1988, she was 7th out of the starting gate. On a steep twisting high-speed turn at the top of Mt. Allan, she lost visual contact with the terrain and crashed heavily into a safety net. The resulting torn knee ligament ended her quest for an Olympic medal. Following surgery and extensive knee rehabilitation, she returned to World Cup competition in 1989, still ranked as the first seed on the World Cup tour.

In 1990, during a downhill training run in Argentina, she sustained a back injury. This latest problem along with a still-imperfect knee was enough for Kellie to heed the medical advice, and call it a career.

Kellie attended the University of Guelph for a Bachelor of Commerce degree, and Brock University for a Bachelor of Education. She has been a special education teacher and a local ski coach for two decades. Her passion is teaching youth-at-risk and teaching Indigenous youth to reconnect with their Indigenous ancestry while she does the same. She is devoted to her three children and still spends as much time as possible skiing with them. Kellie still proudly calls the Collingwood area her home.

Barrie native Rob Crossan seems destined to have been a member of Canada’s National Ski Team. His parents were both members of the ski patrol at Collingwood’s Blue Mountain. They had him skiing by age three, and racing by the time he was ten. At the age of thirteen, he finished fourth in the Canadian Juvenile Championships, earning an invitation to a camp of national coaches, and placing him on the road to the National Team.

In 1986 he skied with both the Ontario Alpine Ski Team and the Canadian National Development Group, won three of five races, finished 2nd in another, and was the Sealtest Cup Ontario Alpine Overall Champion. He placed second overall in the Canadian Alpine Ski Series. He won both the Junior and Senior Combined at the Canadian Alpine Ski Championships. He followed up with outstanding results in the American Junior Invitational National Championships, the North American Spring Series, FIS races in Quebec, and Eastern and Western Nor-Am races. For this breakthrough year, he received an Achievement Award from the Ontario Government Sports Award Program, and was named Barrie’s 1986 Amateur Athlete-of-the-Year. More importantly, he was named in 1987 to the National Team.

Although his first international success as an 18-year-old member of the National Team was a 24th place finish in his first World Cup downhill in Japan, Crossan was a slalom specialist. He competed internationally in slalom, giant slalom, and super giant slalom, as well as in the combined event (downhill one day, slalom the next). His twelfth-place finish in the combined at the 1992 Albertville Olympics is the best-ever finish for a Canadian male in that event. He also finished 20th in the slalom and 35th in the “Super-G” at Albertville.

Crossan also competed at the 1994 Olympic Games in Lillehammer, where he finished 20th in the giant slalom. His (10th) place in the 1991 World Championships at Saalbach, and 8th place in the slalom at a 1993 World Cup event in Park City, Utah, remain the best-ever finishes by a Canadian male in those events. He was the North American Slalom Champion in 1993 and 1994, and won 11 different Canadian Championships between 1983-1993, encompassing all the alpine disciplines.

A resident of Collingwood, Rob Crossan is both a Level Ill Coach and Level Ill Examiner with the Canadian Ski Coaches Federation. He currently is the Head Coach at the Toronto Ski Club.
Kelby competed in the World Junior Championships in 2008, winning a bronze medal in downhill. He followed up this great result with a silver in downhill in the National Championships in March of that year, finishing ahead of the great Erik Guay and just behind Manual Osborne-Paradis. In 2010, Kelby finished second overall in the Nor-Am downhill standings, earning him a spot on the World Cup circuit. Before he competed in his first World Cup race, Kelby won the Nor-Am Cup downhill event in Lake Louise on December 9, 2010.

Kelby made his World Cup debut on January 14 in Wengen, Switzerland, competing in the super combined. He placed 46th in the downhill portion of the event but failed to complete the slalom portion.

Kelby is currently enrolled in an MBA program after completing a Bachelor of Management, Accounting and Economics at the University of British Columbia.
 
The journey to the National Ski Team was not an easy one but Brad believes the foundation taught at the Toronto Ski Club was what set him up for success. He says that TSC was such a great place to learn some early ski skills, being a dare-devil, taking risks, bombing down Spec, which was known as the hardest hill on the ridge, and most of all having fun. One particularly fond memory is the old high-speed Poma. It was delivered to you by one of the lifties and you dug your edges in so you would get catapulted up the hill, airborne! Brad started racing at TSC and was coached by Rudy Heidleburger, who influenced so many during his coaching days.

Brad was on the Canadian National Ski Team for six years. His two World Championships and the 1992 Albertville Olympics were just three of the highlights. He spent four years racing the World Cup circuit chasing Alberto Tomba, admittedly he sadly never came close to Tomba, but making numerous top 30 flips and dreaming of better results were the drivers that carried him forward to continue to chase the dream.

Jeff MacInnis' epic 100-day expedition through the ice-choked Northwest Passage survived one of the harshest environments on the face of this planet... the passage that has claimed more lives than Mount Everest. This journey was made in an 18-foot boat named PERCEPTION - using only the wind and a dream as the sources of power.

In athletics, Jeff competed on the Canadian National Ski Team, racing in World Cup events and winning the Belgium National Downhill Championships in 1984. This was the era of the "Crazy Canucks," and through them, Jeff learned valuable insights into an outstanding team effort.

As an explorer, Jeff was also an intricate member of the first team to journey overland from London to New York. The Overland Challenge was a grueling 25,000 km journey around the world. This expedition was a 7 million dollars, eight-part, prime time, "live-action" British television series. Jeff is the author of a National Geographic Magazine story and a best-selling book called "Polar Passage". A worldwide Rolex magazine advertisement features his Northwest Passage Expedition. He has presented 400 lectures in nine countries to Fortune 500 companies and associations.

Jennifer Mickelson, originally from Collingwood, made her Nor-Am Cup debut on January 2, 1995, in Sugarloaf in a super-G race. In 1997, Jennifer made the Canadian National Team and participated in five World Cup races. Her debut World Cup race was the downhill in Lake Louise on December 4th, where she finished 30th, achieving World Cup points and her best placing on the circuit. Her last career race was a FIS GS race held on April 15th in Mont-Sainte-Anne, where she placed 17th. Jennifer retired at the end of the 1997-1998 season.

 
Born and raised in the town of Orangeville, Graydon is a proud lifetime member of the Toronto Ski Club and also served on the TSC Board as President and Alpine Director.
 
Graydon competed on the World Cup Tour as a member of the Canadian National Ski Team and had many top finishes in Europa Cup and Nor-Am Cup races. In 1997 he was crowned Canadian downhill champion and Canadian combined (DH and SL) champion.
 
Graydon is a Senior Portfolio Manager with CIBC Wood Gundy and has worked in finance since 1999. He is a dedicated wealth advisor with a genuine commitment to his clients and his team. Graydon is passionate about investing, income generation, and client care.
 
Having returned to living in Collingwood full-time in 2015, Graydon has a young family that includes his wife, Angie, and their two children, Reece and Will. Together, they enjoy an active lifestyle that reflects their love of all sports including skiing, cycling, and the outdoors.  He is an enthusiastic member of the community and is always happy to donate his time and efforts to a good cause.

Stefan was a member of the Canadian National Alpine Ski Team from 1999 – 2002. Before making the National Team, Stefan was the Canadian Junior National Champion in 1997 and placed fourth overall in the NOR-AM Super-G in 2000.

After retiring from ski racing in 2002, Stefan attended Ryerson University where he completed a degree in Business Commerce. Shortly after graduation, he combined fitness with business where he founded SXS Fitness which is a specialized gym focused on performance training and rehab for athletes in the Toronto area. It’s no surprise that many of the clients come from the ski racing community. Stefan continues to be involved in ski racing as a U16 O-Cup coach. He and his wife have 2 children who have developed a passion for the sport as well. Stefan has many fond memories from his time growing up as a TSC ski racer and continues to maintain close relationships with a number of his former teammates.

Jonathan was born and raised in the Blue Mountains and was chosen as a member of the Canadian World Junior Snowboard Team in 1995. After a series of great results, he became a member of the Canadian National Snowboard Team from 1996 to 2000. In 1996 Jonathan won a Canadian National Championship and continued to a top 5 finish in his last Nor-Am Cup Parallel GS race before retiring from the sport.

Jonathan has remained in the industry as the General Manager of Horseshoe Resort. In March 2024, Jonathan was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Freed Hotels and Resorts which owns Deerhurst, Horseshoe Resort and development lands at Blue Mountain Resorts.
Liisa’s career in Alpine skiing started with the Southern Ontario Division Ski team in December 1978. She made many appearances at the Canadian Alpine Championships and the FIS World Cup. She was part of Canada's team at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, attaining 9th place in the giant slalom and 18th place in the Downhill.

She achieved several podium places on the FIS World Cup schedule, including winning a Super-G in Furano, Japan.

Her career officially ended in 1988, following serious injuries sustained during a FIS World Cup training run on 17 March 1987 in Vail, Colorado. She was inducted into the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame in 1997.