How two of Canada’s best skiiers built a name for themselves — on and off the slopes

Former Olympian and World Cup freestyle skier John Smart began skiing in Whistler Blackcomb, a skier’s sanctuary. Years after the peak of his professional career, Smart returned to Whistler Blackcomb, where it all began, and built up the largest summer skiing program in Canada: Momentum.

Smart first hit the slopes when he was halfway through his degree at the University of British Columbia. He quickly fell in love with the sport and began competing for the Canadian Freestyle Team in 1987.

Despite starting the sport later than most, his popularity and reputation in the community skyrocketed. Out of the 110 races Smart competed in, he placed in the Top 10 in 65 of them (50%). The prolific skiier went on to win 17 medals at different World Cup Events before competing on behalf of Canada in the Olympic Games. Remarkably, Smart finished 5th in the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, and 7th in the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.

But as Smart grew older and his body started responding to the rigors of the sport, he realized he might need to change formats in order to remain competitive. So he switched formats, transitioning from competing on the FIS World Cup to the Pro Mogul Tour, where he won 8 more medals, including three golds, and became the World Pro Mogul Champion in 1999.

Smart’s success and longevity showed his resilience as an athlete; he never let starting the sport later in life stop him from chasing his goals. The athlete credits his success to his mentality as a skier and something called “Momentism” which he defines as, “Where you don’t have any time to reflect on your thoughts.”

When an athlete rises to the occasion and competes at their highest capacity, Momentism allows athletes to compete with no regrets or fears. They put so much energy into focusing on what’s ahead of them, that they forget what’s happening in the moment. Being centered and capturing Momentism allowed John to gain the momentum he needed to become one of the greatest freestyle skiers in Canada’s history.

Smart took to coaching early in his career, founding Momentum in 1992, but the foundation of Momentum was not as straightforward as it may seem.

“I was a coach for another camp, called Mogul Camp. It was actually my national team coaches’ camp, so they brought me in to coach and the whole concept of ‘top down’ like we do where we take the best skiers in the world and make them coaches and mentors was what they did. None of this stuff that I started with was my idea,” shared Smart.

The idea for Momentum that was prompted by a customer at Mogul Camp. Smart heard the idea and made it his vision, “I broke away and we started our own camp. It started off with 43 kids and then it grew to 1200 kids. It was over 33 years. A long, long period.” He combined his knowledge of Mogul skiing and the skills he gained from his Bachelor of Commerce at UBC to build Momentum into the company it is today.

Part of Momentum’s charm, according to Smart, was that “It’s just a very positive experience, and the relationships, the way we structured the coaching, allowing the coaches to get to know the kids. By having them do not just the skiing on the hill, but to do the sports after off hill and have dinners with them and stay in the hotel with them. That whole experience was the real magic that I think helped bond coaches and kids. Bridge the gap between them and took them off a pedestal as their heroes.”

But Smart isn’t content to just rest on his laurels and let Momentum idle in its current form. He is currently in discussion with Whistler Blackcomb to build a new Mogul Facility with snow guns that would allow these camps to continue late into July. With the building of this new facility, Smart can continue to watch Canada’s top mogul skiing talent continue to inspire the next generation of freestylers.

Smart’s dedication to the sport has protected this culture and allowed Canada’s best to join Momentum as both kids and as coaches within the program today. One of these coaches is Brenden Kelly; Kelly used the platform created by John Smart to take Freestyling to new heights.

Kelly, also known as “Shark Bait” up on the glaciers of Whistler, is a former World Cup freestyler and a Whistler local who would push the limits of aerials in competitive mogul/ freestyle competitions.

Kelly Started skiing at the ripe age of 9 in Whistler through the “High North” freestyle program, and with the help of coaches Mark McDaniel and Mike Atkinson, he would take his skiing to a whole new level. He quickly made a name for himself atop the glacier due to his amazing talent in the air.

“When I was eight or nine, I did my first 900, and then I started doing 1080’s and bigger tricks and I was like, wow, this seems really sick.”

From that point on, Brenden would spend hours on the trampoline at home practicing his tricks and skiing with coach McDaniel to perfect his craft.

By the time Kelly was 16, he was offered his first spot on the BC Mogul Team, but at the same time, he was offered a spot on the park/pipe development team. While Kelly’s strongest suit was his tricks and style in the air, he chose to spend the next two years skiing with the BC Mogul Team, and his career only looked up from there.

“I podiumed at Candian selections, I podiumed at one of the Canada Cup events,” shared the skier.

By the time Kelly was 18, he had been selected to join the Canadian national team, where he got his first taste of World Cup mogul skiing. The young athlete’s career highlight was his 4th place finish in the Kazakhstan World Cup and his 5th place finish in Deer Valley in 2021. Even with his remarkable placings, Brenden is best known for his style in the air.

Being one of the greatest aerial-focused freestylers of all time, Kelly commented “Being the 1st man to do the 1080 grab at a World Cup, you know stuff like that was that was my expression of like, I was the first one to do something and I pushed the sport. I’ll be in the category of someone who was able to kind of push something, try something different, and approach it in a new way”.

Eventually, the impacts of mogul skiing began to catch up to Kelly after 11 years of competing at the highest level, so he retired from competitive skiing on the FIS World Cup to focus on his film production studies at the University of British Columbia along with his coaching career at Momentum.

Coaching has propelled Kelly’s career outside of skiing as it has taught him how to work with people of all ages and backgrounds.

“What I do in film is a lot of talking to directors and producers and trying to communicate my understanding of their vision. I can do it sonically in my sessions, but I need to know the direction that they want to add, so being able to communicate well with them and use the right language is something that I think I picked up from coaching,” shared Kelly.

Communication is an important skill, and Kelly’s time as a coach undoubtedly boosted his career in film production. The skills he gained through teaching allowed him to open up and elaborate on his thoughts and ideas, along with the thinking of others to meet the requests and expectations in this new work environment.

Brenden Kelly and John Smart are two great examples of athletes who took the skills they gained from the sport they competed in and applied it to other aspects of their lives such as film production or the building of a company like Momentum. Smart’s work with Momentum over the last 33 years has built up a platform to create generations of great mogul skiers for Canada. Kelly is not just a great mogul skier, he has shown he is someone who can take the skills and experiences he has gained and apply them to a different aspect of life.