Joe Cannon: Major League Soccer's surest hands

Courtesy: Bob Frid / Whitecaps FCIf you follow American soccer, you know Joe Cannon as one of the best goalkeepers in MLS history and a man who's featured between the posts in sold-out stadiums across North America (for both club and country). He’s been the last line of defense for superstar teammates like David Beckham, Landon Donovan and Chris Wondolowski, to name just a few.

At 36, Cannon is now plying his trade for MLS’s newly minted Vancouver Whitecaps, a team partly owned by Canadian NBA star Steve Nash, and he remains among the league’s elite netminders ...

... What many folks don’t know, however, is that Cannon and hisCourtesy: Bob Frid / Whitecaps FC twin brother used to shred the slopes of Sun Valley as alpine ski racers -- frequently referred to as “the next Mahre brothers.”

I recently caught up with Cannon after a match between his current Vancouver squad and the San Jose team he captained the past three seasons. My piece on our conversation about playing ball, ski racing, and hangin’ with the Beckhams (and Will Smith and Tom Cruise) will be out this fall.

Skiing Jaws

Screenshot from Solomon Freeski TV, click to see videoTake a good look at the screenshot to the left: It's world-class surfer and freeskier Chuck Patterson skiing -- yeah, skiing -- the most famous surf on the planet, Maui's epic break, Jaws.

I just wrote a short piece on the guy who made Patterson's feat possible, Jason Starr, founder-inventor of Starr Surf Skis and among a handful of people who're pioneering the sport of surf skiing. If you're a Ski Racing magazine subscriber, you can read about Starr and the sport in the digital magazine here (replete with dynamic video of Patterson and others shredding waves in Hawaii), or you can read a PDF version of the article (sans video) here.

ESPN Radio; 2011 NCAA Skiing Champs; Mac|Life

Colorado's Eliska Hajkova en route to first-team All-America honors at the 2011 NCAA Skiing Championships... Another month gone by very, very quickly.

Beyond the status quo, I embraced a few new opportunities this month, including two guest appearances on  to discuss the 2011 NCAA Skiing Championships (March 9-12), which were hosted by the University of Vermont at Stowe Mountain Resort and Trapp Family Lodge.

Covering the event on site, my stories appeared in two different outlets each day, NCAA.com and skiracing.com. Have a glimpse of a particularly exciting event by clicking here -- a day when Colorado Buff Reid Pletcher made a thrilling escape to win the men's 20 k classic. My six-page feature on the 2011 Champs comes out in Ski Racing magazine on April 4.

I also had the privilege of contributing to Mac|Life magazine and maclife.com this month, reviewing a super-stellar photo editing suite for iOS devices. The print edition doesn't come out until June, but you can see the article online here.

And now? Shifting gears and welcoming spring.

2011 FIS Alpine World Championships, Germany

This was my view from the ladies' giant slalom finish on Feb. 17. Garmisch-Partenkirchen -- Bavaria in general -- is pretty stunning:

Ski Racing's 2010 Twitter Awards

More than half of Twitter’s nearly 200 million users have signed up in the past 18 months. And the spike in ski racing-related tweets was likewise plain for even the most casual observer. Many of our sport’s most prominent athletes are now regularly employing the platform to communicate with fans and each other.

Here, we bring you the year’s best North American ski racing tweets in five very serious categories (compiled and elaborated upon by Twitter newbie, @Bryce_Hubner) ... [read more]