SHOP TALK: Good friends and fading memories

I don’t remember exactly what made me turn off the freeway that afternoon. Maybe it was the usual crappy traffic on eastbound 520. Or maybe I had a craving for bento at the nearby Japanese restaurant. But soon I found myself parked in front of a building with a glowing red sign over the door that read “Olympic Sports.” I walked inside, applied for a job, and was hired on the spot. It’s funny how that simple decision has shaped my life in countless ways.

I was a freshman in college and desperate for new gear and a cheap season’s pass. My starting wage was $4.75 an hour, and I was elated. No longer would I rely solely on Powder to bring me news of the latest and greatest gear. Now I’d be in the presence of skis, boots, bindings, poles, tuning machines, jackets, pants, socks, long underwear, ski and boot bags, roof racks, gloves, hats, goggles, and wax shavings all season long.

That was in 1989. Today the shop is gone. It closed years ago and the space was sold and divided among companies that sell insurance and spas. I still drive past it once in a while. I think about those days and all the good things that transpired inside those walls. In so many ways I grew up in that building. I get a hollow feeling whenever I’m reminded that the shop isn’t there any more.

Our Bellevue store was the brand-new showpiece of a homegrown corporate chain that decorated Puget Sound from Lynwood to Tacoma. Olympic Sports did a pretty good job of getting year-round business by selling tennis, cycling, wakeboarding, soccer, and backpacking gear, but at its heart it was a ski shop. Come September, winter gear would take over the entire main floor and industry reps would frequent the store about as often as the UPS truck.

The ski showroom was enormous. Six or seven models from nearly a dozen ski brands were displayed on four walls. The bootfitting room was almost as big, with enough benches to accommodate dozens of customers—except on weekends when traffic spilled over into the clothing section. A stout selection of cross-country skis and bindings were displayed in yet another room, including three-pin bindings and leather boots for an up-and-coming style of skiing called “telemark.”

There were numerous TVs mounted all over the store displaying endless loops of Greg Stump and Warren Miller films, as well as videos sent by ski manufacturers to tout their latest products. One such video, distributed by Salomon, contained a patchwork of A- and B-grade Greg Stump footage from “The Blizzard of Aahhh's” and his previous films, but set to different music. I stole the tape one night and made a copy. I still have it, and occasionally I still watch it.

The tuning shop featured four well-used mounting benches and the very latest grinding machines. In the annex behind the ski showroom room were racks and racks of shelves holding the entire boot backstock. A long bench ran the length of the room and was stocked with countless tools and parts needed to mend any bootfitting malady. The annex was a gathering place for employees to jabber, drink coffee, complain, hide, eat lunch, or have sex (so went the rumor) to the constant smell of glue and foam.

The store was big, bright, and clean, but also friendly and inviting. Ski posters were everywhere. A dozen or so enlarged photographs of the outdoors hung on walls all over the store. It was years later that I discovered that the photographer, Carl Skoog, had actually worked in the Bellevue tuning shop while I was there. I wouldn’t know Carl until after his death in 2005, and only through the memories of his brothers (one of whom also worked at Olympic Sports).

I looked forward to my weeknight shifts after college classes or after mornings of skiing at Alpental. I even spent many days off hanging around the store, catching up with friends or playing basketball in the hillside parking lot that featured a killer view of downtown Seattle and, behind it, the Olympic mountains.

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