Solace and Alpine Canada Partner around Shared Canadian Values

Solace CEO Craig Betts receives his team jacket at the season kickoff event in Montreal.

It is with great pride that I can announce today that Solace has entered into a multi-year partnership with Alpine Canada to support and help develop the Canadian skiers of today and tomorrow.

We are excited that over the course of this agreement, we will support Canadian athletes competing in three World Cup seasons, World Championship events, the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Games in South Korea, as well as the annual Para-alpine featured events.

There are so many things to love about ski racing as a vehicle for company outreach – let me highlight just a few:

• Weekly International competition – Teams are aligned around countries which gives the sport the best of what people love about the Olympics, only week after week and every year instead of once every four years. I can root for Canada’s best across all the disciplines – alpine stars like Marie-Michèle Gangon and Erik Guay; ski cross champions like Marielle Thompson and Chris Del Bosco; para-alpine’s best Mac Marcoux and Alana Ramsay; along with an exciting crop of up and coming talent. Ski racing gives me a direct and personal link to colleagues that are also sports fans across all our business regions, from the Americas, across Europe and into most of Asia. Few sports offer that kind of reach.
• Equal recognition of men’s and women’s results – In almost all World Cup events, the men’s and women’s prize purse is identical – equal pay for equal work. The most accomplished women’s alpine skier, Lindsey Vonn, is just as well known globally as Marcel Hirscher, the most famous men’s skier of this generation. Most other sports are dramatically more lucrative if you happen to be a man, but alpine skiing gets this right. In technology, we struggle to overcome a well-documented gender gap – despite being among the highest growth industries for jobs, with among the most lucrative compensation, we can’t attract enough women to do the work. Only 26% of technology jobs are held by women. This agreement won’t fix my industry’s imbalance by itself, but I feel good about supporting a sport that leads by example with respect to equality for women.
• The inclusion and evolution of Para-alpine skiing – Alpine Canada shows their Canadian values through first-tier support and inclusion of disabled (para-alpine) skiers on their national team.

I look forward to a long and productive relationship with the ACA, beginning with the 2017 World Cup season. Go Canada!