Yes, it was about the same time frame.
Do we know if there's actually anything going on with the company? Looking for a buyer, etc.
You have only so many chances to make a first impression and IMHO the hart/Hart name as a global has no more value. If I was going to try to resurrect a brand again...It wouldn't be that but some other viable names that are on the shelf. Hart Japana who currently are producing the skis controls it all. There is will always be the underlying talk of what could have been.
About half the competitors at the recent Calgary world cup mogul event were using hart skis. Whatever that means.
From the Deer Valley World Cup thread...
There were three dominations on the gear front. ID-one skis which had to be over 70%, followed by Hart, and a few onesies from Volkl, Rossignol, K2 and yes....Bomber! The binding domination was of course the Look Pivot, both in 12/14 and 18 shells. Marker Royals were next with really no Salomon Sth2's to speak of. Boots showed a clear domination with Full Tilt leading the pack and a few Dalbello Kryptons scattered in.
ID One is a Japanese company which makes mogul skis, Janne Lahtela was a key founder, he used these skis on his 02 Olympic gold run. Dale Begg Smith skied on them on his 06 gold run, Aiko Uemura skied them in her long tenure and a bunch of other World Cup contenders as well.
They have formed ID One USA where they will distribute there skis to the US. Sho Kashima, a former ski team member and the Wilson brothers, present teamers are all directors. It appears they are sponsoring aspiring athletes and are an official supplier to the US ski team. This in itself explains why you will see a strong presence of their skis in these events. Heck, I saw some in a freestyle team at a small mountain here in NE.
Brian Wilson won the Bronze in Vancouver on the Hart F17 Classic which was a Blossom produced ski. The F17 is the first one that hart (small h) came back with it was a non metal ski based on their 27M GS ski. I know one of their skiers also took that ski to Nastar Nationals in Steamboat that year. Patrick Deneen was also on hart at the time and while he liked the F17, they designed a version specificallly for him based upon the straighter old Dynastar Twister.
I saw Sho at the Warren Miller movie..two years ago? And at that time he was working with either Hart or Assent, which Pat Deneen (Patrick's father) derived the brand to move away from hart.
There is a lot behind the whole story that really borders on being a soap opera between a few families. It truly is a shame as I eluded to in my initial reply. I will say, for me a lot came out of it. It brought me further into the ski industry and that is where I met
@Dave Petersen when he was also involved in grapahical designs of some of the skis. I will say, I never saw such disfunction from a business and so much ange and the start if actual ski brands to spite one person as I saw from the the hart sage. Oh, what could have been.
