Finally, high school nordic skiing in Oregon has been simplified.

For nearly a decade, two separate organizations meant two separate state championships. But starting this season, Oregon High School Nordic (OHSNO) has merged with the Oregon Interscholastic Ski Racing Association (OISRA) to form one organization.

Still, the new OISRA will be divided into two leagues, the Northern League and the Southern League, mainly for geographic purposes. Central Oregon schools affiliated with the six-team Southern League are Mountain View and Crook County, and area schools affiliated with the 11-team Northern League are Bend, Summit, Sisters, Redmond, Redmond Proficiency Academy and Ridgeview.

Each league will host three separate league races, and two joint league races will also be staged. Most important for skiers and coaches, only one state championship meet will be held at season’s end.

“The big thing is the state championships, just having one, and not having to try to explain to people why there are two,” says Mountain View nordic coach Eric Martin. “No one understood. That’s kind of how it came back together. There’s enough people that weren’t even around when it split, so they’re like, ‘Why are there two?’ You’d ask the kids and the kids didn’t know. The parents didn’t know. And most of the coaches didn’t know either.”

The reason for the split, Martin says, was a disagreement in ideas and organization of the races and the rules of racing. So since 2006 Mountain View and Crook County have competed in the OISRA with Eugene-area teams and other schools, while other Central Oregon nordic teams competed in OHSNO.

“It was easy to get back together,” Martin says. “The selling point was, look, just have the schools that were in OHSNO become the Northern League.”

Mountain View and Crook County are in the Southern League to help keep a similar number of skiers in each league, Martin says. If Mountain View, Bend and Summit were all in the same league, the programs representing the three Bend schools would make up 75 percent of the OISRA’s 230 skiers.

Coaches are in agreement that the move to a single, unified organization is a positive change. Gene Hyde, Summit’s new coach who has been involved in the program in the past few seasons, says he has wanted this merger for several years now.

“The nordic ski community (in Oregon) doesn’t seem quite big enough to have two high school ski leagues,” Hyde says. “There’s no reason to do that. The split happened before I was involved. But I’m glad we’ve bridged that gap.”

In recent years, Mountain View has dominated the OISRA state championships while Summit has dominated the OHSNO state championships. Now the two teams will finally have a chance to compete against one another.

“There’s more skiers from different teams and just more competition,” Hyde says. “I think overall that’s good for everybody.”

Martin adds that coaches and parents are excited about the change.

“One state meet eliminates a whole bunch of costs,” Martin says. “And I think the competition will be better now that we’re all together.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0318,

mmorical@bendbulletin.com