PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. -- The STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series, the nation's premier lumberjack competition, announced today it will honor the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the U.S. Navy SEALs during the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series U.S. Championship at The Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., June 1-3. The STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series presented by Ram Trucks will pay tribute to the SEALs with a special ceremony that will include 10 retired members of SEAL Teams ONE and TWO during Saturday's competition June 2 at 12:20 p.m. EDT.

"It is a great honor to host these first U.S. Navy SEALs and celebrate their 50th anniversary at this year's STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series U.S. Championship," said Roger Phelps, promotional communications manager, STIHL Inc. "Our country is forever grateful for this legendary group of Americans, we call the U.S. Navy SEALs."

During the final round of the U.S. Championship Saturday, June 2, STIHL will recognize the 50th anniversary of the SEALS with a special ceremony with five plank owners from SEAL Team ONE and five plank owners from Team TWO, including Rudy Boesch of Survivor fame. Paying tribute to the two original teams, STIHL will present the members with two unique, custom-painted MS 660 STIHL Magnum® chain saws embossed with the 50th anniversary emblem. The MS 660 STIHL Magnum® is the type of chain saw used in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series stock saw discipline.

"We're thrilled at the opportunity to further honor the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Navy SEALs at the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS U.S. Championship with original plank owners from both teams present," said Jim Madison, executive director, UDT-SEAL Association.

On Jan. 1, 1962, created from Navy underwater demolition units, the SEALs started with two teams, 20 officers and 100 enlisted sailors under John F. Kennedy's presidency. Coronado, Calif., was the location of SEAL Team ONE; Little Creek, Va., was home to Team TWO.

The STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series, billed as the Original Extreme Sport, consists of six professional lumberjack disciplines, the hot saw, single buck, springboard chop, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop. Held in conjunction with the Collegiate Series, the qualifying rounds pit the top eight lumberjacks in the region against each other with the top four pro athletes from each advancing to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Pro Championship. These four individuals will not only compete against other competitors from around the country for the championship crown, but will also join together to represent their regions in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Relay Competition. In addition to receiving the ultimate bragging rights in lumberjack sports and a Ram 1500 truck, the top U.S. competitor also advances to the World Championship in Lillehammer, Norway Sept. 8-9. The Collegiate Championship, held every year in conjunction with the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Pro Championship, pits the five regional collegiate champions and one wildcard pick against each other. The collegiate champion not only wins an automatic spot in the Pro Series the following season, but also a spot competing on the rookie relay team in the 2012 World Championship.

Established in 1985 by STIHL, the number-one selling brand of gasoline-powered handheld outdoor power equipment in America*, the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series attracts the world's top lumberjack athletes in a competition based on historic logging techniques. The Series is seen by millions of viewers annually in more than 62 countries on networks such as Eurosport, Outdoor Channel and ESPNU.

Get the latest information, stay up to date on news and competition and access behind-the-scenes photos and videos by joining the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series community online and on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The 2012 STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series World Championship will be held in Lillehammer, Norway Sept. 7-8, where the biggest names in lumberjack sports from 23 nations will converge on the host city of the 1994 Winter Olympics to battle for the world champion lumberjack title. More than 10,000 spectators are expected to attend this annual two-day international event. This will be the first time Scandinavia will host the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series World Championship.

"The STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series World Championship will help lumberjack sports make a real breakthrough in Scandinavia. Lillehammer is an ideal venue for the event, because this region is the heart of Norway's forestry industry - the biggest sector of the national economy behind the oil and fish industries - and also the local population is passionately keen on sports," said Bjorn Sonsteby, STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series coordinator for Scandinavia.

On Friday, Sept. 7, more than 100 athletes from 23 nations will compete in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series World Championship relay competition to determine the best national team in the world. In the relay competition, teams of four compete in four lumberjack disciplines, the single buck, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop. The individual competition will take place Saturday, Sept. 8 where the best pro athletes will face off in six lumberjack disciplines; the hot saw, single buck, springboard chop, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop. The top-performing athlete will be crowned the world champion.

Fans are expected to attend from all over the world, particularly from Sweden due to the closeness of the venue. In Norway and Sweden, lumberjack sports also play a major role for upcoming generations and the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series has already entered the curriculum of forestry schools.

For the eighth annual STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series World Championship, the Series will welcome athletes from all over Europe, Australia, New Zealand, United States and Canada. New to the competition is the Southern Pacific nation, the Independent State of Samoa.

At last year's World Championship in the Netherlands, New Zealander Jason Wynyard won the individual title, out-chopping and out-sawing athletes from Switzerland and the Czech Republic. Norway, with Ole Ivar Lierhagen, finished in 13th place, with excellent performances in the sawing disciplines. As host of the World Championship, the Norwegian team hopes to place in the top 10 with Lierhagen again and Olaf Tufte, an Olympic rower. Team Australia took first-place honors in last year's relay competition with the fastest time of the day at 45.85 seconds. New Zealand placed second and the U.S. claimed third.

The STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® SERIES consists of six disciplines, three with the axe and three with the saw. Not only is the physical prowess of the athlete critical, but also his or her skill in handling both the race tool and the timber are at the heart of these technically-demanding disciplines. For example, in the hot saw discipline, the competitors work with extremely powerful custom-tuned racing chain saws that can weigh more than 60 pounds. The goal is to saw off three complete "cookies" (circular discs of wood) of defined thickness from a log. The particular attraction is to control the power of a chain saw with more than 60 horsepower.

"In STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series, the axes, bucksaws and chain saws are used with skill and precision as highly technical sporting equipment. The demonstration of control over a chain saw is a spectacular sight for all and not only for professionals," adds Sonsteby.

Each event in this premier league of lumberjack sports is not only watched by more than 10,000 spectators live but is also beamed to several million TV viewers worldwide by Eurosport, and ESPN and Outdoor Channel.

HANOVER, N.H. -- Dave Jewett settled into the TV commentator's booth alongside partner Kevin Holtz as he'd done throughout the 2012 season of the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series presented by Ram Trucks. Calling play-by-play action is Jewett's regular gig, although he broke from that routine at the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Northeast Pro Qualifier.

That's because Jewett competed to defend his title at the contest held at Dartmouth College. It also meant Holtz called the six disciplines as a solo act whenever his cohort was on the competition deck as contestant No 15. The balancing act worked all around as Jewett won the overall Northeast title for the second consecutive year.

"Usually after any other competition I've got a headache about right now, but I actually feel great," Jewett said moments after the win. "Mentally speaking, today was probably my best competition in a long time. I wasn't really stressed out. I'd call it more like a controlled stress."

Comments over Jewett's mental state are necessary to understand the back-story behind his game face. Leave that explanation to Holtz, also a veteran lumberjack and Jewett's travel partner.

"Dave and I travel all over the country together doing competitions and TV," Holtz said.. "Because I know him so well I can honestly say the guy is a head case."

Jewett agreed with his friend's candid diagnosis. "Sometimes my blood pressure will get so high I'll almost blank out because I'm so nervous," he said. "Basically I'm usually on mental autopilot.

"But this time my mind was totally in the moment. I was focused on every chop and not ahead or behind. I feel like it was more like a controlled stress."

Holtz fashioned this made-for-TV analysis about Jewett's performance.

"The key to success today for Dave was the springboard, getting started out on the right foot and putting that momentum forward," he said. "If that had gone wrong it would have made it hard for him to dig out and come back."

Four lumberjacks adanced from the Northeast qualifier to the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® U.S. Championship. Along with Jewett, they included his friend and training partner Mike Sullivan, Nathan Waterfield, and Richard Jordan. The championship is June 1-3 in Pigeon, Forge, Tenn.

Jewett completed the springboard some 2 seconds ahead of Waterfield in one minute. Jewett was confident but the voice in his head said something wasn't totally in tune with his choice of axes.

"In the springboard I wasn't using a bad ax. It just turned out to be the wrong ax in my mind," he explained.

With that comment it appeared Jewett had gone into his self-described mental "autopilot" mode and lost focus. If so it was Holtz who swiftly brought him back to reality.

"Kevin might not be on stage for any given heat but he sees everything," noted Jewett. "So it turned out good for me calling the college heats and talking to him during the breaks."

A pivotal exchange occurred during one of those breaks. That happened as the final chopping event was coming up. Jewett told Holtz he wanted to win the underhand chop as he'd done in route to victory last year.

"He said to use the very same ax I had used to win last year, so I did," recalled Jewett. "I hadn't thought of that at the time. It was by far a good choice because I annihilated that wood."

Added Holtz, "That was a pivotal moment for him because it got his mind right for the finish.

Jewett amassed 8 points in the springboard and another 4 and 7 points, respectively, in the stock saw and standing block chop. He won the underhand chop in 21 seconds to add another 8 points to his overall score of 28.

He got one final coaching session from Holtz prior to the final event, the hot saw. It's a discipline that sometimes provokes leaders like Jewett to take the conservative approach when there's nothing more to gain in a qualifier.

"Dave and I have talked about that final scenario all season long," began Holtz. "We've both come to the conclusion that you've got to treat the hot saw like you are in the final championship. To truly be a top competitor you've got to treat it like everything is on the line."

Holtz continued, "And he did exactly what I thought he would and went for it. It was really his chance to see what that machine would do under race conditions. Now he can go into the championship knowing that feeling."

Jewett didn't win the hot saw and didn't expect to either. That's because he was matched up in the heat with Mike Sullivan, owner of arguably the fastest hot saw in the series. The two veterans finished in 5 seconds with 1/10 of a second between them.

The region surrounding the competition is renown for its collegiate forestry sciences academics and storied woodsmen teams. Ten schools competed in the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® College Qualifier that included a three-event slate for women. The lumberjills tested their best skills in the stock saw, single buck, and overhead chop.

Chelsea Black led Finger Lakes Community College to the overall win with 27 points. Next in the standings was Katy Noyes from the University of New Hampshire with 23 points. Natalie Scheibel was next with 23 points earned for the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

SUNY-ESF faired even better in the overall college qualifier. The school's David Andrews amassed 40 points to advance to the championship. Alfred State College followed in the final standings with the 34 points posted by Chris Savosh. John Tasker led Paul Smith's College with 33 points for third place.

The final event in the 2012 series is the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® U.S. Championship. The championship is June1-3 at the Smoky Mountain LumberJack Feud in Pigeon Forge. Tickets are on sale and can be purchased at the Lumberjack Feud box office or online.

When he was 12, Nathan Waterfield was amazed and intrigued when he came across a STIHL TIMBERSPORTS show on TV.

"For me, it was just something you don't really see," he said. "They were competing in Alaska. They were big, tough guys. It was just one of those things you thought, 'Wow, this is really cool!' At that age, you don't think there's any way you could get into it."

Fast forward 16 years and the Cherry Valley, N.Y., resident is among the lumberjacks trying to reach the U.S. Championships June 1-3 in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Waterfield will be one of eight pros competing Saturday, April 28 in the Northeast Qualifier of the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series presented by Ram Trucks.

Waterfield and the pros will be joined at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., by the best lumberjacks from 11 colleges, including his alma mater SUNY-ESF Ranger School in Wanakena, N.Y. That's where Waterfield got his start, beginning a team with some old equipment the forest ranger students found in a shed.

"The school's main campus in Syracuse traditionally had a woodsman team," he said. "So we rounded up a bunch of antiques and went to compete."

Needless to say, they went up against more polished teams, with real coaches, modern equipment and apparently better training regimens.

"It was just rough, but we learned a lot," he said. "It was a rude awakening, but it kind of fueled me. There was an avenue to get better."

So in between classes, like Timber Harvesting/Student Logging, Waterfield worked on his skills in Wanakena, a tiny northeast town in upstate New York which tripled in size when the 40 to 50 forestry students arrived.
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"As soon as I graduated, I pretty much ignored the fact that you needed to get a job, start a career," said Waterfield, who instead traveled with STIHL competitor Will Roberts to every U.S. competition they could.

They took their road show overseas, cutting wood for a month in Spain before going Down Under for five months, where they even stayed with David Bolstad. When they returned to the U.S., it was another three months of traveling.

"We thought the only way to get better was to put ourselves against the best. We went to every show the Australians and New Zealanders would. We were training day in and day out," he said. "For almost two years straight, I pretty much just wood chopped and found every little odd job I could to support that. It's something I'm really glad I did, because it's something I can't do now."

Waterfield has a business and a wife, Holly, who's expecting their first child in July. He does have the time off to compete in the 65th annual Woodsmen Weekend, where he hopes his leg will hold out.

After a second-place showing to Dave Jewett in last year's qualifier, he broke his leg in June, which required surgery with rods and screws. He healed enough to compete in the Championships in Oregon, figuring he should because he qualified.

"I just did just for my own piece of mind," he said. "I did not do well, but seeing the other guys kind of helped me get going for the remainder of the season."

He was feeling better before having several of the screws removed on April 12, when he was told the cut wounds were the only thing that needed to heal.

"My leg has started hurting quite a bit and I'm thinking it was a poor choice to have them removed," he said. "I'll just deal with it and hope it doesn't give me any trouble."

The pro events of springboard chop and hot saw sandwich the four disciplines the Pro and College qualifiers, the single buck, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop. The college competitor with the most cumulative points earns a $1,000 scholarship for his or her school and advances to the 2012 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship.

The Northeast also hosts a women's-only collegiate event with the winner receiving a $500 scholarship from STIHL for her school. Fourteen schools will participate in the qualifier, including Paul Smith's College, University of Connecticut and University of New Hampshire.

The top four pros from each Professional Qualifier advance to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS U.S. Championship, where they will compete for the coveted U.S. Championship title, a Ram 1500 truck and the opportunity to represent the U.S. in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS World Championship in Lillehammer, Norway, Sept. 8-9. Additional pros will be selected by officials to represent the U.S. in the World Championship Relay Competition.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Northeast Qualifier Professional Competitors

Dave Engasser
Cortland, N.Y.
Jerry Gingras
Errol, N.H.
Dave Jewett
Pittsford, N.Y.
Richard Jordan
Sterling, Conn.
Wally Robarge
Naples, N.Y.
Mike Sullivan
Winsted, Conn.
Nathan Waterfield
Cherry Valley, N.Y.
Calvin Williard
Barnet, Vt.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series Northeast Qualifier Participating Schools

Alfred State College of Technology in Alfred, N.Y.
Colby College in Waterfield, Maine
Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.
Finger Lakes Community College in Canandaigua, N.Y.
Paul Smith's College in Paul Smiths, N.Y.
SUNY-Cobleskill in Cobleskill, N.Y.
SUNY-ESF in Syracuse, N.Y.
SUNY-ESF Ranger School in Wanakena, N.Y.
Unity College in Unity, Maine
University of Connecticut in Storrs, Conn.
University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H.

TROY, N.C. -- Arden Cogar Jr. scored 45 of a possible 48 points to finish atop the leader board at the 2012 STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Mid-Atlantic Pro Qualifier presented by Ram Trucks. The nation's top lumberjack also punched his ticket to defend a championship title.

That means slots in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS U.S. Championship are filling with lumberjacks from the Cogar clan. Nephew Matt Cogar advanced from the Midwest Pro Qualifier last week, while his father Paul entered from the Southern Pro Qualifier in March.

The U.S. championship is June 1-3 at the Smoky Mountain LumberJack Feud in Pigeon, Forge, Tenn.

Harry Burnsworth, Mike Eash, and Matt Marks advanced to the championship by tying for second through fourth place, respectively, at the event held at Montgomery Community College in Troy, N.C.

The Midwest College Qualifier also advanced the top overall lumberjack to the championship. Penn State University's Tim Benedict claimed the honor for the second time after scoring 27 points. Tim won the Mid-Atlantic region in 2010 and was selected as the wild card competitor in 2011 after losing a close battle to eventual US Collegiate Champion Daniel Jones.

Haywood Community College was next in the standings with 21 points. Other participating schools in order of finish included Penn State-Mont Alto, Dabney S. Lancaster Community College, West Virginia University, Montgomery Community College and Allegany College.

The final scorecard underscores the dominating performance of Cogar Jr. He finished 15 points ahead of Burnsworth, Eash and Marks, all of whom scored 30 points.

"If I had to handicap myself in this event this is where I would have ended up," said Cogar Jr. "It couldn't have gone any better. I actually competed to my full potential. I'm pleased."

The West Virginian lived up to his championship form from the beginning. He ascended the tulip poplar springboard pole and severed its white pine block in a time of 1:05. That was seven seconds ahead of Marks.

The stock saw event was nearly a wash. Eash scored a winning time of 13.230 seconds compared to the 13.377 finish of Cogar Jr. Burnsworth, the master of the discipline, followed with 13.473 seconds.

"That's really a fantastic time for me because the saw events aren't my strongest," Cogar Jr. said.

He bounded back in the standing block, one of his best events. Cogar Jr. scored the best time of 15 seconds, well ahead of the 19 seconds chopped by Eash.

"That's one of my best times for the standing block so by then I knew I was on my way," said Cogar Jr.

Cogar Jr. sawed his way through a tightly contested single buck in 14.673 seconds. By comparison, Jason Lentz followed with a time of 14.123 and Eash broke a cookie in 15.575 seconds.

With two disciplines remaining, Cogar Jr. chose his strongest to claim his championship ticket. The master chopper posted a time of 17 seconds in the underhand to win by four seconds over Lentz.

With the overall Mid-Atlantic title his and a return the championship inevitable, Cogar Jr. chose the conservative route in the hot saw. That's because all that was needed was putting three cookies on the deck, which he did in 7 seconds.

"I wanted to make a conservative cut and took my time," he said. "I knew that I didn't have to win. I just needed to put a time in."

Cogar Jr. will now take time to train. And he'll do that in France as guest coach of the country's national team. His wife Kristy will go along as well. It's hard to decide who will be training whom.

"As part of my coaching I am racing against their best athletes," he said. "So they will be competing against me. That does them good because they are training in a race mode."

It will also do Cogar Jr. good when he comes back to defend his title.

The next event in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series is the Northeast Qualifier at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., on April 28.

Arden Cogar Jr. is trained, rested and ready for Troy, N.C., as long as he doesn't have any mishaps with bigfoot.

Cogar, of West Hamlin, W.Va., is among the eight competitors in this week's Pro and Collegiate Mid-Atlantic Qualifiers of the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series presented by Ram Trucks. The top four pros and top collegiate advance to the U.S. championships hosted by The Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., June 1-3.

"I am absolutely ready," said Cogar, the 2011 U.S. Champion. "The difficult part for me is the week before the venue. During the week of the event I do nothing, and I get all antsy, trying to control my urge to do."

Announcing the first qualifier, Cogar said watching the competition fired him up and he trained harder. He's now resting his muscles before he goes at the wood. He does plan on a little rest and relaxation in Troy, if he can avoid bigfoot.

"I've taken off work Thursday and Friday, and my wife and I are going down to go hiking for a couple days -- trying to find bigfoot," he said.

Troy, a town of about 3,000 an hour west of Charlotte on the edge of the Uwharrie National Forest, is the East Coast capital of sasquatch, bigfoot, skunk ape, wollybooger, or whatever they might be called, sightings.

If he comes across one, Cogar will be sure not to go messing with sasquatch, lest he gets thrown down the hiking trail.

"You reckon the closest thing I'm getting to bigfoot is if I paint (6-foot-2, 300-pound STIHL lumberjack) Chris Bradshaw brown," he said. "I'm looking forward to the weekend.

"I was at the first qualifier doing the announcing, and it kind of got my juices flowing, so my training stepped up in intensity. I really gave it hard for three weeks. I'm about as fit as I'm going to be and prepared as I'm going to be, unless something throws a curve."

Mike Slingerland, who along with son Matt qualified to the championships, will take over stage announcing this week. Cogar expects the Mid-Atlantic qualifier to be quite competitive.

"It's a strong region: Will Roberts, Mike Eash, Harry Burnworth, Jason Lentz, all very good competitors," he said. "Harry is not as young as he used to be, but he's just unbeatable in two events. (stock saw and hot saw). I just want to keep up with him in those. I've done all the work -- I just have to perform."

Montgomery Community College is hosting the event Sunday, April 22 at 11 a.m. ET as part of the Mid-Atlantic States Intercollegiate Woodsmen's Meet. Competing for the first time as a pro will be 2011 Collegiate Series Champion Daniel Jones of Blairsville, Ga.

In the Collegiate Series, the participating universities select their best lumberjacks or jills to chop and saw in four disciplines including the single buck, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop, using the same wood and rules as the Pros. After competing in each of the disciplines, the competitor with the most cumulative points earns a $1,000 scholarship from STIHL for his or her school and advances to the 2012 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship. Eight schools will participate in the qualifier, including Allegany College of Maryland, West Virginia University and Penn State University.

Outdoor Channel, ESPNU and TUFF TV cameras will be onsite to capture the wood-chopping action.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Mid-Atlantic Qualifier Professional Competitors

Harry Burnsworth, Mill Run, Pa.
Arden Cogar Jr., West Hamlin, W.Va.
Mike Eash, Coatesville, Pa.
Chris Henning, Walworth, NY
Daniel Jones, Blairsville, Ga.
Jason Lentz, Diana, W.Va.
Matthew Marks, Middlesex, NY
Will Roberts, Cortland, NY


STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series Mid-Atlantic Qualifier Participating Schools

Allegany College of Maryland in Cumberland, Md.
Danby Lancaster College in Clifton Forge, Va.
Haywood Community College in Clyde, NC
Montgomery Community College in Troy, NC
Penn State Mont Alto in Mont Alto, Pa.
Penn State University in University Park, Pa.
Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, Pa.
West Virginia University in Morgantown, W.Va.

PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. - The pros, and co's, are taking over the feud.

The Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud, a new dinner show in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., is host site of the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series U.S. Pro and Collegiate Championships June 1-3. Tickets are on sale and can be purchased at the Lumberjack Feud box office or online.

"We're thrilled to host the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Pro and Collegiate U.S. Championships," said Rob Scheer, owner and president of the Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud. "Since many of our lumberjack performers have also competed in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series, this opportunity promises to provide fans with a double dose of lumberjack excitement and entertainment."

With doors opening last August, the Lumberjack Feud features world-champion lumberjack athletes demonstrating the legacy of the American logger with a showcase of action, competition, drama and comedy. The action-packed show leaves crowds of all ages smiling.

The STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series presented by Ram Trucks is taking over the arena for its championships. The U.S. Pro and Collegiate Championships kick off at 10 a.m. on Friday, June 1, and continue through Sunday, June 3. Seats in the dinner-style arena are $10, with 50 percent of the proceeds donated to the United Way of Sevier County.

"We've been producing the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series for 27 years, and we're excited to bring the original extreme sport to The Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud in Pigeon Forge during the Feud's inaugural year," said Brad Sorgen, producer of the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series. "We have a long-standing relationship with Rob Scheer, and we're glad to be able to support his highly-successful show and showcase it along with the Series on national television."

Outdoor Channel, ESPNU and TUFF TV cameras will be onsite to capture the lumberjack action, and of course the rowdy fans.

The STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series pro competition consists of six professional lumberjack disciplines, the hot saw, single buck, springboard chop, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop. There will be 20 pros, four each from five qualifiers, in the championships. In addition to the U.S. title and a Ram 1500 truck, the top U.S. competitor also advances to the World Championship in Lillehammer, Norway Sept. 8-9.

The Collegiate Championship pits the five regional collegiate champions and one wild-card pick. The collegiate champion wins an automatic spot in the Pro Series the following season and a spot competing on the rookie relay team in the 2012 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series World Championship held in Lillehammer, Norway Sept. 8-9.

TOMAHAWK, Wis. -- There's now a second father-and-son duo set to compete in the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® U.S. Championship, after Matt Cogar chopped and sawed to the highest overall score at the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Midwest Pro Qualifier presented by Ram Trucks.

Matt Cogar joins his father, Paul, along with father-and-son matchup Matt and Mike Slingerland in the championship June 1-3 at the Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

There was never any doubt that Cogar, 26, would miss the cut. His overall score of 44 was 5 points ahead of Carson Bosworth, who joins him at the championship. Warrick Hallett and Rob Waibel are also headed for the championship.

"I was a nervous wreck, really," said Cogar, but not because Paul was on hand as a spectator. "It was because this was only my second event of the year, and there's no replacing practice for the real thing.

"Overall, I was OK with the day. I just played to my strengths and for me those are the chopping events."

Cogar came on strong from the start, leading off with a time of 62 seconds for the springboard. By comparison, it took Bosworth 75 seconds to lop the block.

The springboard would be a confidence-builder and harbinger of things to come. After slipping to fourth in the stock saw, Cogar won the standing block in 17 seconds, besting Bosworth's time by 5 ticks. Cogar then went on to win the single buck and underhand chop. He dropped to fourth in the hot saw, his weakest event.

"We'll work on that together," said Paul, also his practice partner. "I thought he did well and it'll be good to work out with him once we get back."

"It was actually good to have him here," quipped Matt, just after finishing the competition. "He's already given me some advice and we haven't even left for West Virginia."

That's where a conclave of legendary lumberjacks lives. Diana, W.Va., and the surrounding area is home to the Cogar clan, including defending U.S. champion Arden, the cousin to Matt and Paul. Also in town is Mel Lentz, respectfully called "King of the Lumberjacks."

Matt credits them all for putting him in contention to become a top lumberjack.

"I've been really fortunate to have them behind me," said Matt, who made his STIHL TIMBERSPORTS debut in 2009.

Cogar also is fortunate to have been mentored by Jim Alexander. The former world champion from Australia also trained Paul, Arden and Lentz. Collectively, the group has been a collective force of STIHL TIMBERSPORTS since its inception in 1985.

Rainey Johnson and Larisa Swanson finished on top in the double buck saw, a special event held during the collegiate competition. The lumberjills from the Southern Illinois University-Carbondale finished with an impressive time of 18 seconds.

Cogar wasn't alone in his dominating performance at the Midwest qualifier held at Treehaven, the natural resources education center for the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. The school's Ben Hansen scored 7s in all four disciplines to rack up a perfect score of 28 points. Hansen advances to the U.S. Collegiate Championship held during the Pro event in June.

Next came Brandon Knopf, who represented the University of Minnesota with 21 points. Other participating schools included Iowa State University, the University of Missouri, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Purdue University and Three Rivers Community College, in Norwich, Conn.

Besides Cogar's feat, the biggest storyline came from the performance of Waibel, 46, of Sweet Home, Ore. The fourth-place overall finisher endured the competition with bruised ribs and an abdominal injury he suffered just two weeks earlier. The injuries apparently happened while the high school forestry instructor was playing a pickup basketball game with some students.

Waibel staged a valiant comeback with 25 overall points to claim the last berth in the championship for the first time ever. He was on the brink of falling out of the cutoff going into the underhand chop, the fifth of six disciplines. Cogar won it in 16 seconds and Waibel finished second in 20 seconds.

Fans can watch a sound bite with Waibel when coverage of the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Midwest Pro Qualifier airs Sunday, May 6, at 4 p.m. EDT on Outdoor Channel.

The next event in the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series is the Mid-Atlantic Qualifier at Montgomery Community College in Troy, N.C, on April 22.

Perhaps bored with the questioning, but pretty much serious for the entertainment value, Adam LaSalle answered Conan O'Brien as who he'd like to see try one discipline in the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series presented by Ram Trucks.

Not that LaSalle thinks the lanky late-night comedian would embarrass himself, he said it's a funny proposition.

"I just think he's a pretty colorful character, and he would at least try it," he said. "He'd probably be really good. He's built like Will Roberts. He'd probably be pretty good if could stop making jokes."

While the talk show host won't be at the Pro and Collegiate Midwest Qualifiers in Tomahawk, Wis., on Saturday, LaSalle will return to his alma mater of Wisconsin-Stevens Point to battle seven other pros. The top four will advance to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Championships hosted by The Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., June 1-3.

LaSalle will leave for Wisconsin soon from Fairplay, Colo., where he's supervising a team for the U.S. Forestry Service. Migrant workers are reforesting the state's largest wildfire devastation, planting about 1,000 acres a year to the 122,000 acres burnt in the Hayman wildfire.

"It covers quit a big area. I'm on my weekly trip into town," he said.

He's thrilled to be heading back to Stevens Point, where he began the lumberjack team and set on his course to the pro circuit. LaSalle, 32, began the sport in 2004 while attending Paul Smith College northern New York. He transferred to Stevens Point, where he started a team from scratch.

"I asked all my cronies, took a straw poll, who'd be interested in this," he said. "My second semester we tried it out, and I basically gave people bare-bones training at Treehaven (Field Station), actually where this competition is going to be this weekend."

His team of nine competed in the Michigan Conclave in 2008 and came back wanting more. It also fueled his advancement in the sport.

"I established the team and kept a core group of guys and gals engaged and encouraged them to compete," he said. "We did it at my house, in my garage, all winter long. That pushed me to train harder and harder and continue to do what I do."

LaSalle won the 2009 College Championship and earned a right to compete in the Pro division. He's proud the team continued to flourish after he graduated, working hard over the last several years until winning a title.

"I'm stoked to go back. I love that northern Wisconsin area," he said. "I came as a transplant and kind of fit right in. It's beautiful country and I get to see a lot of individuals I don't get to see on a regular basis.

"I'm glad we're hosting it. Not that I get to go back and show off in front of my alumni, but to see the team competing and doing their best out there."

Ben Hansen will represent Stevens Point in the College Qualifier, and LaSalle remembers running into him and hopes he can follow his footsteps. For LaSalle to advance, he said he needs to pick up where he left off last year. He started slowly then progressed as he went deeper into the competitions.

"I honestly have to have clean runs on every event. I got to go for it, make everything count and minimize mistakes," he said, noting the hot saw was his doom at times last year. "I've got a year of running the hot saw. Just like anything, driving a car or taking test, it's confidence. If you have experience, you're going to do a lot better."

The events are part of the 60th Annual Midwestern Foresters' Conclave at Treehaven Field Station, and are free and open to the public, but spectators are encouraged to bring their own seating.

The other pros competing are Carson Bosworth of Lake Geneva, Wis., Matt Cogar of Diana, W.Va., Warrick Hallet of Glencoe, Minn., Mark Jones of Princeton, W.Va., Matthew Jones of Inwood, W.Va., Michael Koers of Russell, Pa., and Rob Waibel of West Linn, Ore.
The college field is comprised of Iowa State, Michigan state, Michigan Tech, Purdue, Southern Illnois-Carbondale, Three Rivers Community College, Minnesota, Missouri and the host school.

The participating universities select their best lumberjacks or jills to chop and saw in four disciplines, and the competitor with the most cumulative points earns a $1,000 scholarship from STIHL for his or her school and advances to the 2012 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship.

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- With racing ax in hand, David Moses Jr., stepped up to face his nemesis: a 9-foot tall red alder pole standing upright on the competition deck at the 2012 STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Western Pro Qualifier presented by Ram Trucks.

It's mentally challenging when an athlete faces his archrival, and that's exactly what the springboard chop represented to him. The first event of six timbersports disciplines is an admitted weakness for the lumberjack from Snoqualmie, Wash.

But Moses appeared unusually relaxed, focused and in control as he ascended the pole after axing a solid pair of springboard pockets. In less than one minute, the white pine chopping block nailed to the top was severed, giving him a time of 58.660 that none of the other seven pros could top.

First place in each discipline awards 8 points, second receives 7 down to 1 for 8th. No points are given for disqualifications and competitors who did not finish.

Moses would challenge perfection for the remainder of the Western Qualifier, flawlessly chopping and sawing his way through the next four disciplines inside the McAlexander Fieldhouse on the campus of Oregon State University. Only the final event, the hot saw, would break a string of 8s that compiled his overall total score of 44 points.

"It's been a long time coming for me to have a day like this at the STIHL Series," said Moses, now in his 20th season of competition. "Most of the events I was in the beginning heat and I knew if I did well that it would put pressure on everybody else."

Behind Moses in the final standings was fellow Western timbersports pros Mike Forrester with 35 points, followed by Jeff Skirvin and Branden Sirguy with 29 points apiece. The four lumberjacks advance to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Championships hosted by the Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud coming up June 1-3 in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

The collegiate competition, four disciplines in all, came down to an endurance test that Gavin Lommatsch won to claim the title and represent the Western division in the Collegiate Championships in Tennessee. Lommatsch, the solo team member for Montana State University, scored 42 points to edge the runner-up score of 41 by Mitch Richardson of California Polytechnic University.

For Moses, quelling the springboard curse early on helped ease his mind to set the tone for his career-best performance.

"I was pretty nervous coming up to the springboard because I always screw up my pockets," the self-employed construction worker said. "But once those pockets came in good and I chopped real well and I came out of the wood, it was a great feeling. It was also the first time I'd come under a minute at the STIHL Series."

Moses had plenty of time during the collegiate events for the springboard victory to overcome him with confidence, but he never looked back.

"I kept focused on one event at a time. It was very important," he said. "It was all about worrying about my chop, my saw, not worrying about anybody else and just concentrating on my abilities and it paid off."

That it did. Moses blazed through the stock saw event in 11 seconds, besting the time of Forrester by one second. He chopped the standing block in 20 seconds, more than 4 ticks ahead of James Hartley.

"Once I won those first three events it took all the pressure off and I knew I could relax the rest of the day and go," he said.

The only glitch came during the single buck as Moses was making his final strokes through the block.

"No matter how big your day goes there's room to improve," he said of the 15-second time. "I broke my cookie on that single buck but still stayed in the wood, so I've got to fix that problem."

In the hot saw, Moses finished fifth for four points. Friend Jeff Skirvin's had a 7-second performance left him visually pumped as it qualified him for the championships.

The reality of a career-high finish was settling in for Moses. In the audience was wife, Annette, and David Moses Sr., who the son would credit for instilling in him the confidence and pride to succeed. At the age of 67, the senior Moses still competes in Lumberjack Sports events.

"I have to give a lot of credit to my dad for coming out and training with me, getting me to work my technique," said Moses, a third-generation lumberjack. "He's been a great mentor to me I owe this win to him."

The next event in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series is the Midwest Qualifier at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point campus in Stevens Point, Wis., on April 14.

RALEIGH, N.C. -- There is one man on the Granite State Lumberjack Shows deck crew whose job is valued more by STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® athletes than the casual fan might expect.

That man is Ed Naile and he's held the job title of "trimmer" for the last 21 seasons of competition for the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series presented by Ram Trucks.

Naile's job is important because he's responsible for making necessary final preparations for the milled logs used in the competition.

A typical workday begins a few hours prior to the event start time. That's when he picks up his most valuable tool, a STIHL® 066 chainsaw called "WB" by the deck crew. Naile says the saw has provided reliable service for a decade, maybe longer. "WB" stands by on the deck for the entire competition, ready for use when the time comes for a trim job.

Naile uses "WB" to skillfully make a straight vertical downcut along the open front of a wood block used in hot saw and stock saw competition. To watch Naile in action appears to be nothing more than a guy running a saw under load while taking a slice from a log.

What really is happening is perfection in motion. Most of the time it's a perfect cut.

"Last season I didn't have to re-trim anything, it was all good on the first cut," said Naile, referring to the slate of six events in 2011.

There's no tool for measuring straightness of a cut. After eyeballing his work, Naile gives the nod and the STIHL® logo is stenciled in black across the wood. Only then is the block deemed ready by a judge for competition.

After harvest, the logs are sized up and cut at a mill operated by Granite State Lumberjack Shows. Final prep work of the logs is saved for the venue, where one more trim is necessary.

"The reason we trim just before the competition begins is we want a fresh, moist cutting area," explained Naile, also an arborist for the last 40 years. "The end of an untrimmed log is hard. Dry wood is difficult and slow to cut and that's not what you want in a saw competition. Trimming the log exposes moisture along the cutting surface."

Preserving moisture in the log is one reason for the onsite trim job. Another is similar to giving the log a manicure of sorts before the big show.

"The center of a log is like a bundle of straws. They are perfectly straight and the wood cells are hollow there in the middle," he continued. "But at each end of the log they start to twist and turn with knots. Taking out those knots provides a smooth, moist block for sawing."

Precision trimming is also key because sawyers expect to come out of wood with a completely round cookie landing on the deck. Uneven cuts can cause a cutout, a partially sliced cookie that can lead to a DQ. That's not good job security for a guy like Naile.

"My goal is consistency," he explained. "The athletes have come to trust me to get the trim flat the first time. They want nothing else to cross their mind except competing, making a straight smooth cookie in the fastest time possible."

Naile should know. He's also been on the competition side, although that happened literally by accident.

"I was watching a competition in Pennsylvania as a spectator and one of the competitors got hurt," he recalled. "The announcer called for somebody in the audience to fill in, so I climbed over the fence and the next thing you know I'm competing."

That was back in 1991, when Naile's day job as an arborist and tree surgeon provided the skills needed to chop and saw like a pro. He was invited to return the following year and did so, competing alongside the likes of Mel Lentz and members of the famous Cogar family.

Several years passed when Granite State Lumberjack Shows invited Naile to join the deck crew.

"Our main goal is consistency," he continued. "We have the same crew at every venue and the guys competing don't have to worry about anything being out of place on the deck."

"I really enjoy it the same now as 21 years ago," he said. "Everybody travels together and the main thing I work for and appreciate the most is the trust and respect I've gained over the years from the competitors."

Of all the events in the lumberjack world, Mike Forrester enjoys the hotsaw best.

"Any competitor who tells you he doesn't like the hotsaw is lying," he said. "You get 40 to 50 horsepower in your hands gyrating around, you're trying to control that beast, it's just a pure adrenaline rush."

Forrester will be among the eight pros blasting through the wood in six events as the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series presented by Ram Trucks heads to Corvallis, Ore., for the Western Qualifier.

As part of the 73rd annual Association of Western Forestry Clubs conclave, pro and collegiate lumberjacks will converge on McAlexander Field House Friday, March 30 at 2 p.m. PT. The winning collegiate and top four pros advance to the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series Championships hosted by The Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., June 1-3.

Living less than three hours south of the venue in Idleyld Park, where he owns 30 acres in Umpqua National Forest, Forrester appreciates that the first event is so close, but he said he would have liked to dust off the cobwebs. He's been practicing "between rain storms."

"I'm refining technique now," he said. "With the show being so early in the year, nobody has had many contests to go and polish up your game. Sound the whistle on the Series, and it's going to be pretty tough to be on your game. With the excitement and anxiety of competing, it's always good to have a few shows under your belt to calm down and steady your nerves."

There's a small question about his elbow he injured last spring after his brother coaxed him out to play softball. He threw it out, tearing tendons in his right arm, and the injury affected his performances.

"It played havoc all last year, and it showed pretty much in the competition," he said. "I couldn't really control my ax."

He said it's feeling better now, but if issues arise he hopes his skills take him to the top. Forrester, 46, has been competing for 34 years and says precision is why there are a number of older lumberjacks in the sport.

"The older you get, you know the right techniques, you have the precision and you have all the right gear, he said. "That's why all these competitors can keep going into their 50s. All these young guys come in like a bull in a China closet, just trying to do it on brute strength."

As evidence, Forrester pointed to last week's Southern Qualifier, where the experience of Mel Lentz and Paul Cogar, who like him work as lumberjacks, helped put them atop the point-getters.

"We're all pretty good friends. We kept track of each other and give each other a hard time. Depending on how they did, I give them a bad time," said Forrester, who added the times might have been better if not for what he heard was "firmish wood."

Forrester, who also coaches wrestling at Glide High School, played football at Oregon State, where he'll be returning this week to race in six traditional disciplines, the hot saw, single buck, springboard chop, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop.

"It's nice to have the qualifier here in Oregon," Forrester said. "It was nice when the finals were in Salem at the Oregon State Fair."

"I've only made it out to Hayward once, because it takes so much time to get there with your gear and driving there and back, it's the better part of the week. Hopefully, I'll have the problem of getting all my gear out to Pigeon Forge."

Jeff Skirvin of Clatskanie is the other Oregonian in the Western Qualifier, which will include Washington lumberjacks TJ Bexten of Hoquiam, Branden Sirguy of Port Angeles, James Hartley of Colbert, David Moses of Snoqualmie. Tom Martin of Las Vegas and Derek Pouchnik of Viola, Idaho, will also compete for a chance to be among the top four finishers to advance to the championships.

Twelve colleges, including Colorado State, Montana and Humboldt State, join host Oregon State as their best lumberjack compete in the single buck, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop. The competitor with the most points earns a $1,000 scholarship from STIHL® for his or her school and advances to the 2012 STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Collegiate Championship.

"We look forward to bringing Outdoor Channel, ESPNU and TUFF TV cameras to Oregon State," said Brad Sorgen, producer of the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series. "Last year's top four Western professionals went on to win the 2011 U.S. Relay Championship, and we anticipate seeing the talent these western athletes will bring to the competition this year."

Most of the successful lumberjacks on the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series presented by Ram Trucks have teachers. Matt Slingerland has his dad, Mike. Jason Lentz has his father, Mel Lentz, the King of the Lumberjacks. Any Cogar has a family of competitors from which to learn.

Victor Wassack, a forestry student at North Carolina State, might be one of the more natural lumberjacks to come along in awhile. A relative newcomer in the sport, Wassack won the Collegiate Series Southern Qualifier in front of a raucous hometown crowd of about 1,500. It came a little help from his friends, namely Logan Scarborough.

"Hard work pays off. All that gas money down to Logan's to train," he said. "I got a lot of people to thank. The home crowd -- they were loud, real loud. It helps out a bunch, too."

The College title went down to a sudden-death showdown between Wassack and Scooter Cogar of Virginia Tech. Cogar recorded a two-point victory over Wassack last year in the qualifier, and the two again went 1-2 in all four events to tie and force a tie-breaking race in the stock saw.

Before the event, Cogar said he knew Wassack would be tougher this time.

"He's improved just as much as I have over the year," Cogar said. "We've had a lot of opportunities to see each other compete and it makes me a lot more nervous this year because I know more about him and I know how his techniques have improved."

Enter Scarborough, a former collegiate champion who also attended N.C. State and offered to help his Wolfpack alum. Wassack, who just recently set down his baseball bat and began competing in lumberjack venues, often made the two-hour plus drive from Raleigh to train at Scarborough's home in Polkton, N.C.

"We've been training. He's been to my house 10, 12 times," Scarborough said. "He's been there almost every Sunday, getting the jitters out, the mishits out.

"He's using my single saw and using an axe of mine. We tested them, and one of mine was better than his."

Scarborough agreed that having someone teach the finer nuances of chopping and sawing is critical to moving up in lumberjack sports. Mike Slingerland was one of Scarborough's instructors who helped him become the 2010 Collegiate champion.

"This guy right here," Scarborough said pointing to Slingerland, "he taught me about everything."

So "His Awesomeness," what was he doing wrong?

"You're asking the wrong question. Ask me what he was doing right?" Slingerland said.

OK, I'll bite. What was he doing right?

"Not much. That's a famous Mel Lentz line," Slingerland said. "He built, he's stacked. He's just all there, like that guy. They lack fluidity. They're just rough."

Wassack has the similar raw talent and Scarborough worked with him to smooth out the edges, but said the lumberjack has to have the desire.

"You got to want to learn. (Victor) does," Scarborough said. "This sport, you train alone so much."

Wassack showed his training when he opened the four College competitions with an impressive victory in the stock saw. His time of 11.190 turned heads as it wasn't far off the World Record of 9.72. That time would have given him second place among the eight pros competing at N.C. State. Cogar's time of 12.467 would have topped the last-place pro, Mike Slingerland.

Cogar tied it by winning the standing block in 30.597, better than three of the pros. He topped Wassack by almost 9 seconds in the event, despite the Wolfpack fans loudly chanting Wassack throughout his run.

With an 18.030 victory in the single buck, Cogar took a one-point lead in their matchup. Wassack's time was 21.915, but he hung a raker and might have finished closer to 20 seconds.

"Scooter's a great competitor," Scarborough said before the event. "He'll put up a good fight for Victor. And that's what we want to see. I don't want to compete against the worst guys. I want to compete against the best."

Wassack needed a win in the final event, the underhand chop, to assure a tie. He put up a time of 35.685 and sat backstage with Scarborough to await his fate. Scarborough was timing Cogar, and when he went past 36 seconds, he slapped Wassack in the chest knowing it would at least be a tie.

There were six choppers left with a chance to top Cogar and give Wassack the title. In Heat 6, John Rogers of Stephen F. Austin threatened to do as much but finished in 47.160. Then Carl Della Torrie of Georgia looked like he sent Wassack to the title but was seconds shy at 46.945, setting up a sudden-death showdown in the stock saw.

With no times shown on the display clocks, Cogar competed first and ran clean, better than in the earlier heat. Wassack had a tense moment on his start, being stopped by judge Rich Hallett momentarily then receiving another warmup. He breezed through the white pine to cheers from nervous N.C. State fans.

Emcee Arden Cogar Jr., announced the times, 11.55 and 11.12, before revealing Wassack as the Southern Qualifier champion. The crowd went to raucous levels. Teammates mobbed Wassack, he and Cogar embraced and the Wolfpack chant reverberated through the Farmers Market.

"This year we were 1-2 all the way through," Cogar said. "I can't complain. I gave him my best and we were only 4 hundredths of a second apart in the stock saw. That's pretty doggone close. We gave it our best try and this year he came out on top."

Wassack said he felt a bit of redemption and quoted a Will Ferrell line from Talladega Nights.

"You know Ricky Bobby said, 'If you ain't first, you're last,' " Wassack said. "I want to get better, definitely. Hopefully, I've got two months to train for Pigeon Forge."

Scarborough said he couldn't take any credit for the win, that Wassack did all the work, but he was proud and said he thinks Wassack has a good future in lumberjack spots.

"I remember how it used to be in college and how much fun it is to go to other places," Scarborough said. "This is a good thing for Victor. He's going to have a lot of fun. He put up pro times in a lot of things."

Cogar is not out of consideration to advance to the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series Championships, which is being hosted by The Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., this June 1-3. His performance makes him a prime candidate to be the wild-card qualifier competing against the five Collegiate Series event champions.

"Hopefully, it's one of the things that will definitely motivate me," he said. "I'm definitely going to be working a little harder now, especially in the stock saw."

For the first time in its 27-year history, the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series will air on the Outdoor Channel, and there's some incentive to watch what is often called "the original extreme sport."

To promote the 2012 television shows, STIHL®, Dodge Ram Trucks and Outdoor Channel will host a "Watch To Win Sweepstakes" focused on each Pro and Collegiate Series event.

Each week of an event's airing, Facebook users will be presented with a trivia question that can be answered only by watching the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series presented by Ram Trucks on the Outdoor Channel. Promotion participants will have a chance to enter the sweepstakes by correctly answering the trivia question that will be posted each Saturday on the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Facebook page. Answers may be submitted each Sunday from 4:30 p.m. (Eastern Time) until 11:59 p.m. (ET) the following Friday, so viewers of the show's original Sunday airing and re-airs the following week will have an equal chance to win.

The question will be presented in a multiple-choice format. The winner will be randomly selected from among the viewers who correctly answer the question based on that week's show. The winner will receive a STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series prize pack that includes STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS®, Ram and Outdoor Channel gifts.

Winners will be announced on the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Facebook page the Monday following Friday's deadline for entries.

• Watch To Win #1: Southern Collegiate Qualifier airs Sunday, April 1

Saturday, March 31: Watch To Win tab goes live
Sunday, April 1: Southern Collegiate Qualifier show airs
Friday, April 6: Fans have until 11:59 p.m. ET to submit their answers
Monday, April 9: Winner selected and notified

• Watch To Win #2: Southern Pro Qualifier airs Sunday, April 8

Saturday, April 7: Watch To Win tab goes live
Sunday, April 8: Southern Pro Qualifier show airs
Friday, April 13: Fans have until 11:59 p.m. ET to submit their answers
Monday, April 16: Winner selected and notified

• Watch To Win #3: Western Collegiate Qualifier airs Sunday, April 15

Saturday, April 14: Watch To Win tab goes live
Sunday, April 15: Western Collegiate Qualifier show airs
Friday, April 20: Fans have until 11:59 p.m. ET to submit their answers
Monday, April 23: Winner selected and notified

• Watch To Win #4: Western Pro Qualifier airs Sunday, April 22

Saturday, April 21: Watch To Win tab goes live
Sunday, April 22: Western Pro Qualifier show
Friday, April 27: Fans have until 11:59 p.m. ET to submit their answers
Monday, April 30: Winner selected and notified

• Watch To Win #5: Midwest Collegiate Qualifier airs Sunday, April 29

Saturday, April 28: Watch To Win tab goes live
Sunday, April 29: Midwest Collegiate Qualifier show airs
Friday, May 4: Fans have until 11:59 p.m. ET to submit their answers
Monday, May 7: Winner selected and notified

• Watch To Win #6: Midwest Pro Qualifier airs Sunday, May 6

Saturday, May 5: Watch To Win tab goes live
Sunday, May 6: Midwest Pro Qualifier show airs
Friday, May 11: Fans have until 11:59 p.m. ET to submit their answers
Monday, May 14: Winner selected and notified

• Watch To Win #7: Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Qualifier airs on Sunday, May 13

Saturday, May 12: Watch To Win tab goes live
Sunday, May 13: Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Qualifier show airs
Friday, May 18: Fans have until 11:59 p.m. ET to submit their answers
Monday, May 21: Winner selected and notified

• Watch To Win #8: Mid-Atlantic Pro Qualifier airs on Sunday, May 20

Saturday, May 19: Watch To Win tab goes live
Sunday, May 20: Mid-Atlantic Pro Qualifier show airs
Friday, May 25: Fans have until 11:59 p.m. ET to submit their answers
Monday, May 28: Winner selected and notified

• Watch To Win #9: Northeast Collegiate Qualifier airs on Sunday, May 27

Saturday, May 26: Watch To Win tab goes live
Sunday, May 27: Northeast Collegiate Qualifier show airs
Friday, June 1: Fans have until 11:59 p.m. ET to submit their answers
Monday, June 4: Winner selected and notified

• Watch To Win #10: Northeast Pro Qualifier airs on Sunday, June 3

Saturday, June 2: Watch To Win tab goes live
Sunday, June 3: Northeast Pro Qualifier show airs
Friday, June 8: Fans have until 11:59 p.m. ET to submit their answers
Monday, June 11: Winner selected and notified

• Watch To Win #11: Collegiate Championship airs on Sunday, June 10

Saturday, June 9: Watch To Win tab goes live
Sunday, June 10: Collegiate Championship show airs
Friday, June 15: Fans have until 11:59 p.m. ET to submit their answers
Monday, June 18: Winner selected and notified

• Watch To Win #12: US Championship-Qualifying Round airs on Sunday, June 17

Saturday, June 16: Watch To Win tab goes live
Sunday, June 17: US Championship-Qualifying Round show airs
Friday, June 22: Fans have until 11:59 p.m. ET to submit their answers
Monday, June 25: Winner selected and notified

• Watch To Win #13: US Championship-Finals airs on Sunday, June 24

Saturday, June 23: Watch To Win tab goes live
Sunday, June 24: US Championship-Finals show airs
Friday, June 29: Fans have until 11:59 p.m. ET to submit their answers
Monday, July 2: Winner selected and notified

"It's the first time I beat him in points. It will be awesome to give him crap," said Matt, who will turn 21 in April. "I'm just going to have to hassle him all year. He will never live it down."

Yet Matt and Mike Slingerland were smiling after the first event of the 2012 STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series presented by Ram Trucks -- both qualified for the Championships.

As part of the 55th annual Association of Southern Forestry Clubs Conclave hosted by North Carolina State University, the Professional and Collegiate Series Southern Qualifiers were held March 16 in front of a vocal crowd of about 1500, who cheered their home-school favorite Victor Wassack to a sudden-death victory in the Collegiate Qualifier.

In the pro qualifier, Mel Lentz, the King of the Lumberjacks, topped the eight competitors with 35 points, based on 8 points for first place down to 1 for eighth place. Paul Cogar finished second with 32 points, Matt Slingerland was third with 31 and Mike Slingerland was five points behind his son with 26.

Mike, who has been competing since 1979 and is known as "His Awesomeness," had this to say about his son finally beating him.

"He sucks," said Mike, quick with humorous comments throughout the event. "On Facebook, my prediction was he would be beat me in the manual events -- the three chops and the single buck - but I would have more points.

"And what happened was, I won two events, he won two events. And he was one point ahead of me."

Then Mike was disqualified in the final event, the hot saw, while Matt set the final margin by taking fourth.

"I won't live it down. The important thing is Tennessee," Mike said in reference to the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series Championship host by The Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., June 1-3. "In Tennessee, I'm not DQing myself."

Topping his father was big day for Matt, who started on the lumberjack path when he was 8 and first competed at 10.

"He taught me everything I know," Matt said. "I've been trying to catch up to him ever since. That's been my goal all along ever since I was a little kid. He doesn't even know it.

"He's 100 percent the best coach in the world right now. He goes across the sea to teach everybody. I just appreciate everything he's done for me. I wouldn't be where I'm at without him. I don't think anyone can teach better."

Mike said his son has the patience to listen to him, follow his lead and now take it a step further.

"A lot of kids, they get tired of hearing the old man talk. Matty has always been an excellent student," Mike said. "There are times when he knows more than I do about things, and it's more give and take. Still, we work together to improve."

Mike, who stands 5-8 and weighs 230 pounds, opened the event with a victory in the springboard, with Matt fourth. Mike and Matt then took last and second to last in the stock saw. Mike rebounded with a win in the standing block and Matt took fifth to fall behind his dad 17-11.

Matt rallied, taking consecutive victories in the underhand and the single buck to go up 27-26 on Mike, who went seventh and second, respectively. Matt's hot saw finish sealed the deal, but Mike thinks Matt, a 6-1, 215-pounder, has room for improvement.

"You did have the worst day you could have and you still go," he said, putting his arm around his son. "Congratulations."

The Collegiate Qualifier went down to a sudden-death showdown between Wassack, of hosting school N.C. State, and Scooter Cogar of Virginia Tech. Cogar recorded a two-point victory over Wassack last year in the qualifier, and the two again went 1-2 in all four events to tie and force a tie-breaking race in the stock saw.

Wassack opened the four competitions with a win in the stock saw. Cogar tied it by winning the standing block. Wassack, who trained with Logan Scarborough, a former college champ and N.C. State alum, went back on top as he finished first in the underhand. Cogar tied it up in the single buck, setting up the stock saw showdown.

Cogar competed first, and the times weren't shown on the clocks. When emcee Arden Cogar Jr., announced the times, 11.55 and 11.12, and revealed that Wassack was the Southern Qualifier champion, the crowd went to raucous levels.

"Hard work pays off," Wassack said. "I got a lot of people to thank, the Lord, Logan (Scarborough). The home crowd, I love it. They were loud, real loud. It helps out a bunch, too."

The next event in the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series is the Western Qualifier at the McAlexander Field on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis, Ore., on March 30.

RALEIGH, N.C. -- As Mel Lentz chopped and sawed his way through the six disciplines at the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series presented by Ram Trucks Southern Professional Qualifier, you couldn't help but notice the black elastic brace wrapped around the athlete's burly elbow.

The personal decision to wear the brace came down more to formality than practicality for the man respectfully called "King of the Lumberjacks."

Just a month before, Lentz was on the job felling a tree when a rogue limb dropped from high above and grazed his elbow. At the time of the injury the pain was intense and he thought the arm was broken. Not until weeks later was it determined the joint connecting arm to forearm was surrounded by fluid caused from inflammation.

Lentz blew off any thought of formal medical treatment and instead went for a cortisone injection prior to leaving his home in West Virginia. The elbow brace packed for the trip was still inside its wrapper when Lentz arrived for the Southern Qualifier.

"I'm about 70 percent right now," he said prior to the event. "I'll just put this brace on and see what happens."

What did happen was that Lentz unwrapped the braced long enough to wear it and become the top southern qualifier for the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series U.S. Championships, giving him a shot at winning a seventh national title at the event set for June 1-3 in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

It's that kind of mind-over-body mentality that has kept Lentz a dominating figure in the sport since 1985, the inaugural year of the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series.

Lentz isn't a standout among his peers when it comes to dealing with pain. Muscle sprains and broken bones are necessary nuances for being a lumberjack. Over the years, he's built up a mental immunity of sorts to fight the physical challenges.

Lentz turns 53 in July and his medical chart shows the occupational hazards that come with the job. Two broken legs, a pair of broken ankles, a cracked elbow and an unknown number of muscle sprains have slowed him down but not dimmed an otherwise stellar scorecard.

"You think about a physical sport like lumberjacking and any other sport, really, and most athletes don't last beyond the age of 50 before they are forced to retire," said Lentz. "What I'm really focusing on from here on out is trying to be more physically fit, realizing it takes my body longer to heal now from an injury."

Exercising mind over body is becoming more important to Lentz than the endurance required to keep his body in top form to be at the top of his game.

"Where I've got the advantage over the wear-and-tear going on with my body are all my years of experience, to help guide me through and around the physical challenges," he said.

"The longer you're in this game it's a given that your chances of getting hurt increase," he continued. "You just bear down and deal with it. You do what you can do and try and overcome it.

"I can stay at home and have a pity party but I like to compete, so I try to not think about it, block it out as best I can. But I also try and realize what I can do with that injury going on."

One bad break occurred from a broken leg that caused Lentz to sit out for a season. On the job, Lentz was operating a knuckleboom loader when the machine malfunctioned, throwing him from the seat. The resulting injury tore four inches of his femur. Several operations including skin and bone grafts later, he was back in action but not without a handicap.

"That one made me lose about 40 percent of the function in my left leg muscle and thigh," he said. "So my transition from forward to backward movement on that side has really affected me a lot, like in the one-man single buck event.

"But it really hasn't affected me in the standing block. It's a good thing that I'm right handed since my right leg is the one I use to drive off into the power chop so it doesn't affect me."

Barring any further debilitating mishaps at work or sport, Lentz plans to remain in the game as long as he deems himself competitive. That quest for longevity is driven by a passion to pass his legacy on to his son and continue the family connection to the sport and lifestyle.

At 26, Jason Lentz (the Prince of the Lumberjacks) continues his family legacy as an 11th generation lumberjack. At 6-foot-4, 245 pounds, the son carries his father's equally as solid and athletic frame into the pro series level.

"I feel obligated to continue competing not just because I like it," said the elder Lentz. "I want to be around and see him succeed and the best way I know to do that is by staying competitive myself, so I can pass along my experience to him."

Play and work will also continue going full circle for the father and son, both of whom are employed full time as lumberjacks.

"For me to continue being competitive, there's nothing harder than timber cutting, Lentz said. "There's nothing harder that toting that chainsaw into the woods and getting up into a tree and working every day like that. It makes you tough, mentally and physically tough."

Two things in particular have Cogar excited: 1) the Collegiate Series, and 2) the fact that there will be an all-American championship this season.

That second item needs some explanation. For the past 15 years, the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® U.S. champion has been determined in a field that also included the top competitors from Australian, New Zealand, Canada and several countries in Europe. Last year, for example, Cogar won the U.S. title in Oregon, but Jason Wynyard of New Zealand won the new Dodge Ram pickup truck as the overall champion of the event, and Brad DeLosa from Australia was second in the overall point standings.

This year the U.S. champion will get the new truck at the conclusion of STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Pro Series Championships, scheduled for the Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., June 1-3.

"This will mark the first time an American has truly won the U.S. STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series since 1996," Cogar said. "For me, the past years have been no less meaningful, as I feel blessed to have represented the U.S. at the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS World Championships for three of the past four years. However, the end result of the U.S. Series for 2012 will be an American winning a new Dodge Ram pickup."

Cogar represents the third generation of competitive lumberjacks in his family. His grandfather, Hans, and his great uncle, Earl, competed in the 1930s at the Rhododendron Festival in Webster Springs, W. Va., which hosted Appalachia's first organized wood chopping competition.

Cogar's father, Arden Sr., qualified for the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series finals at the age of 60 in 1994. There are currently more than 20 members of the Cogar family who are active in some facet of lumberjack sports, including Cogar's wife, Kristy, and their two daughters, Kiara and Carmen. That list also includes STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Pro Series competitors Paul Cogar and Paul's son, Matt. Jamie and Paul are first cousins.

Jamie Cogar, who will be 42 in April, has a goal of matching his father by qualifying for the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS finals at age 60.

"Modern training techniques have allowed older athletes to excel and remain in the game," Cogar said. "The obvious key is desire. As of now, that desire is strong. My goal is to give the young axemen fits for a good 20 years or so."

When it comes to modern training techniques, nobody has experimented more than Cogar. He started lifting weights when he was 12 and competed in his first bench press competition when he was 14. By age 17, he was competing in power-lifting contests, which feature three lifts -- bench press, squat and deadlift. Only recently has his training changed to the Olympic-style weightlifting, which includes the snatch and clean-and-jerk.

Two years ago, Cogar began working with trainer Randy Hauer, who completely revamped his training methods, including the introduction to the Olympic lifts.

"I've turned my event training sessions into my metabolic conditioning workouts and my weight training is now speed and strength based," Cogar said. "Training this way has allowed me to make more progress in the past two years - at age 40 and 41 - than I did the previous 20 years combined."

If he's going reach that goal "to give the young axemen fits for a good 20 years or so," Cogar is going to need the help of all the modern training techniques available, and he knows it. That's because the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series is producing a wealth of young talent in the U.S.

"I absolutely love the interest in the Pro Series sparked by the growth in the Collegiate Series," said Cogar, who has always been quick to help newcomers to the sport. "Young competitors are taking lumberjack sports more seriously with their preparation.

"Moreover, they are investing time and energy into improving their performances, and many more young axemen are entering the professional circuit. This was, in my opinion, absolutely needed in U.S. STIHL TIMBERSPORTS as we had suffered a loss of interest among the young athletes because of the dwindling number of U.S. athletes who were invited to compete in the U.S. STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series.

"For example, during 2010, of the 32 athletes who competed on the U.S. STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series, only 14 lived in the United States. Given that these 14 were the best of the best in the U.S., there was no room for young athletes who had an interest in the sport.

"With the change to a true U.S. Championship, young axemen who would not have received an opportunity under the old format will now have an opportunity to compete on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS stage. This is a blessing for U.S. STIHL TIMBERSPORTS. This will help us regain our edge worldwide in STIHL TIMBERSPORTS, and, in my opinion, cause a growth of interest in the U.S."

A simple glance at the number of schools competing on the Collegiate Series speaks to Cogar's point about interest in the U.S. When the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series began, only eight colleges competed. This year 62 schools will be represented in the five regional competitions that will be held in conjunction with the Pro Series regionals, the first being the Southern Qualifier at North Carolina State in Raleigh on March 16.

Cogar's grandfather and father were typical lumberjack sports competitors of the previous era in that they worked in the woods as loggers. As a trial lawyer, Cogar represents the new generation, many of whom have desk jobs, and still make time to train for STIHL TIMBERSPORTS.

"Now we have jewelers, educators, physical therapists, mechanics and many other less strenuous professions represented by the athletes competing in STIHL TIMBERSPORTS," Cogar said. "Those among us who work behind a desk and don't do much physical labor must find a way to keep ourselves fit during the offseason."

If anyone needs tips on how to accomplish this, Cogar definitely is the man to ask. One glance at the 5-foot-11, 260-pound Cogar is all it takes to know that he is doing something other than practicing law.

"I must admit, I look more like a bouncer than I do a lawyer, even in a suit," Cogar said. "I argue, speak and write for a living. I chop, saw and hot saw for fun."

RALEIGH, N.C. -- While Logan Scarborough returns to his alma mater to compete as a pro, it's a collegiate lumberjack who is drawing his interest.

Scarborough, the 2010 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Champion from North Carolina State, will have his eyes on Victor Wassack as the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series presented by Ram Trucks gets under way with the Professional and Collegiate Series Southern Qualifiers.

"Victor has been training a ton with me and I'm more excited to see him compete than I am to compete," Scarborough said. "He's definitely going to be a pro someday. He beats me in the stock saw all the time. We go back and forth in practice on who wins."

As part of the 55th annual Association of Southern Forestry Clubs Conclave hosted by N.C. State, top professional and collegiate lumberjacks from all over the south will converge on the Farmers Market in Raleigh on Friday, March 16 at 5 p.m. ET to compete in the Southern Qualifier.

"I'm excited to come back to N.C. State. It's going to be a lot fun and I wish I would have been able to be a student there when we hosted the conclave," Scarborough said. "It's a ton of work but it's very rewarding to host such a respected event."

Wassack, who will represent N.C. State on the Collegiate side, placed second in last year's qualifier, finishing only two points behind Virginia Tech's Scooter Cogar. Scarborough thinks it might come down to those two again, and their schools, and he's helping out the Wolfpack and Wassack.

"I'll be loaning him some of my equipment since that is a big reason holding back the college students from advancing in the sport," he said. "Scooter Cogar is competing again this year and he'll definitely be tough competition, especially since he trains with Arden Cogar. It doesn't get much better than that."

Scarborough is one of eight pros competing. Top finishers of the Professional events and the winning Collegiate competitor will advance to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Championships hosted by The Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., June 1-3.

"I definitely feel a lot more pressure than I wish I had, between competing among seven tough competitors and in front of my former teammates and friends," he said. "But I do feel more prepared this year."

Another former collegiate athlete competing in the pro division is Matt Slingerland, whose father, Mike, is a long-time STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series contender. The competitive father/son duo will battle each other for the second year in a row. Mel Lentz, the King of All Lumberjacks, will also compete on the pro side.

The eight pros face-off across six disciplines, the hot saw, single buck, springboard chop, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop. The top four competitors will advance to the U.S. Championship.

In the Collegiate Series, the participating universities select their best lumberjacks or jills to chop and saw in four disciplines -- the single buck, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop -- using professional-sized wood and rules. The competitor with the most cumulative points will earn a $1,000 scholarship from STIHL for his or her school and advances to the 2012 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship. Fifteen schools will participate in the qualifier, including Virginia Tech, Clemson, and LSU.

"Our students have done a tremendous job preparing for STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Southern Qualifier as part of the annual Southern Forestry Conclave," said Dr. Barry Goldfarb, department head for Forestry & Environmental Resources at N.C. State. "We are extremely proud to host this event and look forward to a great weekend of competition, rivalry and tradition."

Brad Sorgen, producer of the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series, is thrilled to get the 2012 season kicked off.

"Fans will witness some of the greatest pro and collegiate lumberjack athletes battling for a shot to move on to the Championships," he said. "This marks the second year we are combining the Professional and Collegiate Series events, which promises STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series fans even more chopping and sawing action."

ESPNU, Outdoor Channel and TUFF TV cameras will be on site to capture the competition. These networks provide a national platform to not only highlight the competition, but also spotlight the hosting schools and their forestry programs in the Professional and Collegiate Series competition shows (air date schedule can be found here).

"It's very cool to be able to advertise our sport among our college community and in Raleigh," Scarborough said. "Hopefully it will bring more awareness to the sport."

Fans can purchase tickets to the Southern Qualifier at the event or online at http://go.ncsu.edu/timbersports/. Portions of the proceeds benefit the N.C. State Forestry Club.

In addition to the Southern Qualifier, the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series consists of four other regional Professional and Collegiate Series Qualifiers and the U.S. Championships. The complete schedule for the 2012 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series includes:

• Southern Qualifier hosted by N.C. State University in Raleigh, N.C., March 16
• Western Qualifier hosted by Oregon State University in Corvallis, Ore., March 30
• Midwest Qualifier hosted by University of Wisconsin Stevens Point in Tomahawk, Wis., April 14
• Mid-Atlantic Qualifier hosted by Montgomery Community College in Troy, N.C., April 22
• Northeast Qualifier hosted by Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., April 28
• U.S. and Collegiate Championships hosted by Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., June 1-3

At the Collegiate Championship, the five regional champions and one wild-card pick face off in the single buck, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop to determine the nation's top collegiate lumberjack. The collegiate champion wins automatic entry into the 2013 Professional Series.

In 2003, STIHL created the Collegiate Series to help develop future U.S. pro competitors. The Collegiate Series travels to college campuses across the country with the ESPNU, Outdoor Channel and TUFF TV cameras to seek out the best amateur athletes and has grown from five participating schools to 55 in the last nine years.

In the Professional Series, the top four pros from each Qualifier advance to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS U.S. Championship, where they will compete for the coveted U.S. Championship title, a brand new Ram 1500 truck and the opportunity to represent the U.S. in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS World Championship in Lillehammer, Norway, Sept. 8-9. Additional pros will be selected by officials to represent the U.S. in the World Championship Relay Competition.

This spring the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series will not only determine the top lumberjack in the U.S., but also the best fans too. Five regional qualifying events held on college campuses across the country will determine the 20 STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® athletes who will qualify from a 40-man field for the 2012 U.S. Championships. But that won't be the only competition. For the first time, STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® fans in those five regions of the country will get to compete against each other as well.

Fans will be able to support their region (Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Northeast, Southern and Western) in determining the most, the best and the most spirited fans of STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS®.

The "Clash of the Qualifiers" is a Facebook contest between these regions. The winning region will be announced on Facebook, Twitter and STIHLTIMBERSPORTS.US.

A 30-second acknowledgement of the winning region will be part of the final show from the U.S. Championships. This spot will be shot during the U.S. Championships at the Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., June 1-3 and will include TV hosts Tommy Sanders and Kevin Holtz congratulating the winner. A video of the pro competitors and one collegiate competitor thanking the fans from their home region will also be featured.

Fans can generate points for their region in three ways:

1) Each new "fan/like" on the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Facebook page = 1 point
2) Each new "wall post" by a fan on the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Facebook page = 1 point
3) Each photo from a qualifying event posted by a fan on the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Facebook page = 2 points

There will be six-day entry periods for each qualifier, which are as follows:
- Southern Qualifier: Friday, March 16 - Wednesday, March 21
- Western Qualifier: Friday, March 30 - Wednesday, April 4
- Midwest Qualifier: Friday, April 13 - Wednesday, April 18
- Mid-Atlantic Qualifier: Friday, April 20 - Wednesday, April 25
- Northeast Qualifier: Friday, April 27 - Wednesday, May 2

Reminders about the contest will be posted on Facebook and Twitter throughout March and April.

On Monday, May 7, the winning region will be announced on Facebook, Twitter and STIHLTIMBERSPORTS.US.

On Sunday, June 24, during the U.S. Championships show on Outdoor Channel there will be a 30-second spot congratulating the winning region.

The five regional qualifying competitions will be held at the following locations:

Southern - North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, N.C.
Western - Oregon State Univ., Corvallis, Ore.
Midwest - Univ. of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Tomahawk, Wis.
Mid-Atlantic - Montgomery Community College, Troy, N.C.
Northeast - Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.

Learn more about the most skilled professional lumberjacks and lumberjills from all over the United States. View competitor profiles.

Get Connected

Connect with STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series competitors and fans from around the world by joining the online community. Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook and see exclusive video on YouTube.

Attend an event

2012 STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series Dates and Locations

Event: Southern Qualifier
Host Venue: North Carolina State University
Location: Farmers Market, 1201 Agriculture Street, Raleigh, NC 27603
Date/Time: March 16 @ 5PM

Event: Western Qualifier
Host Venue: Oregon State University
Location: McAlexander Field house, 1800 SW Jefferson Way, Corvallis, OR 97331
Date/Time: March 30 @ 2PM

Event: Midwest Qualifier
Host Venue: University of Wisconsin Stevens Point
Location: Treehaven Forest, W2540 Pickerel Creek Road, Tomahawk WI 54487
Date/Time: April 14 @ 2PM

Event: Mid-Atlantic Qualifier
Host Venue: Montgomery Community College
Location: 1011 Page Street, Troy, NC 27371
Date/Time: April 22 @ 11AM

Event: Northeast Qualifier
Host Venue: Dartmouth College
Location: Thompson Arena, 4 Summer Street, Hanover, NH 3755
Date/Time: April 28 @ 2PM

Event: U.S. and Collegiate Championship
Host Venue: Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud
Location: Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
Date/Time: June 1-3 @ 12pm

TV Guide

All the details you need to watch the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series on the Outdoor Channel and ESPNU

Show: Southern Qualifier Collegiate (NC State College)
Outdoor Channel Air Dates: 3/30 - 2:00am; 4/1 -4pm
ESPNU Air Date: June 22, 7:30PM

Show: Southern Qualifier Pro (NC State Pro)
Outdoor Channel Air Dates: 4/4 - 8am; 4/6 - 2am; 4/8 - 4pm

Show: Western Qualifier Collegiate (Oregon State College)
Outdoor Channel Air Dates: 4/11 - 8am; 4/13 - 2am; 4/15 - 4PM
ESPNU Air Date: June 29, 7:30PM

Show: Western Qualifier Pro (Oregon State Pro)
Outdoor Channel Air Dates: 4/18 - 8am; 4/20 - 2am; 4/22 - 4pm

Show: Midwest Qualifier Collegiate (Wisconsin College)
Outdoor Channel Air Dates: 4/25 - 8am; 4/27 - 2am; 4/29 -4pm
ESPNU Air Date: July 6, 7:30PM

Show: Midwest Qualifier Pro (Wisconsin Pro)
Outdoor Channel Air Dates: 5/2 - 8am; 5/4 - 2am; 5/6 - 4pm

Show: Mid-Atlantic Qualifier Collegiate (Montgomery College)
Outdoor Channel Air Dates: 5/9 - 8am; 5/11 - 2am; 5/13 - 4pm
ESPNU Air Date: July 13, 7:30PM

Show: Mid-Atlantic Qualifier Pro (Montgomery Pro)
Outdoor Channel Air Dates: 5/16 - 8am; 5/18 - 2am; 5/20 - 4pm

Show: Northeast Qualifier Collegiate (Dartmouth College)
Outdoor Channel Air Dates: 5/23 - 8am; 5/25 - 2am; 5/27 - 4pm
ESPNU Air Date: July 20, 7:30PM

Show: Northeast Qualifier Pro (Dartmouth Pro)
Outdoor Channel Air Dates: 5/30 - 8am; 6/1 - 2am; 6/3 - 4pm

Show: Collegiate Championship
Outdoor Channel Air Dates: TBD
ESPNU Air Date: July 27, 7:30PM

Show: Pro Championship - Qualifiers & Relay
Outdoor Channel Air Dates: 6/13 - 8am; 6/15 - 2am; 6/17, 4pm

Show: Pro Championship - Finals
Outdoor Channel Air Dates: 6/20 - 8am; 6/22 - 2am; 6/24 - 4pm

2011 Reairs on ESPN2 (all times ET)

Show: 2011 Southern Qualifier
ESPN2 Reair Date: April 7, 4:00 PM

Show: 2011 Western Qualifier
ESPN2 Reair Date: April 7, 4:30 PM

Show: 2011 Midwest Qualifier
ESPN2 Reair Date: April 14, 10:00 AM

Show: 2011 Mid-Atlantic Qualifier
ESPN2 Reair Date: April 14, 10:30 AM

Show: 2011 Northeast Qualifier
ESPN2 Reair Date: April 21, 1:00 PM

Show: 2011 US Championship Qualifying Round
ESPN2 Reair Date: April 21, 1:30 PM

Show: 2011 US Relay Championship
ESPN2 Reair Date: April 28, 2:00 PM

Show: 2011 US Championship
ESPN2 Reair Date: April 28, 2:30 PM

Show: 2011 World Championship
ESPN2 Reair Date: April 28, 3:30 PM

"You have to fight for your spot each semester," said Brett McLeod, a Paul Smith's College professor of forestry, natural resources and recreation, who also heads the lumberjack team.

Paul Smith's College clearly has taken the sport to a new level of competition, thanks in part to the dedication of McLeod.

McLeod, 31, almost won the first STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Collegiate final, finishing a close second in 2003. For the past five years, he has given back to the sport as a member of the Paul Smith's faculty.

"We started out as a powerhouse," McLeod said. "The level of competition has dramatically increased over the years, so we've had to work at it to stay competitive."

As an example of just how hard Paul Smith's College works at it, there's now a summer Adirondack Woodsmen's School that has practically become a prerequisite for making the lumberjack team during fall and spring tryouts. This summer will mark the third year for the one-week course, which attracts about 60 students. An extra week was added last year due to the popularity of the boot camp atmosphere that combines classroom and in-the-field training in the arts of pole climbing, log rolling, axe wielding and chainsaw operation. For example, each class makes a canoe from a massive pine log.

"It's about 90 percent male now," said McLeod of the summer camp. "I want to expand the sport for women in the future."

As far as the tryouts for the Paul Smith's lumberjack team, McLeod said, "It's a really arduous process. We have them running with 50-pound backpacks, doing hundreds of pushups, dragging logs. We're pretty serious about it."

Supported by STIHL® with equipment and training from STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® pros, like Dave Jewett and Nathan Waterfield, the summer camp has become the place to quickly improve individual lumberjack skills.

"There's a long, steep learning curve in this sport," McLeod said. "With the pros coming in, the athletes have a chance to really fine-tune their skills."

Paul Smith's College alumni include Adam LaSalle, who won the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® collegiate event in 2009 and now competes as a pro, and Matthew Bolton, who won the collegiate event in 2008. Paul Smith's has also been represented in the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Collegiate finals by Curt Karboski in '07 and '09, John Preston in '10 and Schuyler Van Auken last year.

"I always knew there was potential to grow this sport," McLeod said. "But it needed someone like STIHL to provide the support to do it."

Paul Smith's College has roots that go back to the mid 1800s. It was originally a tourism enterprise, founded by a man named, of course, Paul Smith. The resort evolved into a college focused on training for local jobs, which were primarily in logging and forestry.

McLeod said the Paul Smith's lumberjack team dates back to the late 1940s, when many World War II veterans returned home "full of testosterone." The Ivy League's Dartmouth College is where the first lumberjack college team was formed, according to McLeod. Paul Smith's College soon followed with a team.

This year marks the 10th season of collegiate competition in STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS®. Only eight schools competed that first year; 62 colleges and universities will compete in 2012.

McLeod believes this year's STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® U.S. schedule, which concludes with the pro and collegiate championships June 1-3 at Pigeon Forge, Tenn., will raise awareness of the sport to new heights.

"I can't think of a better place to (host the event)," said McLeod. "They've just built the best STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® arena in the world. It's going to be great for the athletes. Without a doubt this will be a world class event."

Video: 2012 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS International Judging Team Meeting

The 2011 season of the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® was an eventful one, complete with record crowds, new participating countries, and performance records.

It is time to shift the focus to the new season, and the Norwegian sporting community is already counting the days until the top international lumberjack sports athletes arrive for the World Championship, which starts in September in Lillehammer.

The schedule leading up to the championships is packed with dozens of competitions taking place around the world. The task of drafting the rules that cover all these competition and ensuring that they are adhered to lies with the five judges who met recently in Norway for the annual referee meeting of the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series.

The judges, Rich Hallett (USA), Andrew Hall and Selwyn Wayne-Smith (Great Britain), Bart Jansen (Netherlands) and Dr. Jörg F. Kurzenberger (Denmark), all received a warm welcome in Lillehammer by fans of the sport.

The city that hosted the Olympic Winter Games in 1994 is the perfect host for the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® 2012 World Championship: The local infrastructure is in place, the people have a genuine love for nature and the outdoors and are great sports enthusiasts.

"You can still feel the Olympic spirit, even after nearly 20 years," said Dr. Jörg F. Kurzenberger in comments to open the meeting." This is why it's also quite special to us to have the World Championship there."

Hallet, the head judge, and the other officials started the rules review process by looking back at the previous season. They examined areas that went well and areas where improvement could be made. The goal is always to ensure the most fair and definitive competition, while ensuring safety for the competitors and fans.

A key component of the process is the feedback from the athletes. In general, the feedback was extremely positive and innovations like providing a "decision zone" where athletes congregate after each heat until the referees have confirmed a valid winner, or the "yellow flag" thrown by the referee to signal that he wants to investigate something and needs some review time, were well received.

Several suggestions for improvements were presented and approved, including making sure that the referee results, such as a disqualification, are conveyed clearly to both the athlete and spectator; particularly important with an international competition like this where language can sometimes be a challenge. Transparency and sensitivity are key in these situations.

"I felt it was very important that we discussed how we could improve communication amongst ourselves during the competition season," Jansen said. "At times there can be several tournaments in different countries one weekend and then the following weekend we're somewhere completely different again. Nevertheless, everyone needs to know what decisions have been made by the other referees, so that in case of doubt, the same decision is made in the same situation. We've agreed on a new communications platform which will make things much easier for us all in the future."

Officials then took time to look at the topic of media. With a high visibility sport like the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series, the camera is always on and the officials are always front and center. With help from a professional PR expert from the U.S., the referees reviewed how to handle themselves in front of the camera, explain complicated rulings so that the spectators understand them, and were given the opportunity to practice giving answers to questions from reporters to convey the complexities and excitement of the sport.

The visit to Norway also included a site visit to the Olympic Park of Lillehammer, where the World Championship will be held. The location, which hosted Olympic Ski jumping, is an ideal location for the Series. In addition to providing superior viewing, parallels between the two sports aren't lost on the fans.

"With ski jumping in particular, every little detail counts in order to achieve the perfect jump. There is a clear parallel with STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS®: hitting a little bit off-centre -- or a little bit too late taking off -- this costs time and a place further up the ranking," this is how Kurzenberger describes the similarities between ski jumping and lumberjack sports.

It's back to "Hand on the woods" for the referees in March: The competition season starts on the 16th March in the USA with the Southern Qualifier in North Carolina.

For Arden Cogar Jr. the 2012 STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® schedule, which was released Jan. 24, couldn't be much more to his liking.

"It's spot-on for me," said Cogar, the 41-year-old 2011 STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® U.S. Champion. "I've been asked to assist with color commentary for the Southern and Northeastern regional qualifiers. I absolutely love the pro-am atmosphere between the professional and collegiate athletes. It is my hope that my presence will increase both the understanding and the interest among the collegians and those in attendance."

There was particular praise for the site of the U.S. and Collegiate Championships, hosted by the Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., on June 1-3. Pigeon Forge is one of the top tourist destinations in the U.S., as more than half of the nearly 11 million annual visitors to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park pass through Pigeon Forge. The resort town, with a population of only 5,875, has hotels, motels, cabins and campgrounds to accommodate over 58,000 visitors.

"Pigeon Forge has been my family's vacation destination for three consecutive years," Cogar said. "The opportunity to take a few extra days with a truck load of STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® gear is, at least to me, enthralling. For my wife and daughters… perhaps not so much."

Rob Scheer, president and CEO of the Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud, has constructed a $11 million facility on-site that includes a 34,000-square foot arena that will provide an unprecedented stage for the 27th annual STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Professional Championships and the 10th annual Collegiate Championships.

"I can't think of a better place to do this," said Brett McLeod, coach of the Paul Smith's College lumberjack team, which has sent a finalist to the Collegiate Championships seven of the previous nine years. "They've just built the best TIMBERSPORTS® arena in the world. It's going to be great for the athletes. Without a doubt this will be a world class event."

Scheer is excited about the opportunity to further showcase his facility at Pigeon Forge. It opened on Aug. 26 last year. The Lumberjack Feud Show is performed as many as three times a day and features 16 competitions in each show, including chopping events, axe throwing, hot saw, boom run, speed climbing, timber dogs and horse-drawn log skinning. During the Christmas season, the show was seen by 1,000 to 1,500 paying spectators per day.

"This will be the first time that a STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® championship will be held in a state-of-the-art facility," said Scheer, 53, whose family has long been involved in lumberjack sports. "Having the championships here will help spread the recognition of the sport. We are taking it to an environment where the theatrical aspects of the sport can be emphasized. We expect almost 300,000 people will visit this facility in the next year."

The Lumberjack Feud Show is based on a story about two families competing for the right to log a privately held section of timber in the Great Smoky Mountains after President Franklin Roosevelt and the U.S. Congress chartered the 814-square-mile national park in 1934. Thousands of loggers were displaced when the land was converted from private to public in the national park, which was dedicated in 1940. The Lumberjack Feud Show recreates a one-and-a-half hour competition after which the losing family must leave the land.

"The Lumberjack Feud will become nationally known pretty quickly," said Scheer, who previously developed a similar site in Ketchikan, Alaska, that became the top tourist destination in the state. "This is such a great American story."

The Lumberjack Feud stage is a recreation of a Great Smoky Mountains forest and logging camp, with trees 50 to 60 feet high and four log cabins. A 40-foot high, 60-foot wide mountain features a waterfall that drops into 40-foot long, 20-foot-wide boom-running and log-rolling pool.

While the facility is in its initial stages of public awareness, it is already well-known among STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® athletes.

"I haven't been able to see it yet, but I've heard it's a great show at a great facility," said Daniel Jones, who won the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Collegiate championship last year and will be competing among the pros for the first time this season.

Jones recently was hired to cut right-of-way and clear trees for the Blue Ridge Mountain Electric Membership Corporation in Blairsville, Ga. With the new job, Jones is settling into a training schedule that he hopes will allow him to successfully compete against the pros this year.

"I think it's awesome," said Jones, who graduated from Haywood Community College in Waynesville, N.C., with a degree in forestry and fish and wildlife management. "It's going to be interesting to see how I perform this year."

Jones will be competing in the Mid-Atlantic division this season, where he hopes to qualify for the championship at Pigeon Forge.

The 2012 STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® schedule kicks off with the Southern Qualifier on March 16 hosted by North Carolina State University at Raleigh, N.C. Two weeks later the Western Qualifier will be hosted by Oregon State University in Corvallis, Ore., on March 30. The other three qualifying events are as follows: April 14, Midwest Qualifier, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point at Tomahawk, Wis.; April 22, Mid-Atlantic Qualifier, Montgomery Community College, Troy, N.C.; April 28, Northeast Qualifier, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.

"We've produced the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series since 1985 to determine the most-skilled lumberjack athlete," said Brad Sorgen, producer of the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series. "As the wood-chopping action ramps up again this March with one of our most competitive fields yet, fans from all over the country will witness the top professional lumberjack athletes chop and saw for a slice of the U.S. Championship title."

The Series features the nation's best lumberjacks, challenging them in the ultimate test of strength, endurance, stamina, tool skill and agility. Arden Cogar Jr., a civil defense trial attorney from West Hamlin, W. Va., returns to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series for his 25th season to defend his national title as the 2011 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series U.S. Champion. Daniel Jones, a recent graduate of Haywood Community College, will make his debut among the pros this season after winning the 2011 Collegiate Championship, which gave him an automatic spot in the 2012 Pro Series.

Additional former collegiate competitors who have moved up into the pro ranks and will compete again this season include Will Roberts from Cortland, NY, Nathan Waterfield from Cherry Valley, NY, Logan Scarborough from Polkton, NC, and Adam LaSalle from Fairplay, Colo. Additionally, three sets of father-son lumberjacks will compete this season, including Paul and Matt Cogar (cousins of Arden Cogar), Mel and Jason Lentz and Mike and Matt Slingerland.

"We're thrilled to host the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Pro and Collegiate U.S. Championships," said Rob Scheer, owner and president of the Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud. "Since many of our lumberjack performers have also competed in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series, this opportunity promises to provide fans with a double dose of lumberjack excitement and entertainment."

The STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series pro competition consists of six professional lumberjack disciplines, the hot saw, single buck, springboard chop, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop. Held in conjunction with the Collegiate Series, the qualifying rounds pit the top eight lumberjacks in the region against each other with the top four pro athletes from each advancing to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Pro Championship at the Great Smoky Mountain Lumberjack Feud June 1-3. These four individuals will not only compete against other competitors from around the country for the championship crown, but will also join together to represent their regions in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Relay Competition. In addition to receiving the ultimate bragging rights in lumberjack sports and a Ram Truck, the top U.S. competitor also advances to the World Championship in Lillehammer, Norway Sept. 8-9.

In 2003, STIHL created the Collegiate Series to help develop future U.S. pro competitors. The Collegiate Series travels to college campuses across the country with the ESPNU cameras to seek out the best amateur athletes and has grown from five participating schools to 55 in the last nine years. At each Collegiate Series event, the participating schools select their best lumberjacks/jills to go head-to-head in four disciplines, the single buck, stock saw, standing block chop and underhand chop using professional rules and professional-sized wood with the ESPNU cameras catching all the wood-chopping action. The competitor with the most cumulative points after all four disciplines advances to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship.

The Collegiate Championship, held every year in conjunction with the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Pro Championship, pits the five regional collegiate champions and one wildcard pick against each other. The collegiate champion not only wins an automatic spot in the Pro Series the following season, but also a spot competing on the rookie relay team in the 2012 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series World Championship held in Lillehammer, Norway Sept. 8-9.

Established in 1985 by STIHL, the number-one selling brand of gasoline-powered handheld outdoor power equipment in America*, the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series, billed as the Original Extreme Sport, attracts the world's top lumberjack athletes in a competition based on historic logging techniques. The Series is seen by millions of viewers annually in more than 62 countries on networks such as Eurosport, Outdoor Channel and ESPNU.

Get the latest information, stay up to date on news and competition and access behind-the-scenes photos and videos by joining the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series community online and on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The 2012 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series schedule and competitor roster is included below. 

Mike Sullivan didn't kill a deer on a week-long trip to northern Maine in early December, but he did return with a jump-start on getting in shape for the 2012 STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series.

"One day we walked 13 or 14 miles, at least," Sullivan said. "It was a different kind of walking too. We were going up and down hills and stepping across blown-down trees in thick woods. It was a tough day."

Sullivan has been competing in the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series since its inception in 1985. The 51-year-old from Colebrook, Conn., grew up with a baseball bat in his hands but proved to be a fast study after switching to an axe handle.

He's piled up a ton of trophies, including winning the first STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® championship. Although he's now one of the oldest competitors in the Series, Sullivan is not slowing down. Sullivan qualified for the finals in the U.S. Championships again last year and is the only lumberjack to compete in all 26 championship events. He's now going for 27.

"I pride myself in getting to the finals," Sullivan said. "I'm taking it one year at a time. I'm signed up for 2012, but I'm not going to hang around and embarrass myself. At the end of the year, I'll look back and see how I did before I commit to another season."

Deer hunting is another activity he's excelled in for almost as long. Sullivan has killed many trophies over the years, most of them with a bow. His hunt near the Canadian border presented a different challenge. With the help of a guide, he was attempting to track a deer, rather than sit in a tree-stand and wait for one to walk by. His quest was hindered by good weather.

"They had one of the warmest Novembers on record in Maine," Sullivan said. "There wasn't any snow on the ground when I got there."

After Sullivan got to deer camp, a three-inch snowfall presented the opportunity to do some tracking.

"We only saw one set of buck tracks, but they were huge," Sullivan said. "Those were the biggest buck tracks I've ever seen."

It was muzzleloader season in Maine. Big bucks don't get that big without learning the habits of hunters.

"We were on a 4,600-acre lease, with big woods all around it," Sullivan said. "We tracked that deer for five hours, then it crossed the border into Canada where we couldn't hunt it."

Sullivan and his guide did some backtracking and discovered the big buck had crossed into Maine from Canada, scented an area across the entire lease -- "looking for hot does" -- then gone back across the border.

Not killing a deer didn't keep Sullivan from enjoying the experience.

"It's not for everybody," he said. "The average is one of every 10 hunters kills a deer by tracking there. It's a tough hunt, and you've really got to cover some ground. Since I'm in pretty good shape, my guide told me he was going to take me places where he likes to go, places he'd never taken a client. We were jumping moose. It was awesome."

Sullivan also got a valuable, hands-on lesson in woodsmanship. Relying mostly on a compass, with occasional handheld GPS readings for reference, Sullivan's guide showed him how to navigate Maine's big woods, or anyplace else, without getting lost.

"He showed me how you could start walking anywhere in the world and have confidence in where you were going," Sullivan said. "Once you get that confidence, it makes you a better hunter because you don't have that fear of getting lost."

Sullivan has already killed three deer this season: He shot a mule deer in Alberta, Canada, with a bow; the deer had a 150-inch rack, "nothing special," Sullivan said. He killed a 130-inch, 10-point whitetail with a bow in Ohio; "Just a nice Ohio buck," he said. And he shot a doe near his home in Colebrook, Conn., "because I needed the meat."

Sullivan and his wife, Darlene, have two sons -- Nick, 17, and Mitch, 13. Sullivan works as a sales rep for a company that markets a variety of hunting products, including Winchester bows. His hunting time will begin decreasing with the arrival of a new year, which signals a spike in hunting trade shows and a new buying season for retailers.

Sullivan's love of the outdoors comes naturally, and it helped him on the path to STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® competition. His father has been a fur-trapper all his life, taking Sullivan on trapping excursions since he was 5. His appreciation for the outdoors led Sullivan to become an arborist.

"My dad has been trapping since he was 10 years old," Sullivan said. "He's 76 now, and he's still trapping. He probably traps more animals than anyone in the state. He still lives on Deer Hill Road (in Colebrook), where I grew up.

"By the time I was 13 or 14, I was catching minks, which are the hardest animals to trap. I was pretty good. I was out-trapping guys who were 35, 40 years old. I still go with my dad sometimes."

Sullivan played minor league baseball as a catcher in the Cincinnati Reds organization for 3 1/2 years, until a shoulder injury ended his career. His highlights included catching Hall of Famer pitcher Tom Seaver during a spring training game and taking batting practice with Ken Griffey Sr. and George Foster, who were key players on those great 1970s Cincinnati teams known as the "Big Red Machine." The Reds won back-to-back World Series titles in 1975-76.

Sullivan grew up with a baseball bat in his hands, rather than a wood-chopping axe. After his baseball career ended, Sullivan was introduced to lumberjack sports by Jim Colbert, who lives near Sullivan's dad on Deer Hill Road.

"My dad didn't chop wood," Sullivan said. "It's a big disadvantage when you don't grow up in the sport. That's part of the reason the Australians and the New Zealanders are so good. They don't play baseball. They grew up with an axe in their hands instead of a baseball bat."

Dave Jewett has something in common with Santa Claus.

"I pretty much work year round to get ready for Christmas," Jewett said. "Then it all happens at once."

The 42-year-old STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® athlete from Pittsford, N.Y., has built up quite a business over the past 20 years. And, naturally, December is the busiest time of year for Dave's Christmas Tree Stand at the Pittsford Farm Dairy. In addition to 500 Christmas trees, Jewett sells hand-made wreaths and various chainsaw carvings in the form of furniture, sculptures and ornaments. (Take a look at www.davidjewett.com.)

"Business has been awesome," said Jewett, who had only a couple dozen trees remaining 10 days before Christmas. "It has been a great year."

Jewett grew up in this affluent Rochester suburb. He's become a well-known member of the community.

"More and more people see STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS®," Jewett said. "I bet 90 percent of my customers have seen me on TV. I talk to everybody. I know their names and what they bought last year.

"My business has grown mainly because I make quality products. People notice that extra effort."

In addition to the tractor-trailer load of Christmas trees Jewett sells every season, Jewett gathers 2,000 pounds of Fraser fir branches that he turns into Christmas wreaths with a mixture of holly, juniper and boxwood.

"You can't get a fresh wreath just anywhere," Jewett said. "I pretty much flat-out make wreaths for five weeks straight."

Jewett began his association with the Pittsford Farms Dairy in 1995, and that has also been a boost.

"It's an old-fashioned dairy that still sells milk in returnable glass bottles," Jewett said. "They are famous for their eggnog. We've got something here that's like an open air market in Germany."

Dave's Christmas Tree Stand is open from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. during the holiday season. Jewett gets some valuable help from his father, Bill, a 70-year-old retired Kodak engineer. The Jewetts share something more than a father-son relationship. In 2006 Dave was stricken with a kidney disease that left him on dialysis and in need of a kidney transplant. When it was determined their blood types matched, Bill made the decision to donate a kidney to his son.

Five years later, both are going strong.

"It didn't phase him one bit," Dave said of his father. "He's a rock. I'd feel horrible if his quality of life had been reduced. But he keeps himself so fit. He's quite an inspiration."

Jewett's performances in the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series have returned to top flight, even though powered now by one 70-year-old kidney. Jewett finished ninth in the U.S. Championships last September in Salem, Ore. He would have been much higher if not for a disqualification in the hot saw and an eighth-place finish in the springboard, which had been two of his best events all season.

"I had a great year," Jewett said. "I just had two bad events in Oregon. I didn't lose a springboard competition the rest of the season. In the last show of the year, in Cambridge, Ohio, all the best springboarders were there, and I won by 10 seconds. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I wanted to end the year with an exclamation point."

Jewett had no interest in lumberjack sports until he attended Finger Lakes (N.Y.) Community College. And even then, he says his dad was more interested in the sport than he was. But Jewett eventually joined the team there and quickly progressed into a world-class competitor.

When the holiday season is over, Jewett will turn his attention to the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series. But most of his time will be spent honing his skills as the color commentator for the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Collegiate Series.

"That's when I do my homework," Jewett said. "I do a lot of that preparation in the winter."

He stays in shape by playing "a ton" of indoor soccer and chopping firewood. Jewett hand splits between 80 and 90 face cords of wood. A "face cord" is one layer of firewood four feet high and eight feet long.

Jewett has a STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® connection in his Christmas business as well. Fellow competitor Mike Sullivan of Colebrook, Conn., also enjoys making chainsaw furniture and sculptures.

"Basically, Mike and I trade ideas back and forth," Jewett said. "Mike does a lot of it, too. My business has gotten so big because we've learned what people like."

An example of those discussions is placed at the entrance of Dave's Christmas Tree Stand this year. It's a beer-keg size catalpa wood carving of a jack-o-lantern. This was one of Sullivan's ideas. While it might seem more like a Halloween decoration than a Christmas ornament, Jewett has learned these pumpkin-like wood carvings leave an impression.

"Those get so much response," Jewett said. "People have never seen anything like it. I make about nine different sizes. That big one makes my stand memorable. It's worth my time to make it and have it out there. Little kids remember that pumpkin."

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Why was Jeff Skirvin driving 95 miles-per-hour in a van filled with his U.S. teammates on their way to the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® World Championships in Holland?

Because he could.

Skirvin was overjoyed with the opportunity to go overseas for the first time after he was selected to represent the U.S. on its relay team at the 2011 World Championships in Roermand, Holland, in September.

The trip proved to be more exciting than he had hoped. In addition to helping the U.S. team earn a bronze medal in the relay event, there was that drive on the German autobahn highway system, which has an "advisory speed" of 81 miles per hour (130 kilometers) but no general speed limit.

Skirvin became the designated driver after STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® event marketing specialist Brad Sorgen rented a van for the team, then discovered it had a manual transmission.

"Brad couldn't drive a stick shift," said Skirvin, who laughed and added, "I probably wasn't the best choice. I got that rental van up to 95, and everybody started freaking out, so I slowed down. Ninety-five was all it would do."

Besides having him slow down, the team also monitored his every move on their Euro trip.

"We were all worried about Jeff wandering off and getting lost somewhere in Europe," teammate Branden Sirguy said. "We actually had to assign team members to be in charge of him during different parts of the trip to make sure that "Little Jeffy" always followed the buddy system and didn't cause any international incidents."

Despite the autobahn experience, Skirvin behaved himself for the most part.

"He is definitely a free spirit and his great attitude made it an amazing trip for the entire team," Sorgen said. "We'll be telling stories of it for years to come!"

When Skirvin isn't competing as a lumberjack, he teaches the unique combination of both art and forestry classes at Knappa High Schoool, near his hometown of Clatskanie, Ore. Located near the mouth of the Columbia River, it's an area dominated by timber and fishing business.

And it's an area where Skirvin has spent most of his 39 years.

"I didn't fly on an airplane until I was 28 and that was for a lumberjack show," Skirvin said. "I've never left Oregon for any other reason. STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® has given me the resources to travel and gain a lot of life experiences. I'm very thankful for that."

The trip to Holland with the U.S. team ranks near the top of those experiences.

"I had a blast," Skirvin said. "It was fun traveling with the team. We got along really well. It was non-stop laughter. Brad was a great host.

"And they really get into TIMBERSPORTS® in Europe. They're like crazy soccer fans. I was surprised how much they got into it. People were waving flags of the different countries. There was a lot of hype. That was fun."

Skirvin did have one slight disappointment. He had hoped to visit Amsterdam and view some of the Dutch masters' paintings, like those of Vincent van Gogh, to enhance his art teaching skills. But there simply wasn't enough time in the competition and festivities for that luxury.

"It was neat to experience the European culture," Skirvin said. "The food was amazing."

Skirvin's event on the relay team was the stock saw. The other members of the team were: Arden Cogar Jr. of West Hamlin, W.Va., in the standing block, Sirguy of Port Angeles, Wash., in the underhand chop, and Matt Cogar of Diana, W.Va., in the single buck. The alternate was Warrick Hallett of Glencoe, Minn.

"I didn't lose a (stock saw) race, and we almost beat the Australians," Skirvin said.

The Australian team won the gold medal in the relay and New Zealand took the silver, followed by the U.S.

Skirvin came to the world of STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® naturally. His father was a "motor head" -- a logging term used to describe chainsaw specialists.

"I started competing in little local logging shows when I was eight years old," Skirvin said. "My dad was competing, and they'd have events for little kids. He eventually competed as a pro, and I followed my dad around.

"He didn't like to throw a football around, so when we did the father-and-son thing we'd go in the backyard and race chainsaws."

That lack of football interest by his father didn't keep the 6-foot-4 Skirvin from earning a scholarship as a defensive end at Eastern Oregon University, where he completed an art degree. It was his experience in the logging industry after college that gave him the credentials to teach both art and forestry in high school.

Skirvin and his wife, Melody, have two sons -- Warren, 17, and Allen, 13. They are both competing in lumberjack sports, following in the family history, which is so common in this sport.

"All the local schools have forestry teams, like a lot of colleges do now," Skirvin said.

As Skirvin knows as well as anybody, there are some grand life experiences awaiting his two sons if they follow in their father's footsteps. Who knows? Maybe one of those footsteps will be mashing a gas pedal to the floor on the autobahn some day.

Dave Jewett remembers an interview David Bolstad did with a television station after a STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® competition that not only changed the way he competed, but in a way summed up Bolstad's life.

Bolstad was commenting on being able to master the Hot Saw in a short period of time. Typically, it can take as much as 10 years for a lumberjack to gain the proper skills needed to compete with a super-charged saw that can rip through a 19-inch log three times in less than 6 seconds.

While others might labor, Bolstad - Mr. Lucas Mill - was setting records in two years. And after Jewett heard that interview, he began to get better in all the disciplines in the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series.

The words that stick clearly in Jewett's mind: "You control the bull or the bull is going to control you."

In Jewett's assessment, that is exactly how Bolstad competed, and how he lived.

"He was just so natural, he did things his way and that's the way he wanted it,'' Jewett said.

The New Zealand lumberjack was at the same time much loved and feared, even dreaded for a variety of reasons.

"He was awesome to watch,'' Jewett said. "There were times when he got under my skin and I would be angry at him, but when I would watch him compete I would be cheering for him. He was just so awesome to watch. Him swinging an ax at a log was something to see. The way he conducted himself, it was just incredible."

Words like "awesome" and "incredible" were a consistent part of the descriptions given by a number of lumberjacks in their memories of Bolstad, followed closely by the words "shocked" and "depressed" at his passing.

The 41-year old lumberjack was a major part of the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series since the late 1990s. He won the championship five times, the world champion twice and set numerous world records in the six chopping and sawing events. He currently holds the world record in the underhand chop set in 1999 of 12.28 seconds.

"We are all in shock,'' STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® competitor Arden Cogar, Jr. said. "He's one of the fittest guys I know. He lived a Spartan lifestyle. I'm in disbelief and I've been in a state of depression since hearing what happened."

Bolstad, always the competitor, had just finished winning an event at the Waiuku Cosmopolitan Axeman Championships in New Zealand. He was walking to his car to stow his ax box when suddenly he dropped the box and fell to the ground.

Within minutes an ambulance was on the scene, but Bolstad was pronounced dead soon after.

While there is a certain amount of danger that comes with big burly lumberjacks swinging axes in every competition, the idea that Bolstad, who many felt was the picture of health and fitness, would die in this fashion humbled many of his competitors.

"It's just not what you would expect,'' Cogar said. "The only thing I can say is it's a big loss for the whole lumberjack community."

The loss will be felt for years to come.

Tommy Sanders, television commentator for the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series, and Jewett point to the teaching aspects that Bolstad offered to so many.

"If he liked you and you would listen, he could turn you into a world-class chopper,'' Jewett said. "He was that good at teaching."

Sanders said that fellow analyst John Hughes would always refer to Bolstad as "The Professor."

"He trained incessantly,'' Sanders said. "He studied every chop made by every competitor."

Bolstad had a lifetime of chopping knowledge stored in his head. He started chopping at the age of 5, following the footsteps of his father, who was equally adamant about training.

"Bolstad told me that his dad would train so hard, he would chop until he puked, literally,'' Jewett said. "He got that training regime from him.

"I can remember staying with him at his home and training. It was getting dark, I mean dark enough to where I couldn't see, and he would still be chopping. He's the only guy I've ever known who would chop in the dark. He's the only guy who could chop a log perfectly with his eyes closed."

Another thing Jewett recalls from his stay in New Zealand was Bolstad's fascination with Muhammad Ali. Jewett said Bolstad had a variety of video documentaries on the Greatest of All Time.

"He would watch those tapes over and over,'' Jewett said, "which seemed crazy since you would think that folks in New Zealand wouldn't be particularly keyed into those things in American culture.

"But Bolstad loved Ali. He would study him. And as I think about it, they both had that arrogant confidence that carried them through. I bet you wouldn't have to dig very deep to find a lot of similarities in the two."

David was one of the great ones. His contributions to the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series and to Lumberjack Sports worldwide cannot be measured. Talents like his only come around once in a lifetime. We've lost one of our best, and it will be a very long time before his shoes can be filled.

"That's all it took," Chagnon said. "Now we have this."

"This" is an enclosed trailer stacked with computers and monitors linked to high-definition cameras and an electronic timing system that combine to take human error out of the equation in determining the order of finish in STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® competitions.

"People think it's a lumberjack competition -- it's a bunch of big burly guys chopping wood," said Roger Phelps, STIHL's promotions communications manager. "But this high-tech element is pretty cool. It's where we've taken the sport."

Chagnon, Richard Hallett and Don Quigley, the co-owners of Granite State Lumberjack Shows, Inc., have facilitated the journey from pencils to computers. Granite State began as a hobby for the trio, who met while competing in lumberjack shows in the northeastern U.S.

Granite State was originally formed to help produce local lumberjack competitions. Soon after the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series' inception in 1985, STIHL contracted with Granite State to manage its events.

"They came to a contest we were running for somebody else," Chagnon recalled. "They liked our work, and they asked us to bid on the whole thing."

That partnership has now stretched over two decades. It has taken the Granite State crew on travels across the U.S. and included several European stops.

Hallett is the face of Granite State. He's the person you see on stage with the competitors in the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series, which has been televised by ESPN for the past 26 years. Hallett serves as the official starter for each event. Back in the days of paper and pencils, it was Hallett who had to make the disqualification call if he judged that one of the competitors jumped the starting gun. No one appreciates the high-tech direction of the sport more than Hallett.

"I was haunted by a jumped-gun call I made once," Hallett said. "It turned out to be critical to who won the championship that year. I went back and looked at the TV replay. I just wasn't ever really sure, and it was so important."

In the stock saw event, for instance, each man's hands must remain atop the log until a starter's gun is fired. It typically takes just over 10 seconds to complete the required two cuts in a 16-inch pine log; just like in track and field's 100-meter dash, a quick start is critical.

In those days, Hallett practically needed two sets of eyes -- one on each competitor -- to judge a fair start. Now a high-definition camera is focused on each competitor's hands. It records 30 video frames per second.

"We can see if people have dirty fingernails or not," laughed Chagnon.

Computer software displays an audio image of the starter's gun firing alongside the video images.

"It does make my job easier," Hallett said. "But really it's not about me. It's about the competitors and keeping the competition fair."

That same audio/video system is employed for the split-second finishes that are common in events like the stock saw.

"I can go frame-by-frame and see the exact moment a piece of wood drops," said Chagnon as he replayed a close finish on one of the computer monitors. "You see one piece of wood drop here, and (the other competitor's) doesn't drop until the next frame. So this guy beat that guy by a couple hundredths of a second."

It's this type of precise timing technology that was used, for example, in determining the world record in the stock saw of 9.445 seconds, set by Martin Komarek of the Czech Republic in 2010.

To achieve that degree of precision, Granite State replaced hand-held stopwatches with a Sprint 8 Timing System, like that used in high-level track & field meets. There's still a human element: Three people observe each STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® competitor and press a hand-held "plunger" accordingly. Those electronic signals are fed into a computer database. If all three are within .05 seconds of one another, the computer averages them to produce an official time. If one time falls outside that range, the computer disregards it and averages the other two.

"We'll have instances where (all three) are identical," Chagnon said. "We've had the same timers for years, and they are really good at it."

An Apple iPod may best exemplify how far STIHL® and Granite State have moved toward the goals of fairness and accuracy in the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series. If you've ever watched one of these events, you may have noticed that Hallett's lips don't seem to be moving at all times while the competitors are listening to his starting cadence prior to four events -- springboard, underhand chop, single buck and standing block.

That's because his lips aren't moving at all times. Granite State uses a recording of Hallett's voice, which is played from an iPod through the public address system. After Hallett says, "Timers ready," Chagnon plays the iPod, which follows seamlessly with, "Contestants ready ... three, two, one, go."

(A starter's gun is used only in the two chainsaw events.)

"Richard is out in the sun for five or six hours," Chagnon said. "His cadence may slow down or speed up as he starts to get tired. These guys are gauging their start on his cadence. If his cadence changes, it messes up their start."

In the effort to shave fractions of a second off their times, some STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® athletes use a recording of Hallett's starting cadence in their training.

Modern technology has its limits, of course. There's no substitute for manpower in the operation of a STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® event. From setting up and tearing down the stage to placing and removing the logs before and after each event, it takes the coordinated movement of many people to optimize the pace of competition. That has remained unchanged since the beginning of Granite State Lumberjack Shows.

As in any business, you're only as good as the people working for you. Granite State employs 18 people when running a STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® event.

Hallett had no way of foreseeing this combination of technology and personnel management when he became interested in lumberjack sports. It began when he signed up for a high school log-rolling class over 30 years ago in Madison, Wis.

"I never dreamed it would eventually turn into involvement in the sport at an international level," Hallett said.

Hallett's "real job" is with the U.S. Forest Service as a research ecologist. Chagnon and Quigley are forestry professors at the University of New Hampshire.

"We all have professions that we love," Hallett said. "This is really a hobby for us."

It's one that has grown into a high-tech, high-intensity endeavor.

"How are you doing?" is no longer just a way to say hello. Now it's "No ... how are you DOING?"

Jenny Atkinson has heard those words more times than she can count over the past 22 months, and the first -- the simple greeting -- is almost always followed by the second -- the question.

"No ... how are you DOING?"

The multi-time world and U.S. champion log roller and boom runner has undergone intensive chemotherapy, a double mastectomy and more cancer-fighting procedures than she cares to remember, so she's become accustomed to that question.

Nonetheless, even though I KNOW she's expecting "that question" from me, I dread asking it as I sit down with Atkinson beneath the orange STIHL work tent at the 2011 STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS®  Series U.S. Championship in Salem, Ore. Because, well, it's cancer, and you just never damn know.

The answer: Jenny Atkinson is doing just fine, thank you.

"I'm doing fantastic," Atkinson says. "My oncologist refers to it as ‘dancing with Ned,' and that I want to ‘dance with Ned' for the rest of my life. NED stands for ‘No Evidence of Disease,' so there's no cancer. I'm excited about that! I finished chemo in February. I take Tamoxifen (an estrogen inhibitor) daily for the next five years, but otherwise everything is great. I'm feeling really healthy."

She looks it, too.

She's in significantly better physical shape -- noticeably stronger -- than she was during the 2010 STS boom rum competition, her thick, curly black hair has grown back, and she moves around the logrolling demonstration tank with an energy that screams of "strong" and "healthy."

Yes, Jenny Atkinson is doing just fine.

Losing has never been an option
Surprising as it sounds for someone who's been faced with a potentially life-threatening disease, Atkinson has been doing fine almost from the initial diagnosis of breast cancer in December of 2009. As my friend Mike Suchan detailed in a story he wrote about Atkinson last year, titled simply "Life comes first," Atkinson was understandably overwhelmed at first when she heard the diagnosis and launched into a battle with a disease that kills over 40,000 women a year in the Unites States. But almost from Day 1, the Stillwater, Minn., third-grade teacher has maintained an aggressively positive attitude about the diagnosis.

Losing this battle, frankly, has just never been an option.

"I never for one day thought that I would die," she says. "I think to myself ‘My God, it was serious and it is serious,' but I just felt like I could beat it, and never changed that thought process. There are still times where it's still scary and concerning, of course -- I think to myself ‘Wow, this is a big deal,' -- but I've really never thought anything except that I want to live for another 50 years."

Living life
The photo on world boom running champion Shana Martin's Facebook page tells a story. Taken Aug. 25, the day before the 2011 STS kicked off, it shows Martin, fellow boom-runner Katie Rick and Atkinson standing arm-in-arm on the beach in nearby Newport, Ore., at Atkinson's resort, Starfish Point, with big, happy smiles on their faces. Frolicking on the beach, you'd even say.

It's a stark contrast to the last time Atkinson was in the small coastal town.

"When we were driving on the road to Newport, I told the girls ‘Wow, the last time I was driving on this road, 36 hours later I was having a double mastectomy,' " Atkinson says, placing her hands protectively on her chest. "I remember being totally freaked out, thinking as any woman would, ‘Oh, no, they're going to cut them off!' I hadn't been back to the Oregon coast since then, so it was really fun to be there this week. We were running down the beach and jumping around, being free and having fun, and I really appreciated that I was there, that (the chemo and surgery) was behind me and I could just live life."

Just as she had sworn she would when she talked to Suchan a year ago: "I'm going to live life."

Not that she's gone crazy fulfilling a bucket list of skydiving and exotic travel. The past 365 days have seen Atkinson compete in a triathlon and sign up to play in a women's hockey league in the winter -- two things that she's always wanted to do -- but her to-do list is pretty basic.

"Little things, not big, big grand things," is how Atkinson describes it. "You have the perspective of having cancer and you never know how long you're going to live -- none of us know that, but you're forced to look at it from a different perspective when you're dealing with cancer. I don't want to focus on that, I try to keep a balance of making sure I'm doing what I want to do, making every day count. If there was ever a recurrence, I wouldn't want to look back and think ‘Oh my gosh, the past two years, five years, 10 years I wasn't doing the stuff I wanted to!' I'm always keeping that in the back of my mind, but I really love just living a normal life again."

Not that "normal" ever changed for the Atkinson family's youngest member, 2 1/2-year-old Berendt -- whom she calls "Bear" -- during the past 20 months. As she quickly grew to appreciate, Atkinson was still "Mommy," with all the Mommy duties and responsibilities, regardless of chemo, surgery, recovery, etc. Bear didn't care if Mommy's hair was gone or that Mommy maybe didn't feel her best. He needed breakfast and changing and Mommy time, cancer be damned.

"It was great for me to have a young child," Atkinson says. "It made me very serious about the whole process and treatment. He was just a delight. I mean, wow, he'll grow up not even remembering this because he was an infant, but I felt so lucky to have him throughout all of that. He was just living life, and I had to do the same. It was awesome that there was just nothing different for Bear."

Staying active = staying healthy
The 2010 STS came just four months after Atkinson's double mastectomy and one month after her last major round of chemo, and while it might've seemed like a stretch for her to compete at a world-class level so soon after such a major medical challenge, STS training was actually a major part of Atkinson's battle with the disease.  She competed damn well, too, finishing just one spot off the podium.

"Doing the STS and competing was absolutely one of the best things for my whole treatment and recovery, and I would so highly recommend other women to do the active things they've always done," she says. "My medical team was very supportive of it and really thought it was a good idea for me to maintain that level of activity. I firmly believe that and have throughout the process.

"Thankfully my sponsors, Central Boiler & Wood-Mizer, were supportive as well, so I embraced another competitive season.  The healthier and the more fit you are, the better your chance to survive the whole experience with fewer side effects. My advice to other women is to be active and be healthy, because if you have any card in your favor, that's the most important."

Welcome to the 27th season of the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series!  This past year was a success again as the premier event in professional lumberjack sports and we have no intention of slowing down as 2012 is already shaping up to be another great year. 

The 2012 season will return to the regional competition format to take advantage of the excitement and enthusiasm of the Collegiate Series. We are presently planning on producing 5 regional professional qualifiers and holding them at the same venues of as our 5 Collegiate Series events. This means that the professional athletes from the region will be competing against each other for the chance to go to the US championships while collegiate athletes battle it out for their chance to represent their schools at the Collegiate Championships. Fans will get a double dose of excitement at each event.

As always, we want to ensure we produce a competition that is exciting to fans and fair to you, the competitors.  Thanks to the efforts of Granite State Lumberjack Shows, JM Associates and our Career Sports and Entertainment, we believe this format will invigorate the competition and will deliver a fair and exciting event that will continue to recognize the best athletes in the sport, while providing up and coming athletes a chance to break in to the Series. 

As we have for the past 26 years, selection of STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series competitors will be coordinated between the Granite State Lumberjack Show staff and our competitor advisory group. As the US STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series events will determine the overall US National Champion, only US athletes will be selected to participate in this years competitions. Applicants will be ranked as we have in the past, and then divided up with eight athletes per region based on ranking and home location.  This will be done in order to balance the competitor talent in each region, while attempting to minimize travel for all competitors involved. The top four individuals from each region will then move on to the championship venue to make two championships pools of 10.  The top 4 from those pools will then move on to the Championship round.  The top US chop/saw competitor and a relay team will advance to the World Championship competition in Norway.

In 2012 the US Championship venue will again include a relay competition.  On the final day of the Championships, the four individuals from each region will compete in a relay to determine the top region from around the country. 

Please see below for more details, as well as the application to participate in the 2012 competition.  As always, to the greatest extent possible, we have scheduled this year's event to avoid conflicts with other competitions.

Competition Locations

• Region / Location Venue City / State Date
• Southern Qualifier NC State University Raleigh, NC March 16th
• Western Qualifier Oregon State University Corvallis, OR March 23rd
• MidWest Qualifier Wisconsin Steven's Point Tomahawk, WI April 14th
• MidAtlantic Qualifier Montgomery College Troy, NC April 22nd
• NorthEast Qualifier Dartmouth College Hanover, NH April 28th
• US Championship Venue TBD TBD TBD
• World Championships Lillehammer Norway September

• Competitor Application Submission Deadline November 15th 2011
• Chop / Saw Competitor Selection Notification -- names and regions December 15th 2011

On behalf of STIHL, I wish all of you the very best.
Sincerely,

Roger Phelps
Promotional Communications Manager, STIHL Inc.

Fox was so special that discussion of his sudden death from a heart attack at age 54 on Dec. 30, 2010, continues to bring tears to the eyes of those who worked with him.

STIHL® promotional communications manager Roger Phelps had to pause and collect himself before he could speak about that day last December.

"We all felt a lot of grief," Phelps said. "We felt like the world had been deprived of one of the really good guys in life. He was a true man of STIHL®"

But, inevitably, smiles outweigh the tears when people are asked about Fox, who worked as a technician at STIHL® for 36 years.

"Mike was real low-keyed about things," said Wayne Sutton, a STIHL® territory manager who first met Fox 30 years ago. "He got a ton of stuff done without making a big commotion about it. And he was always so pleasant and helpful. He was just a sweet guy."

In memory of a special man, the 2011 STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series was dedicated to Fox. His wife, Ruth, and children, Mika Ann, Samantha and Joe, were brought to the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® U.S. Championships at Salem, Ore., in September to further honor the legacy that Fox left at the company and in the sport.

When the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series started in 1985, it quickly became obvious the stock chainsaw event needed some fine-tuning. As the only one of the six STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® disciplines where the competitors are using equipment other than their own, the stock saw was sometimes a source of contention.

"These are stock saws, but it's not like you can just take two saws off the shelf at the store," said Rich Hallett, the head judge of the series as part of the Granite State Lumberjack Shows team. "The competitors are elite athletes, and they are good at what they do, so any differences in the wood or the saws could affect the event. The athletes are so close in each discipline.  Everything has to be perfect so you can find out who is really the best with the saw.

"In the early years, it was a highly-charged event. Whether it was true or not, the competitors would get wound up and say ‘saw one' was running faster than ‘saw two.' It would affect the whole culture of the event if the competitors weren't happy."

Enter Mike Fox to smooth out any differences, among both saws and sawyers. Fox kept detailed notes on each chain saw used and the competitor who used it. He refined chainsaw testing techniques so that not just RPMs were checked on each saw, but also how they performed "under load."

"He developed a way to time the saws in the wood and find the saws that matched," Hallett said. "And then he worked with the competitors, because he was such a personable guy. If they got wound up about something, he'd be able to respond to their complaints in a way that didn't dismiss them, but at the same time made sure the event was still fair.

"He was really instrumental in keeping a lid on that whole situation in those early years. It's to the point now where the competitors trust the saws. To this day the demo wood that the saws are tested on before the competition is called "Fox-Wood".

Although it tested Granite State's technology to determine a winner, there was nothing Fox liked better than seeing two competition stock saws come out of the wood at almost the exact same time.

Arden "Jamie" Cogar Jr. of West Hamlin, W.Va., was attending lumberjack sporting events with his father long before he became the world class competitor he is today at age 41.

"Mike Fox was a consummate professional," Cogar said. "I first met Mike when I was 15 years old. I hadn't begun to compete on the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series, but I recall Mike diligently working with athletes to understand what it took to make stock sawing events as even as possible.

"It was that willingness to work with the athletes, while understanding the dynamics of how chain saws run under load, that resulted in the even playing field we have today on the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series."

Fox, who lived in Chesapeake, Va., started working for STIHL® after graduating from high school. At the time of his death, that ability to solve problems was legendary among the company and its customers.

J.D. Fernstrom, a STIHL® Northwest technical service manager, witnessed a chapter in that legend. In 2007, he and Fox attended a tech manager meeting in Virginia Beach, Va., that ended on a Friday, then boarded a plane together Monday en route to Boise, Idaho, where U.S. Forest Service firefighters were having problems with chain saws used under extreme heat.
"When they were really hot, the chain saws weren't starting," Fernstrom recalled. "We spent a day-and-a-half cutting in over 100-degree temperatures, trying to duplicate the problems they were having on a fire.

"We both kind of gave up. We refueled the saws and had a drink of water. After about 10 minutes of sitting there, Mike said, ‘Let's give it one more try.' Sure enough, he figured it out. He was persistent enough to come up with a solution.

"After that we went out and reworked all the Forest Service chain saws we could get our hands on and they were happy."

It seems that Mike Fox was famous for that – whether at his job or with friends - always leaving people happy. It's no wonder that while his loss continues to be felt so deeply, his life continues to be celebrated.

That's why it made some ears perk when Arden "Jamie" Cogar Jr. said the following before competing in the U.S. Championships at Salem, Ore., in September:

"I am as strong as I've ever been. I'm as flexible as I've ever been. And I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be to compete this weekend."

Cogar promptly backed up those words by winning the U.S. title. And he did it despite suffering a disqualification in the stock saw event. A week later, in the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® World Championship at Roermond, Holland, Cogar finished sixth, a finish that doesn't sound as flashy until you consider he accomplished it in spite of another DQ, this time in the hot saw. Earning just a 12th-place finish in that event would have vaulted Cogar into third place.

So just how does a 41-year-old man continue to improve in a sport that is as physically taxing as STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS®?

In general, Cogar's answer has been to continually refine his training techniques and keep an open mind.

What's fascinating are the details in a daily regimen that including everything from yoga and mediation to tai chi and myofascial release ("poor man's massage"), along with training and weightlifting specific to lumberjacks.

And there's still room for improvement. "I have not gone into the nutrition side as deeply as I would have liked," Cogar said. "I have a friend who is going to help me with that this winter. Hopefully, I'll dial myself in even better nutritionally."

Cogar's measuring stick for his performances is the best -- New Zealand's Jason Wynyard, the decade-long king of the sport. As further evidence of his statement about peaking at age 41 stand two performances: He beat Wynyard (and everyone else) in winning the single buck event in Oregon, and he beat Wynyard (and everyone else) in winning the underhand in Holland.

"That absolutely made my season," Cogar said that day Oregon. "I have competed with Jason Wynyard for over 20 years, and I have never beaten him in a single buck. I'm very excited."

Coger made his first STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® final in 1991. In the two decades since, he has continued to hone his training and techniques. This past year, for example, a single tip from fellow competitor Mike Slingerland led to a two-second improvement in the single buck, where you make one cut through a 19-inch white pine log using a cross-cut saw.

"He asked me, 'When do you weight the saw?,'" Cogar said. "I responded by showing him where on my body I began to weight the saw. He said, ‘Why not try back here?' and he moved my hands to a different position on my body. The result: I am now cutting nearly two seconds faster. Mike Slingerland showed me how to use the strength that I've worked so hard to attain.

"It is my belief that competitors can continually make improvements in their performances as long as they are willing to listen, observe and strive."

To get to this point, Cogar has put in years of listening and training. Maybe his most impressive feat is in time management. Cogar has a wife and two daughters and  works as a civil defense trail lawyer in the Charleston, W. Va., firm of MacCorckle, Lavender & Sweeney. Being a father and a lawyer is enough to keep most men busy, but Cogar meticulously puts together his days, weeks and months to allow for serious physical training.

His workouts begin at 4:30 a.m. daily and last about two hours, with an hour devoted to weight-training or event training (he alternates daily). He warms up and cools down with 30-minute sessions of yoga and tai chi. He's done by 6:30 and in the office by 8 or 8:30.

"I always schedule everything," Cogar said. "My life is planned out for the next 12 months. With competitions, trials, depositions, hearings and everything else, I have to be very selective in what I do and when I do it.

"Even when I'm training, my wife has set up a standing desk for me in my gym. I can go over there to answer emails or work on reports or briefs.

"Efficiency and multitasking, that's the key for me to get as much out of the day as I can in order to be a productive attorney, a productive father and a productive competitor."

At 5-foot-11, 250 pounds, Cogar is built like a beer keg. He admits he looks more like a barroom bouncer than an attorney, "even in a suit." That build is almost all muscle and bone, as his body fat stays in the range of 15 to 18 percent.

As a teenager, Cogar got into powerlifting. His bests were around 350 pounds in the bench press, 650 pounds in the squat and over 800 pounds in the dead lift. But three years ago, Cogar changed his weight-training techniques, concentrating instead on Olympic lifts -- the snatch and clean-and-jerk, under the supervision of trainer Randy Hauer.

"I truly wish I had started Olympic weightlifting earlier," Cogar said. "I believe, given my physical strength, I could have been an Olympic-caliber athlete had I started earlier."

He knows that training in the Olympic lifts has definitely made him a better competitor.

"It's not upper body, it's not lower body. It's whole body," Cogar said. "It's about coordination and timing. If you have coordination and timing, you can deliver the axe properly and you can deliver the saw properly. You've got to have coordination, plus timing, plus the strength to do it."

That's where the Olympic lifts provide the most benefits. It's that upper body/lower body coordination required to get heavy weights over your head -- either through the snatch or clean-and-jerk -- that translates to STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS®.

Further advancing Cogar's whole body/mind approach is his interest in meditation, yoga and tai chi.

"To avoid the distractions in my life, they have helped tremendously," Cogar said. "I've been an avid yoga practitioner now for 11 years. I don't have any joint or muscle pain, which for a 41-year-old man, doing what I do, is rare.

Cogar has been practicing meditation for 10 years. He claims to be able to drop into a thoughtless state now in "about six seconds." He will sprinkle five- to 10-minute meditation sessions throughout his day to improve concentration on the next task at hand.

Cogar claims that meditation techniques play a big role in competition.

"A 'thoughtless state' means you let your body take over," Cogar explained. "When your body takes over, you are free from negative thoughts. I get in that state before every event. The only event I ever think about is probably springboard."

However, as strongly as Cogar believes in his current training regimen, he is quick to point out that his path isn't the only one. Over the past 50 years, the Cogar family has become synonymous with lumberjack sports. He represents the third generation to compete in the sport. And he's seen success come many different ways. There is one common denominator.

"A Timbersports competitor does not have to be the biggest or strongest athlete in the field," Cogar said. "A Timbersports athlete has to be tough. How each of us obtain that toughness is up to him or her.

"My father obtained his toughness by hard manual labor and training in the events after spending eight to 10 hours a day working as a logger. Those of us who don't do physical labor have to get our toughness in the time that we have available. The toughness that you get by cross-training, in my opinion, is no different nor better than those who obtain their toughness from real physical work."

There's another way Cogar defines that necessary toughness. It's with a sound rather than a word. If you had to spell it, it would look like this: GRRR!

Chris Bradshaw can explain it. Bradshaw, 35, competed for the first time in the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series this year, but began lumberjack sports training while a student at West Virginia University. Three years ago, the 6-foot-2, 300-pound Bradshaw spent six months training with Cogar.

"Arden Cogar Jr. told me I needed to get some GRRR," Bradshaw said. "So I went and got me some GRRR. That was the most painful thing I've ever endured."

That's ultimately what STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® competition is all about -- GRRR, or toughness. And as Arden Cogar Jr. exemplifies, you've got to build some time for toughness training into every day. For a lawyer like him, it can be therapy too.

"After a hard day at the office," Cogar said, "nothing is more rewarding than going home, grabbing an axe and beating the crap out of something that can't hit me back."

Sixteen national champions will contend for a slice of the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series World Championship competing across six professional lumberjack disciplines (hot saw, single buck, springboard chop, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop) on Saturday, Sept. 3. More than 100 pro lumberjacks will join the wood-chopping competition on Sunday when the second annual world relay competition takes place. Twenty national teams and a rookie team, each with four athletes, will take the stage and vie for the world relay gold medal. 

Dirk Braun, who was crowned the German champion in August in Winterberg, is anticipating an exciting competition. He said, "In the individual competition, I will be going up against 15 of the best competitive lumberjacks in the world, and they are not going to take it easy on me. Still, I am well prepared, I practice hard up to 20 hours a week, and I'm already looking forward to this competition. My goal is to finish first among the European competitors."

The family festivities kick off at noon on Saturday and 11 a.m. on Sunday at the waterside venue on the Hatenboer Peninsula. In addition to two bouncy castles, children will also find a crafts corner in which they can make fan posters to cheer on their personal favorites. Fans can also enjoy numerous food stands offering regional specialties.

Additional entertainment and activities will be available each evening. The professional competitors will make a special appearance at the station square in Roermond Friday evening at 8 p.m. On Saturday, the official awards ceremony crowning the world champion and honoring the national relay teams takes place at the station square at 8 p.m.

"This is a premiere: the first international STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® event in the Netherlands! We here in Roermond are looking forward to the competitive lumberjacks who are coming here from all over the world -- from Norway to New Zealand -- and hope that they will feel welcome here. Of course that goes for the spectators as well", stated Roermond mayor Hank van Beers.

Tickets are available in advance or at the gate. The STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series World Championship will be held on the Hatenboer Peninsula, west of the city center; address: Hatenboer 59, 6041 TN Roermond. The routes to the event are signposted. Ample parking for cars is available adjacent to the venue. Motorists with GPS systems can use the following coordinates: 51°11'43.09"N / 5°57'48.66"E. Admission is ten euros per day. Children and youngsters under age 16 pay six euros per day. Tickets can be reserved by e-mail to ticket@stihl-timbersports.de and picked up at the gate.  In addition, tickets can also be purchased at the gate on the days of the event.

Standing next to the Dodge 1500 he had just won as the 2011 STS champion, the big New Zealander shook his head, examining the wood chips in the castoff bin beside the stage, smiling a little ruefully as he summed up his performance.

"Pretty mediocre, really," Wynyard said. "It was a really tough day. I've been training really hard for this – I actually feel like I was fitter than I was last year – but I was down on the placings in some of the events. I can't be too down on myself and my performance in some of the manual events, though. I did the single buck as best I could, I chopped as best I could. I think it's just an indication of how hard this sport is."

Despite his disappointment, Wynyard chopped and sawed pretty darned well, placing second in the springboard, underhand chop and single buck to three athletes (Laurence O'Toole, Brad DeLosa and Arden Cogar, Jr., respectively) who posted ridiculously fast times in those events.

"The other 12 guys out here are pretty skilled," Wynyard said. "Laurence, Brad and Arden are very, very good competitors."

Wynyard's biggest disappointment came in the standing block, an event in which he holds the world record (12.11 seconds). Wynyard took 15.99 seconds to get through the block, finishing fourth, over 1 ½ seconds slower than event winner Brad DeLosa. Wynyard took 15 strokes to get through the wood, which had a 1 ½-inch layer of sapwood around the outside (sapwood is the living, outer, sap-conducting ring of the tree).

"I've been doing this for a long, long time, but I got the read wrong on the wood," Wynyard said. "The wood was a lot harder than I expected, and I used some of the wrong equipment in the wrong events. The sapwood cut really dense. I can usually get through (the standing block) in six and six (strokes) – I've done that several times before – but the first hit … nothing. I went in maybe a couple of inches, and I'm looking to bury that ax full-face on every hit. The plan changed pretty quickly. I had to go maximum power, and that probably affected my cadence."

Wynyard had planned on using the same ax for the underhand chop, but switched to one with a more aggressive grind to cut through the sapwood. The result: second place behind DeLosa.

The two entered the final event, the hot saw, with just 3 points separating them. DeLosa, though, completed only two of the required three full wood cookies in the heat before Wynyard's, earning a DQ and guaranteeing Wynyard's 10th championship.

Wynyard subsequently cut out and DQd as well, finishing on a disappointing note – "I've got a machine that's tops, but the way I ran it isn't what you train for," he said – but some perspective is in order.

"Things change quickly in this sport," Wynyard said. "You're dealing with a natural species with the wood, so days like this are just the nature of the sport."

"This year we opened it up by picking the fastest guys in the semifinals (of the U.S. Championships)," said Mike Slingerland, who chaired the selection committee.

In the new process, Jeff Skirvin became a very happy man. Skirvin had the top time in the stock saw event on Aug. 26th, and he will man that position on the U.S. team in Holland. It will be Skirvin's first overseas trip.

"I'm really, really stoked," said Skirvin, a school teacher from Clatskanie, Oregon. "It's great that STIHL provides that opportunity for us.

"The first time I flew (in an airplane) was when I was 30 years old for a lumberjack competition. I might not have ever left my home town if it wasn't for wood-chopping."

Skirvin's selection was exactly what the committee had in mind when the selection process was changed. Formerly it was done by a vote of committee members on who each thought was the best man in each event.

"Jeff accepted instantly," Slingerland said. "He's really excited to be part of the team. It's because of guys like him that we opened up the selection process this year."

The other members of the team are as follows: Arden Cogar Jr. of West Hamlin, W. Va., in the standing block, Branden Sirguy of Port Angeles, Wash., in the underhand chop, and Matt Cogar of Diana, W. Va., in the single buck. The alternate, determined by overall points in the U.S. Championship, is Warrick Hallett of Glencoe, Minn.

Skirvin works as an art and forestry teacher at Napa High School in Clatskanie. He hopes the trip will enhance his teaching abilities.

"I've never seen any of the art I talk about in class," Skirvin said. "I'd like to see some of the Dutch masters when I go over there, like (Vincent) Van Gogh. That would be sweet.

"It's a great opportunity. And most of all, I'm just really excited about representing America."

Arden Cogar Jr. had the top time in the standing block event at the U.S. Championship. He will also represent the U.S. in the individual competition in Holland.

"The standing block is the most critical discipline in a relay," Slingerland said. "It's the final event. It's the easiest one to screw up and the hardest one to get an advantage in, so you can lose a race and you can win a race in the standing block.

"In a running relay, you have your best runner in that fourth position. We've got our best guy in that fourth position."

Slingerland said the next most important event is the underhand chop. Cogar was the top man there, too, so the selection process moved down to the next best finisher Friday. Matt Slingerland earned that spot, but had to decline because his passport expired last month and hadn't been renewed. Sirguy then became the representative based on his third place finish.

"They take the most time," Slingerland noted of the underhand and the standing block, "so there is more time to be lost or gained there. The stock saw is only going to take five seconds, so there's very little time to be lost or gained there. The single buck with small wood is the same. Only a second is going to be lost or gained there."

Dave Jewett had the fastest semifinal time in the single buck. He withdrew from the U.S. relay team because he has represented the U.S. overseas several times and he had personal business to take care of. Cogar had the second-best time, but was already on the team. Matt Slingerland was third, but had his passport issues. So Matt Cogar got the single buck slot.

Skivin had the top time in the stock saw at the U.S. Championship semifinals.

Hallett was sixth in overall points at the U.S. Championship, but others already selected for the team and personal issues preventing some from competing in Holland made Hallett the selection for the alternate spot.

Their neon shirts read "Daniel ‘Deacon' Jones Fan Club" and had his high-school football number, 58, on the back. They also were the loudest fans the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS event saw all week, professional and collegiate.

And Jones did not disappoint.

He finished 1 second behind Cal Poly's Walt Page in the day's first event, the underhand, but never finished worse than second all day.

He finished second in the day's second event, the stock saw, in second place too, but ahead of Page, which was important.

After Jones' win in the standing block, it became clear it would be a two-man race between Page and Jones, and every point made a huge difference.

Even with the victory, Jones said standing block was his most disappointing event of the day.

"I kind of messed up standing block," Jones said. "I didn't hit my lines because I kind of got in a hurry. I could see Walt out beside me and when he turned I thought I needed to turn. That was a mistake."

By the time Jones took the stage day's final event, the single buck, he knew what he needed to win. Page had put up a time of 16.87 seconds, and it was leading heading into the final heat. Jones had a three point lead, so any amount of fancy math could have been done to figure out exactly what he needed to win or tie. But for Jones, it was simple.

"I needed first to finish it right," he said.

Jones delivered with a 13.97 second run, which was a time that not only won him the single buck and the collegiate championship, it would have beaten the finals times lumberjack legends Mike Sullivan, Mel Lentz and David Bolstad posted on Saturday.

"That's my best time ever," Jones said. "I was using a more aggressive saw than the ones I used in the past."

The first person greeting Jones' back stage, in his large neon shirt, was Jones' dad, Danny.

"I'm a real proud daddy right now," Danny Jones said.

Even with the win, Jones said he didn't feel completely prepared coming into the event. He had spent the summer weekends training with pros, but the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series is one of those events where it's hard to ever feel prepared.

"I didn't train as much as I should have," Jones said. "I practiced on the weekends and on some weekdays with Jimmy Lawrence and Daryl Weakland, and they showed me a lot of things and got me to where I need to be."

As for his future as a pro, Jones said there will be one, but he has his work cut out for him.

"I'll do the pro series next year, but I've got to get equipment and take care of all that," Jones said.

"The difference for me was maturity," Cogar said after finishing third overall behind New Zealand's Jason Wynyard and Australia's Brad DeLosa, but five points ahead of Mel Lentz for the American berth in next week's STS World Championship in Holland. "Maturity has resulted in a change in my approach. For me, this is just fun, and I'm going to make it fun. If I have a bad event, I'm able to shrug it off, wake up tomorrow to chop another day."

It's a stark contrast to 2010, when Cogar was noticeably frustrated throughout the competition and eventually finished 10th overall after thinking he could win it.

"I had placed in the top three in the standings in Columbus, Georgia the year before, and I was less than 3 points out of second and 5 or 8 points out of first," Cogar said. "I really thought I had a shot to win it last year if I put a good day together, so I put myself under a lot of pressure. Today, I didn't put any pressure on myself, so I performed well."

Much like in 2010, though, things didn't start off well for Cogar this year. After a fourth-place finish in the first event, the springboard, Cogar DQ'd in the stock saw, and sat in 11th place overall out of 12, and seventh out of the eight American competitors entering the two middle disciplines in the six-event competition.

Enter the maturity.

"Last year I had a bad springboard and followed it up with a bad stock saw and I was done," Cogar said. "This year I had an okay spring board and a DQ in the stock saw, and I was like ‘Ah, big deal, there are four more events to go. Let's just see what happens.' That level of maturity – accepting the fact that I had a poor performance – really helped me quite a bit."

He started the middle events slowly, though, finishing sixth in the standing block to climb into 10th overall, narrowly losing his head-to-head heat with younger cousin Matt Cogar in one of the closest matches of the discipline. And then came the single buck.

Cogar ripped through the 19-inch Ohio white-pine log in a personal-best 10.48, well ahead of world-record holder Wynyard (10.83), who's generally regarded as the best single-buck sawyer of all time.

"I turned around and saw 10.61 on the timer," Cogar said. "I know that the official time is always faster, and thought to myself ‘Holy crap, I won!' I think that's the first time an American has won the single buck on the STS in eight or nine years, so I'm honored. The saw suited the wood properly, my technique suited the saw properly, and I just had the right mentality going into the entire event to come out on top. I sure didn't expect to win it, though."

Cogar picked up another point in the underhand, finishing fifth overall and first among the Americans, and entered the final event – the unpredictable hot saw – needing to hold serve against Matt Cogar (3 points behind) and Dave Jewett (four back). The hot saw has been one of Cogar's worst events in recent years thanks to a cantankerous saw, and it's one of Jewett's best. Cogar was admittedly cautious with his cuts, finishing in 7.57 seconds, but he was still faster than Matt Cogar at 8.52.

Jewett's only chance to force a tie and a saw-off with Cogar was to throw caution to the wind in an attempt to beat Mel Lentz's 6.16 leading time. Jewett rushed his start, failing to get his saw started on his first pull, and then sawed out for a DQ and 0 points, solidifying Cogar's win.

"Placing third in the hot saw with a very conservative run surprised me," Cogar said. "My wife and I made the investment to buy the new saw less than a month ago and it's already paid for itself. I'm very, very pleased with that."

Now it's on to Roermond, Holland and the STS World Championship Sept. 3-4. Back to the weights for a couple more days and on a plane to Amsterdam.

"The only training I want to do this week is, I want to do two weight workouts," Cogar said. "I'm not gonna even look at an ax. I've already done my homework in regards to my sawing. They're good, I just have to make sure my gear is ready to go and I'm recharged. I'm looking forward to it."

In a previous post, the chopping events were broken down. Here are the sawing events,  finishing with a summary of who had the most momentum when the qualifying finished three months ago.

Note: This is a look only at the U.S. competitors because the Australian and New Zealand lumberjacks were not in the qualifiers.

Stock Saw
Best time: Richard Jordan, 10.94 seconds in the Northeast

Analysis: This was one of the more confusing events in the qualifiers because times are all over the board. It's such a simple but volatile event. It's like free throws in basketball. They're somehow simple but difficult at the same time, and they can absolutely sabotage what otherwise would have been a good day.

In general, times need to be in the 10- to 12-second range to be anywhere near the top, with that number leaning more toward 10 and 11 seconds. That's not great news for Mel Lentz or anyone else who qualified through the Southern. Lentz won that event with a 12.08-second run, which would only have been good enough for sixth place in the Northeast. But as I mentioned earlier, different conditions and competition make this a hard one to analyze.

Single Buck
Best time: Mike Slingerland, 13.25 seconds in the Southern

Analysis: The Slingerlands must practice this one at home. Mike's son Matt posted the fourth fastest time (David Moses was second and Dave Jewett was third) with a 14.57-second run. Those were the only four guys who posted under 15 seconds, with Arden Cogar Jr. being the next closest at 15 seconds flat.

That 15 seconds needs to be the mark they're eyeing at the championship. Even a 15.5-second run, in the qualifying scenario, would put you in sixth or worse and there's no room for that kind performance if you're trying to make a championship run. If a lumberjack's day isn't coming together by this point, he's in trouble.

Hot Saw
Best time: Mike Sullivan, 4.59 seconds* in the Northeast

*Not a world record because the NE was cutting on slightly smaller wood

Analysis: As mentioned in the note above, the Northeast was cutting on slightly smaller wood, so this becomes even harder to compare across qualifiers. The good news is that it would be a total waste to compare anyway because this event can go anywhere at any time and change everything in the span of a few seconds.

Take, for instance, the Midwest event. Out of 10 competitors, only three finished the hot saw without a DQ. Three! Their six DQs (plus one DNF) were more than the rest of the qualifiers combined. Some of the guys -- like Sullivan -- will always be strong. He's been killing the hot saw since before the words STIHL TIMBERSPORTS were created.

But for the most part, this is just a pull, hope and hold on event. Pull the chain; hope it starts; and hold on for three cuts if it does. A good time will be in the 5- to 7-second range, but predicting who will put it together and who will burn out is nearly impossible.

Final Take
A comprehensive look at all the qualifying times boasts a top-tier group that without any surprises: Jewett, Cogar, and Lentz. Matthew Cogar and Mike Forrester sit in a group right behind them.

Judging strictly from the qualifying times, Jewett is the front runner coming in, but any of the names mentioned above could take it, as well as a couple others. 

Jewett dominated the strongest qualifying field and put up the most consistent, solid times across all six events, but he -- and everybody else -- is always one DQ away from seeing their chances disappear. And that's what makes the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series so fun to watch.

Obviously, one should take the information from the qualifying times with a grain of salt. They were all in different parts of the country, different climates, different times of the year, on slightly different wood and against different competition.

Those are just the obvious red flags -- I'm sure any professional lumberjack could write a book about all the reasons it's hard to compare times across different competitions.

But in the big picture, those are really just "minor" factors. These guys were chopping on the same size and type of wood. So while these time comparisons aren't perfect, they should give us a decent idea of what we could see at the championship in a little over two weeks.

The order they'll compete in the championship switches between chopping and sawing events - springboard, stock saw, standing block, single buck, underhand and hot saw -- and here's the breakdown of the chopping events,  finishing with a summary of who had the most momentum when the qualifying finished three months ago.

Note: This is a look only at the U.S. competitors because the Australian and New Zealand lumberjacks were not in the qualifiers.

Springboard
Best time: Nathan Waterfield, 49.12 seconds in the Northeast

Analysis: There was only one time in the 40s (Waterfield) and only a few times in the 50s. This is typically the event that separates the heavy hitters from the nimble. It's a survival event for some of the larger guys who are able to rely on their power and precision on the other five disciplines.

Arden Cogar Jr. said in his latest column that this is one the events he's concerned about. Cogar's qualifying time was 72.34. That's on the lower end of the championship qualifiers.

The northeast dominated this event (and a few others), posting the three fastest times all season. Dave Jewett was second with a 50.12 and Mike Sullivan was third with a 53.59.

Standing Block
Best time: Arden Cogar Jr., 18.71 seconds in the Mid-Atlantic

Analysis: This is where the big dogs start their meal, which means this is where Cogar needs to start making his push. The springboard and especially the stock saw are more about survival. The standing block starts the run of power events.

There seemed to be two tiers in the event during the qualifiers. Cogar was one of five lumberjacks who put up times below 20 seconds (Jewett, Waterfield, Mel Lentz and Branden Sirguy).  That's the range these guys will need to be shooting for at the championship. A few of the contenders who posted in the 20- to 22-second range did well enough at the qualifiers, but it's not going to hold up against a field this thick with talent.

Underhand
Best time: Dave Jewett, 18.65 seconds in the Northeast

Analysis: Don't let Jewett's time fool you in this event -- a good time is right at the 20-second mark. Jewett was not just the only lumberjack to break 19 seconds, he was the only lumberjack to break 20 seconds. If he puts up another performance like that at the championship, it's going to be tip the cap and chop for second.

There were a handful of guys who finished between 20 and 21 seconds, so this is going to be a tight event at a critical time. Any extra chop -- even the smallest thread of wood hanging on -- could make or break a run. Adding to the pressure, this is the last place where it feels like the lumberjack is in full control of his situation. The hot saw can be so fickle and unpredictable, lumberjacks need to pile up points in the fifth discipline to make room for error in the sixth.

Our next post will break down the sawing events, and our final take will give who is looking good for the championships.

From a personal standpoint, a lot has been accomplished this summer.  But a few things remain to be done, just to give myself that extra bit of confidence I need going into the championships. 

The next 10 days will be critical for me and the others.  I like to refer to this period as "crunch time" as you can either do it right or burn yourself out.  Now is not the time to push the envelope.  Now is the time to polish what was worked upon over the past three to four months.

There are six disciplines in the series -- the springboard, the STIHL MS660 Magnum stock saw, the standing block, the single buck, the underhand and the hotsaw. 

I listed the events in that order because that is the order at a STIHL TIMBERSPORTS event.  Often when I perform all six events in one training session, I will perform the events in that order to mimic an event. Nothing is better than preparing your body for the rigors of an athletic event.

When that athletic event involves different disciplines, optimally you will need to prepare to take those in the order you compete.  So that has been my focus over the last 12 weeks.

At the end of the 2010 season, I had goals of improving my Springboard, my underhand, and my single.  Over the winter, I did just that. 

At events and training sessions throughout this season, my performances have shown marked improvements in those disciplines. I have set numerous personal records in the single buck and my underhand is pushing my thresholds.  The springboard has gotten consistently better this season.

Unfortunately, at least early on, my standing block and hotsaw faltered.  Thus my focus turned to those two events.  Correcting the miscues with the standing took one week of diligent training.  Fixing issues with the hotsaw took buying a new motor from Russ Lemke -- a new 325 Rotax I affectionately named Lottie. 

Now I know I have a motor that runs well enough to place me among the best.  The next step involves getting confident operating the motor so I can place myself among the best.

In looking at the body of work I've accomplished over the last 12 weeks of training, I feel most confident in the single buck, standing block, and underhand.
I also feel very confident in the STIHL MS660 Magnum stock saw.

That's unusual for me given my history, but, for some reason, I am making good quick cuts with near perfect changeovers in much less than the 4 inches of allotted wood.  

As such, the next 10 days will involve me getting the extra confidence I need in the two remaining events - the springboard and hotsaw.

As I sit here now, I realize I must "make my climbs" and "practice my starts and changeovers."  Given that we are so close to the event, I cannot expect to perform these events at the highest level.  My 41-year-old body simply won't allow it.
 
So I must be smart with my time and my energy levels and accept the fate that my work, my body, and my lovely wife will allow.  I am blessed with a very understanding wife, so, truly, my work and my body will be the tell-tale markers of what I can accomplish over the next 10 days.

I tip my hat to the other athletes who are preparing for this event.  We all have put in our time and deserve to be on this stage. This is "crunch time" and I love it.  I look forward to seeing everyone in Oregon.

We saw it first at the Southern qualifier with father Mike and son Matt Slingerland taking second and third place respectively on the professional side. Matt had been training under his dad for years, but things didn't get really serious until he started competing in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series a couple of years ago.

Since then, the gap between Matt, who now competes as a pro, and his dad has been shrinking rapidly. Matt is still in college pursuing his degree, but that doesn't keep him from pursuing the best in the sport – starting with his old man.

"There's a little bit of a rivalry," Matt said. "I'm always trying to edge him out. He still gets me by a little bit, but I'll get him by next year.

"It gets me excited and makes me want to train even harder to see if I can edge these guys out and get even further in the sport. Hopefully it will work out."

Scooter Cogar, the Southern collegiate champion, trains with his cousin, Arden Cogar Jr., who won the Mid-Atlantic professional qualifier. The Cogar family tree of lumberjacks has too many branches to list here, but you can almost count on one or two at any events.

The man who won the Southern Qualifier, "King of the Lumberjacks" Mel Lentz, was at Purdue University a month later watching his son the "Prince of the Lumberjacks" Jason Lentz, compete as a professional. Mel Lentz said it was the first lumberjack competition he had just watched – not competed in – in a long time.

Jason finished sixth and did not qualify for the championship. He said the expectations that come with being the son of a six-time world champion lumberjack are tough, but he has a coach who knows what he's talking about.

"He did some good things today, but we have a lot to work on," Mel said of Jason's performance. "It was good to see him in a competition."

Wally Robarge competed alongside (but not against) his son Dakota Robarge at the NorthEast Qualifier, although neither were able to qualify for the championship. Dakota finished second in the collegiate competition and Wally lost in a saw off for the fourth and final spot in the professional competition.

That leaves the Slingerlands as the only father-son duo competing in the Championship August 26-28 at the Oregon State Fair, but the family tradition of lumberjack sports seems to be as strong – or stronger – than ever on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series, which means the faces may change, but the names at the top of the could be familiar for years to come.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS from Adam Harbottle on Vimeo.

Event: Mid-Atlantic Qualifier
Location: Penn State Mont Alto
Time (all times ET): 6:30 p.m.
Air date: July 8, 2011
Network: ESPNU
Weather: Sunny but windy
At stake: Winner earns a spot in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship
What to watch for:
If you'd like a preview of this year's Mid-Atlantic qualifier, just watch last year's competition. The same two lumberjacks -- Tim Benedict and Daniel Jones – fight it out for the top spot. Last year it was Benedict who won in a saw-off. Will Jones get his revenge and earn a spot in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship?
Re-airs:
7/8/2011, 11:30 p.m.
7/9/2011, 2 a.m.
7/10/2011, 6 p.m.
7/17/2011 9:30 a.m.
7/31/2011, 8:30 a.m.
Spoiler: Results

Event: Northeast Qualifier
Location: SUNY Cobleskill
Time (all times ET): 6:30 p.m.
Air date: July 15, 2011
Network: ESPNU
Weather: Nice and sunny
At stake: Winner earns a spot in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship
What to watch for:
Get used to the name Schuyler VanAuken, of Paul Smiths College (not surprisingly). VanAuken did exactly what you have to do in a four-discipline competition – avoid the bomb. He only wins one event, but enjoy watching Mr. Consistent from the school that has most consistently produced champion lumberjacks on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series.
Re-airs:
7/15/2011, 11:30 p.m.
7/17/2011, 10 a.m.
7/24/2011, 9 a.m.
7/31/2011, 9 a.m.
Spoiler: Results

Event: Southern Qualifier
Location: University of Georgia
Time (all times ET): 6:30 p.m.
Air date: July 22, 2011
Network: ESPNU
Weather: Sunny
At stake: Winner earns a spot in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship
What to watch for:
It ‘s clear early that the south is a two-man race between Virginia Tech's Scooter Cogar and North Carolina State's Victor Wassak. Wassak trained with last year's collegiate champions, Logan Scarborough and Cogar trained with his uncle and professional lumberjack Arden Cogar Jr. Who will win the battle of the pupils? 
Re-airs:
7/22/2011, 11:30 p.m.
7/24/2011, 9:30 a.m.
7/31/2011, 9:30 a.m.
Spoiler: Results

Virginia Beach, Va. (June XX, 2011) – STIHL Inc., creator and producer of the popular lumberjack competition, the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series presented by the Ram Truck brand, announced the 2011 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship lineup. The collegiate lumberjacks won top honors in their respective regional qualifiers, advancing them to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Collegiate Championship at the Oregon State Fair Aug. 26-28.

The competitors include: Scooter Cogar, Virginia Tech University, Southern Collegiate Champion; Walter Page, Cal Poly University, Western Collegiate Champion; Andrew Gollnick, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Midwest Collegiate Champion; Daniel Jones, Haywood Community College, Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Champion; Schuyler VanAuken, Paul Smith's College, Northeast Collegiate Champion. Each athlete will also receive a $1,000 scholarship from STIHL in their name donated to their woodsmen team. Tim Benedict of Penn State University, will round out the field as the wildcard selection. Recaps of each of the competitions can be found at STIHLTIMBERSPORTS.US.

These stellar lumberjack athletes will face off across four lumberjack disciplines, the single buck, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop, to determine the nation's collegiate champion.   The champion earns an automatic spot in the 2012 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Professional Series. The Collegiate Championship will be held in conjunction with the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Professional U.S. Championship at the Oregon State Fair in Salem, Ore., Aug. 26-28. In a first for the Series, the collegiate athletes will also form a team and compete against regional professional teams in the U.S. Series' first relay competition."

More than 60 colleges and universities from across the nation competed in the 2011 Collegiate Series. "We created the Collegiate Series in 2003 in search of the next up-and-coming lumberjacks," said Roger Phelps, promotional communications manager, STIHL Inc. "We've seen tremendous talent this season among the collegiate competitors and are excited to see former collegiate competitors among the professional ranks."

As the wildcard selection, Benedict will make his second consecutive appearance in the Collegiate Championship. He competed in the 2010 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series, winning the Mid-Atlantic title and advancing to the Championship. This year, Benedict missed taking the Mid-Atlantic title by two points, but his impressive performance was acknowledged with this honor. The wildcard pick is selected to provide an even number of competitors for head-to-head action and to provide a second chance to competitors who may have performed well in the regional events but just missed securing the win.

The STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series airs on ESPNU in June and July, providing a national platform to not only highlight the competition and the sport, but also spotlight the hosting schools and their forestry programs in the Collegiate Series competition shows.

Many thoughts.  Many ideas.  No one idea is right.  But one thing I have found in 24 years of competing in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series is that every athlete is different.  We all have our own ideas. We all do the same thing a little differently.  And the ultimate truth is that we all need to find our own way.

But, for me, with age comes wisdom.  And with that wisdom comes a very important understanding of the fundamentals of athletes that I would like to pass on to the fans and to the young athletes of STIHL TIMBERSPORTS... 

When all else fails, return to the basics.

To me, STIHL TIMBERSPORTS is about understanding the nature of the 3 chopping events - the springboard, the standing block and the underhand; and understanding the nature of three sawing events - the STIHL MS660 stock saw, the single buck, and the hot saw. 

The basics of the chopping events may not be so easily understood by those outside the sport.  To use an ax properly, we must find a way to get the most out of each blow or hit upon the log.  To get the most out of each hit, we must place the ax properly on the log, we must space the ax properly from hit to hit, and we must remove the ax in the same manner that we placed it.  To do all of this we must have balance, confidence, and optimal timing.  In reality, to deliver the ax is truly no different than delivering a golf club to a golf ball - except, we must recoil and repeat until the log is severed.  But the mechanics, the preparation, and the mental focus is the same.

The basics of the sawing events are a bit more intuitive.  At least with the STIHL MS660 stock saw and the hot saw.  The objective is to make complete discs/cookies within a prescribed allotment of wood (2 cuts in 4 inches for the STIHL MS660 stock saw and three cuts in 6 inches with the hot saw). 

The rules set forth how we must approach the event.  Hands on top the wood.  All fingers across the center line.  The fingers cannot leave the center line until the gun is fired.  Then we pick up the saw (or start the hot saw) and make our cuts in the allotted amount of wood.  The key to success is being efficient (quick hands and quick transitions between cuts) and getting the motor to fall into what is known as the "torque band" -- or where the right amount of down pressure on the saw allows the chain to optimally cut without bogging down or causing the motor's RPMs to falter. 

The single buck, my favorite event, is not so intuitive.  It's one man and one saw and a 19" piece of white pine timber.  The goal is to use your body to move the saw optimally and cut the log as quickly as you can.  To describe how to use the saw optimally would take more time than I can spare, but the body mechanics used to deliver the saw is no different than throwing a heavy object with two hands, while remaining stationery, while recoiling to repeat until the log is severed.

As I write this, the hairs on the back of my neck begin to straighten as I grasp upon the true nature of what it takes to be the U.S. STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Champion.  Perspiration plus preparation equals outcome.  Let's make this happen. 

In 11 weeks, Salem and the Oregon State Fair will play host to the culmination of the efforts of the United States' best 20 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS athletes and 6 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate athletes.  Time will tell who's done their homework.

The 16 will come up against each other in a qualifying round on May 28, after which 12 athletes will go through to the actual Benelux Championship on May 29. During this Championship they will compete for the much sought-after tickets for the World Championships being held on September 1 in Roermond, in the Netherlands. Presentation of the event is in the hands of presenter Peter Preuveneers and the well-known Flemish sports presenter, Carl Huybrechts.

STIHL, the most popular brand of chainsaws in the world, began promoting these competitions for lumberjacks in 1985, giving the athletes a professional platform. Since 2001, European countries have also taken part in the competition, with increasing success. Europe has reached the top of the world in the STIHL Timbersports Series, the premiere international competition for sporting lumberjacks.

The athletes who take part in the STIHL Timbersports Series prove themselves with axe and chainsaw in six different disciplines. Strength, endurance and technical ability with the material determine who wins and who loses. The 6 different disciplines are:

Standing Block Chop: This discipline simulates felling a tree. A vertically secured block of wood (diameter 30 cm) has to be chopped through from both sides as quickly as possible. Optimum placing of the axe and a powerful swing are the factors that ensure rapid success in this discipline.

Underhand Chop: This discipline simulates cutting up a felled tree. The athletes stand on a horizontally positioned block and must cut through a 32 cm thick trunk with their axe. The block has to be chopped from both sides. Cutting through from one side only leads to disqualification in this discipline.

Springboard: In this discipline, two springboards are slotted one below the other into a vertical tree trunk. The aim is to cut through a block of wood on top of the trunk (diameter 27 cm). This discipline grew out of a technique for climbing out above the roots, which can sometimes be several metres tall.

STIHL Stock Saw: In this discipline all the contestants use the MS 660, a standard STIHL chainsaw. After allowing the saw to warm up it is then placed on the ground. On the "Go" signal it is seized and applied to the wood (diameter 40 cm). Two cookies (discs of wood) must be sawn from the horizontal tree trunk in one down cut and one up cut. The two discs must be sawn in a single piece within a marked zone of 10 cm. If the cookies are incomplete or if the marker line is crossed, the contestant is disqualified.

Single Buck: A wooden disc (diameter 46 cm) is sawn from a horizontally positioned block using a handsaw around 2 meters in length. Key to this discipline are the rhythm and dynamism of the athlete. The saw can be sprayed with an oil mixture to make it glide more smoothly. An assistant can also drive a wedge between disc and block.

Hot Saw: Using specially tuned, extremely powerful chainsaws, athletes must cut three complete cookies from a horizontally positioned wooden block (diameter 46 cm) within a piece of 15 cm. The challenge of this discipline is to control the concentrated power of the chainsaw (up to 80 hp). With a chain speed of approx. 240 km/h and a weight of approx. 27 kg, these machines demand maximum performance from the athletes.

The grounds of the SOLV Tuinbouwschool are situated at Diestersteenweg 146, Sint-Truiden, Belgium. Entry to the Days of Mechanisation costs 5 euro.

The season's championship roster includes returning pro and collegiate champions, seasoned favorites and first-timers in the Series. Mike Sullivan from Winsted, Conn., will make his 26th consecutive appearance in the Series, making him the only competitor to compete in every season of the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series. Father-son competitors Mike and Matt Slingerland from Rockwell, N.C. will also take the national stage; while Mike is a veteran on the professional circuit, Matt, who competed in the Collegiate Championship in 2008 and 2009, will make his debut in the U.S. title competition. Another newcomer to the Series is Chris Bradshaw from Ridgeley, W.Va.

Representing the younger, up-and-coming lumberjack generation, Will Roberts from Cortland, N.Y., continues to impress and leave his mark on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series. Roberts won the 2005 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship and has competed in the Professional Series since. 

Former STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series U.S. champions Carson Bosworth (2008), Arden Cogar Jr. (2009) and Mel Lentz (2010) will return this summer hoping history will repeat itself.

During Oregon State Fair's opening weekend, the pro competitors will compete in two pools of 10 across six lumberjack disciplines, the hot saw, springboard chop, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop, racing the clock and each other. The top four in each pool advance to the final U.S. Championship round Sunday, Aug. 28, where they will compete for a slice of the coveted national title and the opportunity to advance to the World Championship in Holland Sept. 3-4. Additional pros will be selected by officials to represent the U.S. in the World Championship Relay Competition. ESPN2 cameras will be on site to catch the wood-chopping, saw-screaming action. The 2011 Series will air on ESPN2 this fall.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series 2011 U.S. Championship Competitors
Carson Bosworth, Lake Geneva, Wis.
Chris Bradshaw, Ridgeley, W.Va.
Harry Burnsworth, Mill Run, Pa.
Arden Cogar Jr., West Hamlin, W.Va.
Matt Cogar, Diana, W.Va.
Mike Eash, Coatesville, Pa.
Mike Forrester, Idleyld Park, Ore.
Warrick Hallett, Glencoe, Minn.
Dave Jewett, Pittsford, NY
Wally Robarge, Middlesex, NY
Mel Lentz, Diana, W.Va.
David Moses, Snoqualmie, Wash.
Will Roberts, Cortland, NY
Branden Sirguy, Port Angeles, Wash.
Jeff Skirvin, Clatskanie, Ore.
Matt Slingerland , Rockwell, NC
Mike Slingerland, Rockwell, NC
Mike Sullivan, Winsted, Conn.
Nathan Waterfield, Cherry Valley, NY
Daryl Weakland, Kannapolis, NC

Wally Robarge, who had counted himself out of the running after an early DQ in the stock saw, spent most of the day sitting in the stands with his family between events. He was relaxed and was helping his son Dakota from Finger Lakes Community College in the Northeast Collegiate competition.

Richard Jordan, who started the day fast with a good finish in the springboard and a win in the stock saw, spent most the day comfortably inside the four-man championship cut.

But as it usually does, the hot saw lingered in the mind of both competitors as the event that could change everything. It did just that.

Jordan came into the day's final event with a five-point lead over Robarge, but he was using a borrowed saw that he had little faith in. His first cut down wasn't bad, but the saw started to sputter on the way back up the white pine and eventually shut down.

Jordan just dropped his saw and shook his head in disbelief.

"I was [upset]," Jordan said after the event, recalling the moment. "All I needed were three clean cuts and it didn't happen."

With Jordan receiving zero points for a DNF, Robarge only needed to finish in fifth place to punch his ticket to the championship in Oregon. Robarge's run wasn't perfect, but it was clean and put him in fourth place with one heat remaining.

The Championship fate of Robarge was in the hands of Mike Sullivan and David Engasser. If he beat just one of them -- if just one of them DQ'd, which is common in the hot saw -- he would be going to the championship. But Robarge had no such luck.

Sullivan and Engasser posted two of the fastest hot saw times recorded all season, which meant the final spot at the Oregon State Fair would be decided in a saw off between Robarge and Jordan. The lumberjacks don't go head-to-head in a STIHL TIMBERSPORTS saw-off. They make their cuts separately and the fastest time wins.

Robarge, who had cut over the 4-inch line and been disqualified in the stock saw just an hour earlier, went first and put up two clean cuts.

"I wasn't just going to hand it to you this time," Robarge told Jordan as they crossed each other on stage.

Jordan, coming off a win in the stock saw an hour earlier, made almost a perfect cut and secured the final professional spot in the championship.

"It felt good," he said. "I have a lot of confidence in the stock saw."

Lost in the drama of the final event was one of the more dominating performances of the season from Dave Jewett.

Jewett won three events and never finished worse than third in any of the disciplines on his way to a 7-point victory over second place Nathan Waterfield. Jewett finished 23 points ahead of Jordan in fourth.  STIHL TIMBERSPORTS veteran Mike Sullivan finished in third.

"I had a good day," Jewett said. "It's been a while since I've advanced in a STIHL TIMBERSPORTS event and it feels good."

The Northeast Collegiate Qualifier, which in the new format was being held on the same stage at the same time as the pro event, had very little drama.

Schuyler VanAuken, of Paul Smiths College, never finished worse than third, including a win in the single buck on his way to the qualifying victory. VanAuken was able to extend the streak of Paul Smith's College, which has won the Northeast every year since 2006.

VanAuken joins the four other collegiate qualifiers in championship. In the next month, STIHL TIMBERSPORTS staff will choose a wildcard from the college ranks to round out the 6-man championship field.

"We're excited to bring the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series to SUNY Cobleskill for the first time," said Roger Phelps, promotional communications manager, STIHL Inc. "The lumberjack sports tradition is very strong in the northeast, and we think the Cobleskill campus with its excellent forestry school is the perfect venue to host one of our biggest annual competitions."

Nearly a dozen northeast colleges will compete in the annual forestry competition including Alfred State College, Colby College, Dartmouth College, Finger Lakes Community College, Paul Smith's College, SUNY Cobleskill, SUNY ESF, SUNY ESF Ranger School, Unity College, University of Connecticut and University of New Hampshire will converge on Cobleskill. In the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Qualifier, ESPNU cameras will capture the action as each school selects their best lumberjack to go head-to-head in four disciplines, the single buck, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop to determine the region's best collegiate woodsman. The winner will earn a $1,000 scholarship from STIHL for his school and advance to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship. The 2011 Collegiate Series will be televised on ESPNU later this year. Last year Cobleskill's Tyler White competed as the wildcard selection in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship against the best U.S. collegiate lumberjacks. Another dominant force from the Northeast was last year's Northeast Qualifier winner, Jon Preston of Paul Smith's College, who placed second in the Collegiate Championship.

STIHL will also host the third annual dedicated STIHL TIMBERSPORTS collegiate women's event Friday, April 29 at 4 p.m. The participating schools will select their top lumberjill to compete in three professional disciplines, the single buck, stock saw and underhand chop to determine who will reign as queen. The top lumberjill will receive a $500 scholarship from STIHL for their school.
"SUNY Cobleskill is privileged to host the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Northeast Qualifier and continue the growth of lumberjack sports on the professional and collegiate level," said SUNY Cobleskill woodsmen team advisor Joseph Lydon. "The new professional format and the increasing number of collegiate competitors, who train and compete throughout the year, should bring even more spectators and television viewers to this unique athletic event."

The Professional Northeast Qualifier will feature former collegiate competitors and U.S. champions, as well as new and veteran faces in the competition. Corey Christians from Windsor, Conn., competed in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series advancing to the 2008 and 2009 Collegiate Championships while he attended the University of Connecticut. Christians will make his professional debut in the Northeast Qualifier. Local favorite Nathan "Bucket" Waterfield began competing in the sport while attending college. He not only competes in the Pro Series, but he also coaches the SUNY Cobleskill woodsmen team. Mike Sullivan from Winsted, Conn., will make his 26th consecutive appearance in the Series; and Dave Jewett, the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series ESPNU analyst and seasoned competitor will also compete in the Northeast Qualifier.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Western Qualifier
Professional Competitors
Corey Christians Windsor, Conn.
Dave Engasser Cortland, NY
Matt Galambos Biddeford, Maine
Jerry Gingras Errol, NH
Chris Henning Walworth, NY
Dave Jewett Pittsford, NY
Richard Jordan Sterling, Conn.
Wally Robarge Naples, NY
Mike Sullivan Winsted, Conn.
Nathan Waterfield Cherry Valley, NY
 

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series Western Qualifier
Participating Schools

Alfred State College, Alfred, NY
Colby College, Waterville, Maine
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Finger Lakes Community College, Canandaigua, NY
Paul Smith's College, Paul Smiths, NY
SUNY-Cobleskill, Cobleskill, NY
SUNY-ESF, Syracuse, NY
SUNY-ESF Ranger School, Wanakena, NY
Unity College, Unity, Maine
University of Connecticut, Storrs, Conn.
University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH

First, and this may surprise some given that I'm a 24 year veteran on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series, I actually had to combat my nerves while competing at the Mid-Atlantic Qualifier. 

 For the first time in many years, I was overwhelmed with a sense of "did I do enough to get ready?"  "Will my hot saw run?"  "Oh Lord, I hope those springboard poles don't wobble."   My wife thought I was acting like a baby for at least a week prior to traveling to the Penn State Mont Alto campus. 

 As I gathered up my gear after the event, I thought to myself, "Why was I such a basket case? Everything went well."  Upon reflection, I realized that the Professional TIMBERSPORTS Series has been held at venues during the summer months while the collegiate athletes qualified during the school year.  

This year is the first time the Professional STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series has been held in conjunction with the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Challenge. Given this new format, the professional athletes go to the collegiate conclaves in their respective region; and those events happened early on in the North American lumberjack season.  To that end, despite having competed in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Champion's Trophy the month prior -- I had not done two of the four disciplines on the TIMBERSPORTS Series under race conditions.  The Mid Atlantic Qualifier was my first real competition of the year.  The same can be said for most of the professional athletes at the three previous qualifiers as well. 

 Second, and this is somewhat related to the first and I find this absolutely wonderful, the atmosphere of running the Professional Qualifiers in conjunction with the Collegiate Qualifiers is both overwhelmingly and  captivating (in a good way).  The youthful enthusiasm expressed by the collegiate athletes -- and their supportive team mates and family members -- was, to me, intoxicating. 

 As I ascended the stage before the standing block, knowing I was leading in overall points after two of my weaker events, a young member of the Haywood Community College Woodsmen Team told me, "Mr. Cogar, I've watched you chop for years.  I can't wait to see what you do to this standing block."  For some reason, something in my mind "clicked."  As a result, I put up one of the best cuts of my professional career severing the 12-inch white pine log in a respectable 18 seconds, but winning the event by over 7 seconds. 

 I left Mont Alto more invigorated than I can describe.  These young men and woman on the collegiate woodsmen teams pay attention and take notice.  I felt their youthful enthusiasm pour into me and charge my aging body. 

 I can't thank them enough.  And the exciting thing for me is our season has yet to begin and I have a full 15 weeks to get ready for the Oregon State Fair.  As I sit here now, I can't help think to myself, "This is going to be a great year."

Benedict came into the event trailing Daniel Jones, of Haywood Community College, by one point, and Jones had already put up what he described as "the best time of my life" in the underhand, 30.01 seconds.

These two had met before. Benedict, while chopping for Penn State Mont Alto, beat Jones in a saw-off last season to win the Mid-Atlantic. Jones said it wasn't something easy to forget.

"That definitely motivated me as I trained this year," he said. "I knew I needed to put in more work than everybody else."

After finishing the front of his underhand in right at 15 seconds, Benedict started on the back. He began trying to drive the log off at 28 seconds, but just enough wood held the block together in his last few attempts, and he finished with a time of 31.05 seconds and second place.

Benedict whipped around to see his time and dropped his head. Jones pumped his fist in celebration.

"I had a great day today," Jones said. "Honestly, a lot of the times I put up were personal bests. I was nervous all day with Tim right behind me, but I was glad to get the win."

Jones attributed most of his success to his coach Jimmy Lawrence -- a pro from the Southern region -- but also mentioned his time on one of the lumberjack tours with pros like Southern championship qualifier Daryl Weakland.

It's been a constant throughout this collegiate season: the competitors that spend time training with professionals do well at events.

That's one of the reason STIHL TIMBERSPORTS introduced the exciting new format this season where the professional and collegiate lumberjacks compete at the same events, at the same time.

That pattern held true in the first qualifier of the year, the Southern, where Scooter Cogar had the edge after training with Arden Cogar Jr.

The elder Cogar was in action on Sunday in the pro division and it was obvious he had been putting the work in. Cogar represented the U.S. in a European STIHL TIMBERSPORTS event held in Austria called the Champions Trophy in early March, so he spent the winter preparing. As fellow pro and ESPN talent Dave Jewett put it, "Arden Cogar doesn't have an offseason. He trains year-round."

Although he only ended up winning by 1 point, it was more a result of a poor hot saw performance than a true picture of the dominance he showed. Cogar won three of the six disciplines, and held the lead for most of the day.

"You look at the field I'm competing against today, and for me to win by the margins I won by today, you can tell that I put the early work in," Cogar said. "I don't usually beat these guys by that much. More than likely they'll close that gap, although I'll get a little sharper too as the season goes on."

Unlike the previous three qualifiers, the Mid-Atlantic was a pretty steady, predictable day. Cogar, the top seed, took the win, but the other three championship qualifiers -- Mike Eash, Will Roberts and Harry Burnsworth -- held their spots inside the cut for most of the day.

Much of that steadiness and predictability was a result of clean hot saw runs. In contrast to the Midwest Qualifier, where only three of 10 competitors finished the hot saw with a score, the Mid-Atlantic saw mostly clean runs and only one DNF (did not finish).

The final qualifier of the season will be at SUNY Cobleskill on April 30th.

"We're looking forward to bringing the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Mid-Atlantic Qualifiers and the ESPN cameras to Penn State Mont Alto," said Roger Phelps, promotional communications manager, STIHL Inc. "With both the Collegiate and Professional Qualifiers taking place, fans will get double the action and double the talent with the region's best collegiate and pro woodsmen."

Collegiate lumberjacks and jills from Mid-Atlantic schools including: Allegany College of Maryland, Haywood Community College, Montgomery Community College, Pennsylvania College of Technology, Penn State Mont Alto, and University of North Carolina-Charlotte will compete for top honors in the Collegiate Qualifier. In the Collegiate Series, the participating universities select their best lumberjack to chop and saw in four disciplines, the single buck, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop, using professional-sized wood and rules. The competitor with the most cumulative points after all four disciplines earns a $1,000 scholarship from STIHL for his or her school and advances to the 2011 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship.

"The STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Mid-Atlantic Qualifier paired with the Mid-Atlantic Woodsmen's Meet is the biggest event we've had at Mont Alto in my 19 years coaching the Woodsmen Team," said Craig Houghton, Penn State Mont Alto forest technology instructor. "What's really special is Tom Oliver, a recent forest technology alumnus, is competing as a pro and many other alumni will be here cheering him on."

Another face in the pro competition is long-time competitor and 2009 U.S. champion Arden Cogar Jr., a civil defense trial attorney from West Hamlin, W. Va., who has competed in the Series for more than two decades and represented the U.S. in the 2010 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS World Championships. Cogar will join nine of the region's top professional lumberjacks as they face off across six disciplines, the hot saw, single buck, springboard chop, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop, racing each other and the clock. Also competing in the Pro Series is Will Roberts from Groton, NY, who will make his sixth consecutive appearance in the Series. He won the 2005 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship while attending SUNY-College of Environmental Science and Forestry and has competed as a professional ever since. Roberts made STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series history last year as the first former collegiate competitor to make the final round at the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS U.S. Championship.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Mid-Atlantic Qualifier
Professional Competitors

Harry Burnsworth   Mill Run, Pa.
Arden Cogar    West Hamlin, W.Va.
Mike Eash    Coatesville, Pa.
Kyle Friend    Kearneysville, W.Va.
Mike Koers    Hawk Run, Pa.
Matt Marks    Middlesex, NY
Andrew Mattison   Brockport, NY
Tom Oliver    Palmyra, Pa.
Paul Pfenninger  Scottsville, NY
Will Roberts   Cortland, NY

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series Mid-Atlantic Qualifier
Participating Schools

Allegany College of Maryland
Haywood Community College
Montgomery Community College
Pennsylvania College of Technology
Penn State Mont Alto
Penn State University Park
University of North Carolina-Charlotte
West Virginia University

Matt Cogar, Warrick Hallett, Carson Bosworth and Adam LaSalle had a six point cushion on Jason Lentz (son of Mel Lentz) and Rick Halvorson. Christopher Bradshaw was almost nowhere to be found in seventh.

But Bradshaw won the single buck and placed second in the underhand while LaSalle, Halvorson and Lentz all started to falter. By the time the fickle final event, the hot saw, came around, Bradshaw trailed LaSalle by only one point for the fourth and final spot in the championship.

LaSalle was in the heat before Bradshaw. His first cut was clean, but he caught a snag in his up-cut, stalled his saw and threw a chain. All LaSalle could do was set his hot saw down and shake his head in disbelief.

Bradshaw, who was watching every second of the run, said he felt a sense of relief.

"I knew all I had to do was put three on the deck," Bradshaw said. "The first time I ran this saw was at Hayward in 2008, and I was talking with Mel Lentz and Matt Cogar about just putting three on the deck. That's the first thing that entered my mind when I saw [LaSalle] DQ."

Bradshaw did more than just put three on the deck, he cut three complete discs in 8.77 seconds, moving him comfortably inside the cut.

"I'll hit the gym this summer for three or four days a week and chop three or four days a week," he said. "My wife will probably kill me, but that's what I've got to do to be ready for the championship."

Cogar's day had far less drama. He won the standing block and underhand, and hung around the top the standings in all of the events. He finished comfortably as the Midwest champion.

"There are a few things I want to clean up, but at the start of the season, I thought it was a good performance," Cogar said.

Cogar was hoping to be competing against his father, Paul Cogar, but Paul -- who competed in the Southern Qualifier -- couldn't overcome a DQ in the springboard. He had the fastest springboard time, but was DQ'd for not putting nails in the top of his block.

"I was really disappointed not to see him not make it just because of a simple thing he overlooked," Matt Cogar said. "I put in plenty of nails today. I took the nails he didn't put in and added them to mine."

Former Collegiate Series champion LaSalle was disappointed in his hot saw and his finish, but one of young lumberjacks he's been training experienced a dose of redemption on Saturday.

Andrew Gollnick, of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, tied for last season's Midwest championship, but lost his shot at the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS championship in a saw-off. This year, he eliminated all doubt.

Gollnick started the day by winning the stock saw, and put more distance between himself and the field with a win the third event, the single buck.

But he almost saw his lead disappear in the standing block -- Gollnick's worst event.

"I was happy just to finish the standing block," he said. "There were a couple events where I wish I would have done a little better."

His time of 58.98 seconds in the standing block wasn't great, but it was good enough to give him a two-point victory -- no saw-off required.

"I don't know if I can put this feeling into words," Gollnick said. "Working with LaSalle, Warrick and all those guys has been awesome. They just looked me in the eyes and told me I could do it. It's been incredible."

Gollnick, a senior majoring in Forest Administration, said he'll work the summer as a firefighter and spend all his free time training for the championship, which will be held at the Oregon State Fair in August.

"We're excited to bring the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series to Purdue University and West Lafayette, said Roger Phelps, promotional communications manager, STIHL Inc. "Combining the pro and collegiate events has been a real winner for us and provides our fans a double dose of the Original Extreme Sport."

On the collegiate side, forestry clubs from nine regional colleges and universities including Michigan State, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, University of Missouri and University of Minnesota will converge on the Purdue campus for the 59th Annual Midwestern Forester's Conclave. In the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Midwest Qualifier, colleges select their best lumberjack to compete in four professional lumberjack disciplines: the single buck, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop. The winner will earn a $1,000 scholarship from STIHL and advance to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship. Not only will ESPNU cameras document the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Midwest Challenge, but also showcase the Purdue Agriculture-Forestry and Natural Resources Department, the Purdue campus and West Lafayette in front of a national audience. The 2011 Collegiate Series will be televised on ESPNU later this year.

"We're thrilled to host the 2011 Midwest Qualifier competition at Purdue University," said Dr. Michael Saunders, assistant professor of forestry and natural resources and faculty adviser to the Purdue Forestry Club. "Our students have used this event as an opportunity to practice leadership skills and team building, and connect with the lumber industry in our region. We are ready to showcase the best of Purdue Agriculture and enjoy a fantastic weekend of competition and camaraderie." 

On the professional side, veteran competitors such as Carson Bosworth from Lake Geneva, Wis., Warrick Hallett from Minn. and Rick Halvorson from Alma Center, Wis. will face off against former collegiate bests like Adrian Flygt from Fort Collins, Colo. and 2009 collegiate champion Adam LaSalle from Towers, Minn. in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Midwest Professional Qualifier. Ten of the area's top professional lumberjacks will go head-to-head in six lumberjack disciplines: the hot saw, single buck, springboard chop, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop in the Professional Qualifier, contending for one of four U.S. Championship slots. The pros will race the clock and each other. Other standouts on the Midwest Pro roster include Matt Cogar, competing for his third season in the Series and Jason Lentz, son of former U.S. champion Mel "King of the Lumberjacks" Lentz, making his STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series debut.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Midwest Qualifier
Professional Competitors

Carson Bosworth, Lake Geneva, Wis.
Chris Bradshaw, Ridgeley, W.Va.
Matt Cogar, Diana, W.Va.
Adrian Flygt, Fort Collins, Colo.
Warrick Hallett, Glencoe, Minn.
Adam LaSalle, Tower, Minn.
Jason Lentz, Diana, W. Va.
Rick Halvorson, Alma Center, Wis.
Mark Jones, Princeton, W.Va.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series Midwest Qualifier
Participating Schools

Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.
Michigan Tech University, Houghton, Mich.
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.
Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Carbondale, Ill.
Three Rivers Community Collge, Poplar Bluff, Mo.
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn.
University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo.
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Stevens Points, Wis.

There are other 2011 athletes who had family members compete in previous years and who helped teach them -- Arden Cogar Jr., Carson Bosworth, Derek Pouchnik, Mike Forrester, David Moses, Rob Waibel, Rick Halverson and Warrick Hallett just to name a few.  

But very few knew that until a few years ago, U.S. Lumberjack Sports had an absolutely fantastic farm system for up and coming STIHL TIMBERSPORTS athletes.  A farm system very much unlike minor league baseball.  It involves state funded schools that have forestry clubs and woodsmen's or outdoorsmen's clubs. 

Over the past nine years, STIHL USA has made a commitment to developing the youth of U.S. Lumberjack Sports. By sponsoring the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate series, STIHL has established a wonderful foundation for the next generation of U.S. Lumberjack Sports athletes. 

To appreciate this foundation, let's look at the 2011 Series. Four former STIHL Collegiate Champions are competing on this year's pro series - Adam LaSalle (University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point by way of Paul Smith's College), Mike Koers (Syracuse by way of Finger Lakes Community College), Logan Scarborough (North Carolina State), and Will Roberts (Syracuse). 

In addition to the champions, another 10 athletes now traveling as professional lumberjacks competed on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series: Matt Slingerland (UNC at Charlotte), Logan Scarborough (NC State), Ben Notterman (University of Maine), Tom Martin (Cal Poly), David Green (Central Oregon Community College), Adrian Flygt (Colorado Sate), Matt Marks (Syracuse) , Andrew Mattison (Syracuse), Tom Oliver (Penn State), Nathan Waterfield (Syracuse), Matt Galambos (University of Maine) and Corey Christains (University of Connecticut). 

 To further appreciate this foundation, 31 of the 50 athletes on the 2011 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series competed on their respective colleges woodsmen's or outdoorsmen's team. 

Three schools have produced a good share of these athletes - Finger Lakes Community College (Daryl Weakland, Mike Koers, Paul Pfenninger, Dave Engasser, Wally Robarge, and Chris Henning); West Virginia University (Bryan Wamsley, Mark Jones, Matt Jones, Chris Bradshaw, Kyle Friend and Arden Cogar Jr.); and Syracuse or the State University of New York (Mike Koers, Andrew Mattison, Nathan Waterfield, Matt Marks and Will Roberts).  The University of Idaho has also produced several athletes onto the Lumberjack Circuit with two alumni on the 2011 Series -- James Hartley and Carson Bosworth. 

Over the past 10 years, we've seen a great change in the athletes who appear on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series.  Over the past few years, STIHL USA has committed to bringing collegiate athletes to the pro series. 

During 2011, STIHL USA has committed to bringing the pro series to the collegiate athletes.  Such a mix is wonderful for the farm system that will provide the next generation of STIHL TIMBERSPORTS athletes. 

Eyes have been opened and flames have been lit.  Long live STIHL TIMBERSPORTS.

"We were in a really close arena and we had to walk through the crowds to get to and from the stage," Cogar said. "We had security to guide us and if it hadn't been for the security, I don't think we would have made it.

"I really enjoy the festivities and crowds that are at the European events. It's like a soccer match with a beer garden. They really enjoy STIHL TIMBERSPORTS."

Cogar was representing the United States at the event just a he had done five months earlier in the world championship. And just like in that championship, he was representing well.

From the beginning of the hour and half long show aired live on Eurosport, Cogar and Wynyard seemed to be on a collision course for the final. It was a single elimination, bracket formula that basically amounted to a one man relay through stock saw, underhand, single buck and standing block.

Eight lumberjacks were entered, which meant there were three rounds through the final. By the time he met Wynyard, Cogar had already done the entire relay twice in less than an hour's time. But he was ready.

Cogar felt the pressure of representing his country and STIHL USA, so he had been training for this single event for 12 weeks. He had knee surgery 14 weeks before the event, gave himself two weeks off, and then got to training.

"I really invested a lot of time in getting ready for this event," Cogar said. "Twice a week I would set those races up and do three or four of them within a 90-minute time frame."

Cogar said he actually ended up over-training and caught pneumonia two weeks before the event.

"I kept thinking to myself that I should be losing weight, why am I not losing weight? I was eating so much to keep my body fueled, I actually gained a few pounds," he said. "As I told my friends, I'm really fit but I'm still fat."

Adding to his confidence, a fresh Cogar said he saw fear in Wynyard as they took their spots on stage -- Wynyard later admitted to Cogar that it was true.

"Jason Wynyard is one of the top lumberjack athletes in the world and I think I got under his skin -- he was worried about me," Cogar said. "I'll take that as an honor."

But as he's done so many times before, Wynyard found exactly what he needed at just the right moment and beat Cogar by 7 seconds. Cogar was disappointed to lose – and disappointed in his underhand – but losing to Jason Wynyard in a STIHL TIMBERSPORTS event is almost like not losing at all.

Cogar said he came away from the March 11 event feeling good about the upcoming season.

"Jason and I were above the rest," he said. "We've competed in these types of events before and he's beaten me more times than I've beaten him, but I have beaten him."

When Cogar takes the stage as one of 10 pros at the Mid-West STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Pro Series Qualifier April 17 on the Campus of Penn State Mont Alto, he'll do so with the swagger of a lumberjack who has already put in a lot of work.

"Before this season really started, I had cut more logs than the other 49 competitors combined. I guarantee it," he said. "No one else had anything to train for. I feel like I'm ahead."

He just walked slowly to the corner of the stage with his ax by his side and watched the other lumberjack in his heat, Northern Arizona's David Gouevia, finish his cut.

It had been like that all day with Page, who was dominant from start to finish over the other 11 collegiate lumberjacks competing in the West. After winning the first event, the underhand, he just scratched his red beard and walked back stage. Occasionally, he'd give a wave to the rowdy crowd full of locals and fellow students cheering him on, but for the most part, he was all business.

In the four collegiate disciplines -- underhand, stock saw, standing block and single buck -- Page finished first, second, first and third.

"I did about how I expected to do," he said after hammering home a six-point victory. "This wood was cutting pretty well. I thought it would be a little softer than the wood I had been practicing on and it was. I was pleased with my times."

With the win, Page joins Southern champion Scooter Cogar in the collegiate championship as two of the eventual six that will compete -- five automatic qualifiers and a wildcard.

Seconds after Page made his championship official, 10 professionals started their battle for four spots in STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Pro Series championship, which will be held at the Oregon State fair in August.

Unlike the collegiate event, the professional competition was more a game of consistency. Mike Forrester, who ended up winning the West by eight points, didn't win a single discipline, and David Moses, who qualified in the fourth position, was second to last after two events.

"It was just a solid day. I didn't do anything above my abilities and didn't disappoint myself on any event," Forrester said. "Considering the time of year and with us not competing for four or five months, it was a good day."

Rob Waibel won two disciplines -- the springboard and the underhand -- but didn't qualify, finishing sixth. He was DQ'd for cutting over the line in the stock saw and wasn't able to get his hot saw started.

Jeff Skirvin did just the opposite of Waibel, surviving in the chopping events and taking advantage of the sawing events. Skirvin ended the Western Qualifier in second, one point ahead of Branden Sirguy.

"I just wanted to hang on in the springboard and I did that," Skirvin said. "Stock saw is my best event. They say no motor, no fun. I'm a motor head, so I love the sawing events."

Skirvin won the stock and finished second to T.J. Bexten in the hot saw.

For all the lumberjacks who qualified on Friday -- Forrester, Skirvin, Sirguy, Moses and Page -- it's five months of preparation for the championship.

Page said he'll chop as many logs as possible in his spare time between graduating and getting a job in the forestry business. Forrester said the win was nice, but he is a long way from championship form.

"The [lumberjack] shows will start up soon and the weather will warm up, so I should be doing pretty well by August," Forrester said. "This event gives me some confidence as I start the season, but we're all going to have to step it up a notch or two.

"The competition is going to be tough at the championship because everybody will be in the swing of things. I'll have to cut a few seconds off each event to be ready for the next round."

After spending two years in the collegiate ranks, this was Green's first professional competition with STIHL TIMBERSPORTS and he was a little worried.

"I'm telling myself I just need to have fun," Green said. "I haven't had as much time to train as I would have liked. I know I can do well, but I need a lot of things to go right."

Things did not go right.

In the springboard, Green had trouble getting his second board in tight and he finished last. His times and placing got better from there, but a cut knee in the single buck continued a streak of misfortune for Green in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series.

In 2009 while competing for Central Oregon Community College in the Western Conclave, Green injured his shoulder in the standing block but decided to finish the competition's last event. His pull -- and win -- in the single buck that year was one of the gutsier performances in the history of the collegiate events. He said the shoulder still bothers him.

Last year, Green would have had a shot at the collegiate championship title, but a DQ in the easiest event -- the stock saw -- put him out of the running.

Over the last six months, Green said he's been to the hospital three times because of training injuries, although none of them were serious enough to keep him from competing. 

"I'm a basket case man, I really am," he said in good humor after the Western event. "I'll just keep practicing and hopefully I'll get another chance next year."

Hot Wire

It's never good to use the words "hot saw" and "mishap" in the same sentence, but that's exactly what Branden Sirguy had before the start of the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Western Qualifier.

It was Sirguy's first time to use a brand new hot saw in competition and he was warming it up when a wire came lose.

"It grounded out on the motor and I became the kill switch. I got a good shock through me," he said. "My reaction was to let go, of course. It fell on the plywood as the motor was dying, but it cut through the plywood and into the concrete and ruined the chain."

With the competition only hours away, Sirguy was without a chain, but when word got around about what had happened, eventual champion Mike Forrester came to the rescue.

"I owe Mike a debt of gratitude because he loaned me the chain I ran today," Sirguy said. "I ended up finishing fifth but I didn't expect to do much better than that with my own chain."

More importantly, the six points Sirguy banked in the hot saw competition helped him become one of the four qualifiers for the final.

The competition heats up Friday at 1 p.m. PDT with the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Western Collegiate and Professional Qualifiers, a one-on-one, winner-take-all chopping and sawing competition held at Cal Poly Rodeo Arena (Highland Drive and Mount Bishop Road). ESPN2 and ESPNU cameras will be onsite to capture the wood-chopping action. The top collegiate and professional lumberjacks will advance to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate and Professional U.S. Championships at the Oregon State Fair Aug. 26-28. The event is free and open to the public.

"We're excited to bring the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Western Qualifiers and the ESPN cameras to Cal Poly," said Roger Phelps, promotional communications manager, STIHL Inc. "Many of our top collegiate and professional competitors like Mike Forrester, David Green, Rob Waibel and Branden Sirguy hail from the western region. The competition is sure to be close and a true test of precision, power and speed."

More than 250 students from 10 regional colleges and universities including Colorado State University, Humboldt State University, Modesto Junior College, University of California-Berkeley, University of Idaho and University of Nevada-Reno will converge on the Cal Poly campus. Athletes will compete in four professional lumberjack disciplines: the single buck, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Western Collegiate Qualifier.

The winner will earn a $1,000 scholarship from STIHL and advance to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship. Not only will ESPNU cameras document the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Western Challenge, but also showcase the Cal Poly Natural Resources Management Department, the Cal Poly campus and San Luis Obispo in front of a national audience. The 2011 Collegiate Series will be televised on ESPNU later this year.

"We are so pleased to host the 2011 Western Qualifier competition here at Cal Poly," said Dr. Doug Piirto, Natural Resources Management Department Head. "The Cal Poly Logging Team students, faculty and staff have worked tirelessly to prepare for this high-profile event. I am very proud of the leadership skills that our students have demonstrated in the process. The team has done a superb job in preparing to compete and to showcase logging sports, their competitive club, and their university."

Long-time STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series competitor Mike Forrester from Idleyld, Ore., who was featured on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report in 2008, will be among 10 of the area's top professional lumberjacks to compete in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Western Professional Qualifier. Contending for one of four U.S. Championship slots, the pros will race the clock and each other through six lumberjack disciplines, the hot saw, single buck, springboard chop, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop.

Former collegiate competitor David Green from Sisters, Ore. captured the 2009 and 2010 Western Collegiate Qualifier titles, advancing to the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship for two consecutive years. He will return to compete at the Western Qualifier, for the first time as a pro.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Western Qualifier
Professional Competitors
TJ Bexten Hoquiam, Wash.
Mike Forrester Idleyld Park, Ore.
David Green Sisters, Ore.
James Hartley Colbert, Wash.
Tom Martin Bend, Ore.
David Moses Snoqualmie, Wash.
Derek Pouchnik Viola, Idaho
Branden Sirguy Port Angeles, Wash.
Jeff Skirvin Clatskanie, Ore.
Rob Waibel West Linn, Ore.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series Western Qualifier
Participating Schools

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Central Oregon Community College, Bend, Ore.
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colo.
Flathead Valley Community College, Kalispell, Mont.
Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.
Modesto Junior College. Modesto, Calif.
Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Ariz.
Oregon State University, Corvallis, Ore.
University of California, Berkley, Berkley, Calif.
University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
University of Montana, Missoula, Mont.
University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, Nev.

The STIHL TIMBERSPORTS crew saw this as a way for the student athletes to be able to interact with and learn from the best in the sport. So it was no surprise that with 14 schools represented, the top two college lumberjacks in the southern region had both been training with professionals.

For Victor Wassak it was former North Carolina State teammate and 2010 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate champion Logan Scarborough. Wassak said the few weekends he was able to spend with Scarborough -- who was at the event competing as a pro -- were "extremely helpful."

"He points out stuff that I'm doing wrong, things I can do better and things that will help me out," Wassak said. "Practicing with the club just gives me a chance to try and apply what Logan taught me."

Scooter Cogar -- who had a better than 50 percent chance of becoming  a lumberjack just because of his last name -- spent "a lot of weekends" this last year in Virginia training with his cousin, Arden Cogar Jr.

"We cut a lot of logs -- a lot of single buck and a lot of standing block," said Cogar, who ended up winning the Southern and qualifying for the collegiate championship. "Arden is pretty much the one who taught me how to cut. He's helped me tremendously."

Cogar said he'll spend a lot of weekends at cousin Cogar's house over the next five months preparing for the final, and that he might even throw in a few more competitions.

"I enjoy the heck out of this stuff," he said. "I go to as many competitions as I can afford, and sometimes evens those I can't afford. It's something I really love doing."

The lumberjack who probably knows the most about learning from a pro is Matt Slingerland. Matt's dad Mike Slingerland has been competing as a professional lumberjack for years and has spent the last few years teaching Matt everything he knows.

The gap between Matt, who now competes as a pro, and his dad has been shrinking rapidly over the last couple years.

The Slingerlands compete against each other roughly 15 times a year, but this is the first time they've gone head-to-head in a STIHL TIMBERSPORTS event. There was an obvious rivalry between father and son.

After Matt, who is still in college pursuing his degree, posted a solid 24.88 second time in the standing block, he raised his ax in the air and played to the crowd. One heat later, when Mike Slingerland posted a 20.86-second time, he skipped the crowd and pointed straight at Matt.

"There's a little bit of a rivalry," Matt said. "I'm always trying to edge him out. He still gets me by a little bit, but I'll get him by next year. I'm banking on it."

Matt had a small taste of revenge two events later in the underhand, where he bested the entire field, including Lentz, with a time of 20.98 seconds.

"I was bragging about Matt's underhand skills earlier, and I saw that glint in Melvin's eye where he was wondering how much of that was fatherly exaggeration," Mike Slingerland said.  "Now he believes."

The Slingerlands will continue to compete and train together, but Matt said his success in Georgia will give him a little bit extra as he prepares.

"It gets me excited and makes me want to train even harder to see if I can edge these guys out and get even further in the sport," he said. "Hopefully it will work out."

With the exciting change in the professional format, which now includes five qualifying events, the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series presented by Ram is sharing the stage with a group of the top professionals at all of their conclaves during the 2011 season.

The students were on stage first, kicking off the largest collegiate event with the underhand chop. It was clear early that it was going to be a two-man race between Virginia Tech's Scooter Cogar and North Carolina State's Victor Wassak.

Wassak and Cogar swapped first and second place in the first two events, with Cogar winning the underhand and Wassak winning the stock saw.

Cogar started the third event, the standing block, off strong in the first heat, posting a time of 60.46 seconds. Wassak's time of 69.51 seconds left room for two other competitors to get between him and Cogar, which gave Cogar a three point lead heading into the final event, the single buck.

"I took too much time on the front side to try and save some energy for the back and I had plenty," Wassak said about his standing block. "That's new to me, so it's definitely something to work on."

Cogar gave Wassak a fighting chance in the single buck as he struggled his way to a 33.02-second time.

"I couldn't run that saw for nothing," Cogar said about his single buck. "I guess I don't have enough butt for it."

Wassak took advantage and posted 26.13 seconds one heat later, but the rest of the field didn't do him any favors. Cogar's time held up as the second best and officially gave him the southern conclave title.

Cogar's victory earned him a spot in the collegiate final, which will be held alongside the professional final at the Oregon State Fair in late August.

"I really wish I would have done a little better, but honestly, under pressure, I did a decent job," Cogar said. "Stock saw was probably one of the better runs I've ever had."

In between heats of the final collegiate single buck, the professionals kicked off their season with the standing block. The 10 professionals were fighting for four spots in the championship, competing against a field that included two Slingerlands and the 2010 U.S. STIHL TIMBERSPORTS champion, Mel Lentz.

Lentz set the pace early, winning the springboard by more than 10 seconds, and he never looked back on his way to the Southern title. He also won the standing block and the hot saw and never finished worse than third in any of the six disciplines.

"It was better than I thought I would do, it being early March and us just coming out of winter," Lentz said. "It's a long way to go to August and I have a lot of work to do."

Mike Slingerland, who qualified for the championship in second place, did his best to chase down Lentz, but he had his hands full holding off his son Matt Slingerland.

"It's never a bad day when Melvin beats you as long as no one else does," Mike Slingerland said. "Matt and I each have events that we are better at -- at least for another year or two I'll better at him than something -- but I've been able to stay ahead of him here recently."

Matt Slingerland ended up qualifying in the third position, with Daryl Weakland taking the fourth and final qualifying spot. Those who landed outside the cut included Paul Cogar and the 2010 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series champion Logan Scarborough.

Both Scarborough and Cogar failed to overcome poor performances in the springboard (Scarborough did not finish and Cogar was disqualified), but Scarborough's day was highlighted with a win in the stock saw.

For the four qualifiers, now it's five months of preparation for the final. Lentz said he'd continue to work out and his job in the timber cutting business should keep him sharp mentally.

"There's not really much more to learn, but I'll be 52 in another two months so I have the age and the eyesight things to deal with," he said.

"We look forward to bringing our first competition of the season to the UGA campus for the Southern Qualifier, where fans will witness some of the greatest collegiate and pro lumberjack athletes battling for bragging rights," said Roger Phelps, promotional communications manager, STIHL Inc. "With our 2011 format combining the Collegiate and Professional Series events, the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series promises fans a double dose of action and excitement."

In the Collegiate Series, the participating universities select their best lumberjack or jill to chop and saw in four disciplines, the single buck, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop, using professional-sized wood and rules. The competitor with the most cumulative points after all four disciplines earns a $1,000 scholarship from STIHL for his or her school and advances to the 2011 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship. More than 14 schools will participate in the qualifier including Alabama A&M University, Auburn University, Mississippi State, University of Florida and University of Kentucky.

Last year, Logan Scarborough advanced from the Collegiate Series Southern Qualifier to take home the 2010 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Championship, winning an automatic ticket to compete in the 2011 Professional Series. He will return to compete in the Southern Qualifier, but this time as a professional. 

"We're excited to host the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Southern Qualifiers as part of the annual Southern Forestry Conclave," said Dr. Richard Daniels, Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources professor and faculty advisor to the UGA Forestry Club. "Our students have done a tremendous job in preparing for this event including team training, fundraising, sponsorships, site selection and planning more than 30 lumberjack competition events. We look forward to a great weekend of competition and camaraderie."

The competition kicks up a notch when 10 of the region's top professional lumberjacks, including Scarborough, face-off across six disciplines, the hot saw, single buck, springboard chop, standing block chop, stock saw and underhand chop in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Professional Series Southern Qualifier. The top four will advance to the U.S. Championship. Another former collegiate athlete among the Southern Qualifier pros is Matt Slingerland, whose father, Mike, is a long-time STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series contender and will also compete in the Southern Qualifier along with defending U.S. champion Mel "King of the Lumberjacks" Lentz.

The Collegiate and Professional Series air on ESPNU and ESPN2, respectively.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Southern Qualifier Professional Competitors
 
Paul Cogar Diana, W.Va.
Matt Jones Inwood, W.Va.
Jim Lawrence Waynesville, NC
Mel Lentz Diana, W.Va.
Ben Nottermann Hardwick, Vt.
Logan Scarborough Polkton, NC
Matt Slingerland Rockwell, NC
Mike Slingerland Rockwell, NC
Bryan Wamsley Narrows, Va.
Daryl Weakland Kannapolis, NC

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series Southern Qualifier Participating Schools

Alabama A&M University in Huntsville, Ala.
Auburn University in Auburn, Ala.
Clemson University in Clemson, SC
Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, La.
Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, La.
Mississippi State University in Mississippi State, Miss.
North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC
Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas
Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas
University of Arkansas-Monticello in Monticello, Ark.
University of Florida in Gainesville, Fla.
University of Georgia in Athens, Ga.
University of Kentucky in Lexington, Ky.
University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tenn.
Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Va.

The 130-kg New Zealander was excited about his victory.

"This is the new premiere class of competitive woodcutting," he said. "Technique, strength, endurance, and tactics have earned me victory."

Third place went to the Canadian Mitch Hewitt. The best-placed European, Robert Ebner from Germany, finished the event in fourth place.

For the first time the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Champions Trophy competition in the Tyrolean Alps combined axe-chopping and the use of a commercial chain saw (STIHL MS 660). Lumberjacks from eight countries compete in four skill-sets - two with an ax, two on the saw - cutting through tree trunks with a diameter of up to 46 centimeters.

Competitors completed four disciplines without stopping, in the style of a one-man relay. The disciplines included were underhand chop, standing bock chop, single buck and stock saw.

The entire competition was completed in under two hours, and was set up as a head-to-head bracket with single elimination.

To get to the final, Wynyard defeated Christophe Geissler (Switzerland) in the quarterfinal and Ebner in the semifinals. Cogar defeated Jose Laier (Austria) in the quarters and Mitch Hewitt (Canada) in the semis.

Amazingly, Wynyard's times got faster with each round, culminating in his world-record setting time in the final against Cogar.

Stihl Champions Trophy 2011 Final Result: 1. Jason Wynyard (NZL), 2. Arden Cogar (USA), 3. Mitch Hewitt (CAN), 4. Robert Ebner (GER), 5. Christophe Geissler (SUI), 6. Martin Komarek (CZE), 7. Roger Gehin (FRA), 8. Josef Laier (AUT)

(Watch the event live online here).

The competition will feature the top six finalists of the 2010 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series World Championship and two wildcards. The Champions Trophy format showcases the best of the best in lumberjack sports, including: Arden Cogar (USA), Robert Ebner (Germany), Roger Gehin (France), Christophe Geissler (Switzerland), Mitch Hewitt (Canada), Martin Komàrek (Czech Republic), Jose Laier (Austria) and Jason Wynyard (New Zealand).

In Champions Trophy competition format, the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series elite eight race through four lumberjack disciplines (two sawing: single buck, stock saw and two chopping: standing block chop, underhand chop) in succession, testing their endurance, strength, precision and pure power.

With no rest between disciplines, competitors go from one discipline to the next and must complete all four disciplines faster than their opponent to advance to the next round. Anyone defeated in the head-to-head competition is eliminated from the title race. The last lumberjack standing will be crowned the 2011 Champions Trophy winner.

St. Johann in Tirol was a natural choice to host this first-time competition since it is no stranger to this premier sport. It played host to the 2008 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series European Championship and the 2010 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series World Championship with more than 10,000 fans packing the stands to catch all the action.

The STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Champions Trophy will broadcast live from St. Johann in Tirol on Eurosport. In 2010, the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series World Championship broadcasts attracted more than six million Eurosport viewers and more than 10 million television viewers following the Series worldwide.

The site is dedicated to offering a more involved experience of this fast-paced, wood-chip flying sport featuring the most skilled professional lumberjacks and lumberjills in the U.S. and around the world. 

This is your front row seat to each and every qualifier, collegiate event and professional competition.  We will take you behind-the-scenes with exclusive stories, photos and videos.  Additionally, we have made it easier to share content from the site with your friends and other fans on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Since this site is for you, we value what you think and your feedback so, come on in, check it out and let us know what you think of your new STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series site.

Welcome to the 26th season of the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series! We enjoyed a great 25th anniversary year in 2010 and we have no intention of slowing down in 2011. The Series will continue to air on ESPN2 and the coverage will consist of the regular nine (9) shows aired twice each, for a total of 18 airings.

For Chopping / Sawing athletes

The 2011 season will see some new and exciting changes to the United States competition format. Taking advantage of the excitement and enthusiasm of the Collegiate Series, we will produce 5 regional professional qualifiers at the same venues as our 5 Collegiate Series events. This means that the professional athletes from the region will be competing against each other for the chance to go to the US championships while collegiate athletes battle it out for their chance to represent their schools at the Collegiate Championships. Fans will get a double dose of excitement at each event.

Another significant development is that our Series will be open to US athletes only in the regional qualifiers. Because of the growing popularity of the Series around the world and growth of other international competitions we are in a position to focus our support for American athletes, while the World Championship competitions will continue to be the venue for international competition. The result of these two developments is that our starting pool of professional chop / saw competitors will grow from the present 32 to 50 and all 50 of those slots will be open to US athletes. This means more US athletes than ever before will have a chance to compete in the series.

As Australia and New Zealand do not currently have STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® competitions of their own to select a national champion to send to the World Championships, we will reserve 2 spots for each those countries at the US championships venue in 2011.

As always, we want to ensure we produce a competition that is exciting to the fans and fair to you, the competitors. Thanks to the efforts of Granite State Lumberjack Shows, JM Associates and our PR agency Career Sports and Entertainment, we believe this new format will invigorate the competition and will deliver a fair and exciting event that will continue to recognize the best athletes in the sport, while providing up and coming athletes a chance to break in to the Series.

As we have for the past 25 years, selection of STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series competitors will be coordinated between the Granite State Lumberjack Show staff and our competitor advisory group. Applicants will be ranked as we have in the past, and then divided up with ten athletes per region based on ranking and home location. This will be done in order to balance the competitor talent in each region, while attempting to minimize travel for all competitors involved. The top four individuals from each region will then move on to the championship venue to make two championships pools of 10. The top 4 from those pools will then move on to the Championship round. The top US chop / saw competitor will then advance to the World Championship competition in Holland.

A new addition to the US Championship venue will be the inclusion of a relay competition. On the final day of the Championship venue, the four individuals from each region will compete in a relay competition to determine the top group from around the country. Our intention is to have the competitors with the best times in each discipline become part of the US Relay team heading to Holland.

For Boom Run and Speed Climb athletes

Boom Running and Speed Climbing will also be a part of our championship venue competition. Selection of competitors will follow the same guidelines and rules as 2010 in conjunction with the support of Lumberjack Shows International and the competitor advisory group. As always, these two disciplines a great excitement and fanfare to the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series, and we are looking forward to having the competitors back for their 8th year in the series.

All Competitors

Please see below for more details, as well as the application to participate in the 2011 competition. As always, to the greatest extent possible, we have scheduled this year's event to avoid conflicts with other regional competitions.

Competition Locations

• Region / Location Venue City / State Date
• Southern Qualifier University of Georgia Athens, GA March 17
• Western Qualifier Cal Poly University San Luis Obispo, CA March 25
• MidWest Qualifier Purdue University West Lafayette, IN April 9
• MidAtlantic Qualifier Penn St. Mont Alto Mont Alto, PA April17
• NorthEast Qualifier SUNY Cobleskill Cobleskill, NY April 30
• Championship Venue Oregon State Fair Salem, OR August 26-28
• World Championships TBD Roermond, Holland Sept. 3-4

Timeline / Deadlines

Competitor Application Submission Deadline: November 5th 2010 Chop / Saw Competitor Selection Notification -- names and regions: December 15th 2010 Boom / Climb Competitor Selection Notification: December 15th 2010

On behalf of STIHL, I wish all of you the very best.

Sincerely,

Roger Phelps
Promotional Communications Manager, STIHL Inc.

It's the Little Rock office of Group CSE (formerly JM Associates) where the entire STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series is produced, edited and sent off to ESPN.

There are a number of ESPN shows produced in the Fish Factory (most notably the Bassmaster Elite Series), but the STIHL series is unique because it's the only show, editor and producer Justin Darling said, that the company produces "live to tape."

Live to tape means that they treat the show on site as if it were being aired live, but instead record it to a tape for later use. Darling said this style makes the finished product more exciting and elicits real reactions from the announcers.

"It gives the feel that this is happening right now and helps tell the story from event to event," he said.

But producing a live show means a lot more work on the front end. There were 30 television production staff at the championship event in Oregon this year, five of whom spent the week before the event driving three production trucks to the site.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS television commentators Tommy Sanders and Kevin Holtz called every heat live from a tower at the Oregon State Fair, while five regular cameras and two smaller point-of-view cameras captured every cut, chop, climb and run. Darling said 95 percent of what you see on ESPN was produced on site.

"The smaller POV cameras are a new feature this year and add a lot to the show," Darling said. "It gives us a view of the competition that we've never had before."

The hard part, Darling said, about shooting a three-day event live to tape is cutting the hours of footage down into seven 24-minute shows. There are a series of cuts and final cuts, with hard decisions on which heats will make the show and which will be left out. The process takes weeks of work in the editing room.

"There's always stuff left on the cutting room floor that I wish would have made the show," he said.

The editing project continues up until the week the show airs before it's shipped to ESPN to be shown to the masses on ESPN2. The extra footage is put up on STIHLTIMBERSPORTS.com and the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS YouTube channel.

"If it wasn't for college, I might not have become a pro," Roberts said. "It was an introduction, providing that opportunity and giving me the drive and motivation to succeed."

Prior to attending The State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Roberts had never participated in any lumberjack events. Since SUNY didn't offer any other sports, Roberts, a high school athlete, decided to give STIHL TIMBERSPORTS a try.
"I had cut a lot of firewood, but as far as the actual sport, I don't think I had even watched it on television," Roberts said. "Turned out it came naturally to me. It got me out of the city, I made some great friends and had a great time doing it that it just snowballed into a career."

Collegiate competitors face a steep learning curve after graduation. First, the level of competition is steep as they regularly face off against the best lumberjacks in the world. On top of that, collegiate competitors have to learn two additional events in the Hot Saw and the Springboard Chop.

Both of those are the two most difficult events, putting even more emphasis on the importance of practicing heavily in the offseason. With just months to pick up the events in time for the start of their first professional season, success usually takes time and hard work.

"I was pretty new to springboard and I had to devote a lot of time to learning that event," Roberts said. "And I had never had a hot saw prior to my first year in the Series. Not only do you have to get one, but you have to know how to get it running and keep it running. With the level of competition out there you can't just be good at one or two events, you have to be solid at everything."

Being good at events means lots of practice time and that is the basis for any advice Roberts would give to current collegiate competitors thinking about making STIHL TIMBERSPORTS into a professional career. On top of that, utilize training tools that weren't available when Roberts started.

"Listen to as many people as you can and watch as many people as you can," Roberts said. "Take advantage of the video camera. That allows you to really take down other people's chopping styles and techniques as well as your own. That is a tremendous training tool that I didn't really have access to or take advantage of until really just a couple of years ago."

2009 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series champion Adam LaSalle found the situation exactly as Roberts described during his first year as a professional in 2010. Aside from learning two new events, LaSalle also found that premium equipment was a must.

"When I won the single buck in Oregon, I was using JP Mercier's saw, which was light years better than what I had," LaSalle said. "He had my saw and was refiling it and let me use one of his, one of the newest saws he produced. Financially, it's a challenge, especially in my situation. I don't have a big pocketbook to fall back on, but getting new equipment is necessary."

LaSalle has been in a transition period since graduating from the University of Wisconsin at Steven's Point, where he started the lumberjack team. He's looking for a job which, "pays me money and gives me plenty of time off."

Meanwhile, he has been training harder than ever in preparation for another year of competition. His offseason work paid off in 2010, when it came time to learn the Springboard Chop. Having never competed in the event before, LaSalle went through a crash-course to get better, but still posted a time of 2.5 minutes his first time out.
Continuing to work on his technique, LaSalle got the time down to 1.5 minutes for the Lumberjack World Championship and then when it really counted, put in a time of 71 seconds at the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Championship in Oregon. While that only placed him in 10th out of 16 competitors, it represented serious strides forward in ability for LaSalle that he hopes to continue in 2011.

"I know what potential I have, but I need to start training harder and keep reaching for the top rung of the ladder," LaSalle said. "I've been pushing myself and realizing that I've got to perform at a certain level. I'm not in the college ranks anymore."

Logan Scarborough can likely learn a lot from LaSalle's experience. Scarborough won the 2010 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Collegiate Series, which will push him into the professional side of the sport for the first time next season.

Scarborough recognized the importance of having other experienced STIHL TIMBERSPORTS athletes helping along the way and was fortunate to work with Mike Slingerland, who lives about 45 minutes away from Scarborough's North Carolina residence.

"Mike has all the equipment and I was fortunate that we got to work a couple times a week together getting ready for Oregon," Scarborough said. "I built a practice area at my house and I've got a forestry-related job in my hometown. I'm determined to do it, but I know it takes a lot of work."

That work has been sandwiched around his job, which is also a primary focus for Scarborough.

"My job helps me out with my equipment, but as far as lifting weights and training, that's all in the mornings and after work," Scarborough said. "I'm not only building myself as a professional STIHL TIMBERSPORTS athlete, I'm also building a career in forestry. I really want to excel in the forestry profession."

Ultimately it comes down to mixing the right opportunities with a whole lot of hard work. As Roberts said, it comes down to experience: "Compete as much as possible. If that's what they really want to do then they have to go out there and compete."

The team relay is made up of 4 events: stock saw, underhand, singlebuck and standing block. Each discipline is started as soon as the previous is complete.

Eighteen national teams and one "rookie" team, made up of 4 individuals each, lined up for the morning briefing and wood draw. The excitement was palpable. It was a mini United Nations with axes. The usual heavy hitters were present, New Zealand, France, Germany, and of course the U.S. The U.S. team consisted of Arden Cogar, Mathew Cogar, Dave Jewett, Brandon Sirguy, and Will Roberts. New among the group were Italy, Romania and Ireland.

All countries represented: Italy, Romania, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Ireland, Spain, Benelux, Great Brittain, France, Poland, Switzerland, USA, Canada, Germany, Czech Republic, New Zealand, and the rookie team.

The rookie team was made up of athletes who had not previously competed in national or international professional STIHL TIMBERSPORTS competitions. North Carolina State Logan Scarborough qualified for this team by winning the U.S. Collegiate Championships. Also on the team were Zdnek Matha (Czech Republic), Calle Svadling (Sweden), Hansi Maurer (Austria) and Glen Penlington (Great Brittain).

The day started with time trials to determine the seeding for the direct elimination rounds. The surprise of the day was the rookie team which set a blazing time of 1:24:17 better than almost half the field and good enough to put them directly in to the second round. Stand out performances were put in by the Czech representative Zdnek Matha on the standing block and Logan Scarborbough on single buck.

"This validates what we are trying to do in the U.S.," said Roger Phelps, promotional communications manager for STIHL. "Our focus has been on developing young competitors in the U.S. and providing them opportunities to experience the sport.

"Bringing Logan to the world championships and watching him do as well as he did shows that the future of our sport in the U.S. is strong"

The rookies drew the Czech team in the direct elimination round and while they put in a solid time of 1:29 the Czech team, anchored by bronze medalist Martin Komarek, was just too much for them. Far from being disappointed, the team left with heads high and smiles on their faces as they were congratulated by pros from all the nations. Logan Scarborough was grinning from ear to ear. "Who would have thought that wood chopping would have brought me to Austria to see this?" he asked. "Last time I checked our NC State football team hasn't been here."

The pros were next to take the stage and their weren't many surprises. There was a great deal of support for the Italian team, brand new to STIHL TIMBERSPORTS, which had to face heavily favored New Zealand. To the shouts of "Avanti, Avanti" the Italians shaved almost 12 seconds off their qualifying time which they considered a huge victory. Their coach said that just being on the same stage as the New Zealanders was a victory.

Then it was the U.S. team's turn. Having set a qualifying time of 1:02, narrowly better than the Canadian team they shared the stage with, they now faced Austria. Team Captain Arden Cogar had said that after the race with Canada, the team realized that they would have to get serious. The team did just that, easily beating the host country team, despite a huge knot in the middle of Will Robert's standing block. The win earned them a place in the quarter finals where they would face the Czech Republic.

In the Quarter Finals it was New Zealand beating France, Switzerland over Poland, Canada edged out a German team lead by silver medalist Robert Ebner, and the U.S., following team captain Arden Cogars lead, stepped it up a notch and bested the Czech Republic.

The crowd of over 5000 watched as in the semi-finals New Zealand bested Switzerland and the U.S. defeated Canada, setting up a U.S. vs. New Zealand in the finals.

David Bolstad of New Zealand said that the team had set a goal time of 45 seconds for themselves but in qualifying, they had not broken 50. The U.S. on the other hand had not broken one minute and Cogar said that in order to win they would have to get in to the low 50s. "If nothing else," he said, "we want to make sure we give the fans a great race."

They did just that. Brandon Sirguy faced Jordan Shane in the stock saw and they finished almost simultaneously in 6 seconds. Then Mathew Cogar faced Thomas Ivor in the underhand. Ivor, not previously seen in the Series, is known as one of the world's best underhand choppers. Cogar managed to stay with Ivor through the back side of his chop, and finished only three hits behind. It was then time for Dave Jewett to show his single buck skills. Facing World Champion Jason Wynyard, Dave finished only three strokes behind the New Zealander, triggering Arden Cogar to start the standing block. Arden was against David Bolstad and the stage shook as the two heavy hitters went stroke for stroke. In the end, the combined power of the New Zealand team was too much for the Americans and they took the gold with a time of 50.77 to the American's 57.42. "We gave them a race," said a pleased team captain Arden Cogar.

In the consolation round it was Switzerland narrowly defeating Canada in what was considered the upset of the day.

Day ended with the awards ceremony and all teams gathered on the stage. With medals, trophies, jugs of the local bear and the traditional champagne shower, the 2010 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series closed with the announcement that the 2011 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS World Championships will be held in Holland.

Story of the day was Patxi Mindegia of Spain who suffered a severely strained right knee during Friday's qualification. His participation was questionable but he decided to compete against the advice of local doctors. When asked why, he replied that when he saw all the people standing in the rain and cheering that he felt he had to go on.

Also on everyone's mind was the report from New Zealand of a 7.2 earthquake in the south island. While most of the NZ team is from the north island, which was not as severely impacted, the coach of the French team had family in the south island and everyone's thoughts and prayers were with the New Zealanders.

But there's no script for winning a ninth STIHL TIMBERPORTS championship, so Wynyard just did what came natural. Not to mention the fact that he had just cut through a massive white pine log three times in less than 6 seconds, so something like that comes with adrenaline.
"I'm getting up there in age a little bit and these things aren't getting any easier," said the 36-year-old New Zealander who, along with countryman David Bolstad, has accounted for the past 14 championships. "It's been the premier event in the world for a number of years, and I'm very fortunate to have won it so many times."

The STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series celebrated its 25th anniversary this year and is the second longest running show on ESPN behind SportsCenter. The format has changed slightly throughout the years -- including a few years as a part of the Great Outdoor Games -- but the purpose of the show as endured; Find the best lumberjacks in the world and send them through six traditional lumberjack disciplines to see who's best.

Wynyard won three of the six disciplines at the Oregon State Fair on Sunday and never finished worse than third (out of 12) in any event. That third-place finish came in the first event of the day, the springboard. Actually, after three events, it was looking more like Bolstad's day than Wynyard's.

But in event four, the single buck, Wynyard started putting a hurt on the wood that made the trees on Mt. Hood quiver with fear. He won all of the final three disciplines, creating a margin of victory that surprised even himself.

"It's tough to beat some of these guys who specialize in events," he said. "I really had to knuckle down and do a lot of training to get myself in good shape. It hasn't sunk in yet, really."

He attributed most his success this year to a more organized training schedule geared toward doing well at this event. He focused more on endurance, and built up his workouts gradually to avoid injury.

"This is very unusual for me, but I kind of planned ahead a little," he said as he packed up one of the more than 20 axes he brought. "I used to just train kind of week to week without a plan, but I can't do that stuff anymore at age 36. You can't be carrying nagging injuries into an event like this, and I was able to avoid that."

Among the many prizes he received for his victory was a brand new Dodge Ram, but Wynyard said it was more about the victory than anything.
"That's the fantastic thing about this series," he said. "It challenges you in so many ways and it makes these wins incredibly gratifying."

A young girl approached Wynyard mid-interview and asked if he would sign a poster for her friend Jenna. "Hi, Jenna," he wrote after double checking how to spell her name. "Jason Wynyard, STIHL champion, 2010."

A reporter commented that if he wrote down all the years of his championships, the interview might never end. Wynyard did his usual smile, which seems to go more across his face than up at the edges.

"I've been fortunate," he said.

Scarborough finished with 21 points in the four-discipline series, comfortably ahead of Jon Preston (18), David Green (16), Kory Garrie and Tyler White (10 apiece), earning him a spot on the rookie relay team at the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS World Championship in St. Johan, Austria Sept. 3-5, and a chance to compete in the 2011 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Professional Series.

"I thought I did pretty good in the single buck, and I was really happy with my underhand," Scarborough said. "That's the fastest I've ever chopped underhand. I've been training on it a lot more, but I'm glad that I have that time under my belt."

Scarborough finished third in the stock saw and second in the standing block, and came into the single buck trailing Preston by 1 point, 10 to 9. He sailed through the single buck, though, putting himself in position to wrap up first place with a decent run in the underhand.
"Single buck isn't an event you can practice a lot, you just have to be smooth," Scarborough said. "It's a quick event, so you don't have to do as much. There aren't as many moving parts or things that could go wrong."
Green's stock saw was the epitome of what can go wrong. The Oregon State local cut out in his heat in the event, suffering a disqualification and earning zero points in the first event of the four. The cut-out almost certainly scuttled his chances of winning.
"We get 4 inches of wood to work with, and, unfortunately, I went four and a penny," Green said. "When you only have four competitions, it's almost impossible to come back."
Not that he didn't take a good whack at it: Green won the standing block, was second in the underhand and single buck, and went head-to-head with Scarborough in the chopping events in a battle of power vs. precision.
"I probably have him by 40 pounds, so everybody can tell that size isn't what makes you good in this sport," Scarborough said. "He's a lot better covering all the wood and with accuracy and ax placement."

"I thought I did pretty good in the single buck, and I was really happy with my underhand," Scarborough said. "That's the fastest I've ever chopped underhand. I've been training on it a lot more, but I'm glad that I have that time under my belt."

Scarborough finished third in the stock saw and second in the standing block, and came into the single buck trailing Preston by 1 point, 10 to 9. He sailed through the single buck, though, putting himself in position to wrap up first place with a decent run in the underhand.

"Single buck isn't an event you can practice a lot, you just have to be smooth," Scarborough said. "It's a quick event, so you don't have to do as much. There aren't as many moving parts or things that could go wrong."

Green's stock saw was the epitome of what can go wrong. The Oregon State local cut out in his heat in the event, suffering a disqualification and earning zero points in the first event of the four. The cut-out almost certainly scuttled his chances of winning.

"We get 4 inches of wood to work with, and, unfortunately, I went four and a penny," Green said. "When you only have four competitions, it's almost impossible to come back."

Not that he didn't take a good whack at it: Green won the standing block, was second in the underhand and single buck, and went head-to-head with Scarborough in the chopping events in a battle of power vs. precision.

"I probably have him by 40 pounds, so everybody can tell that size isn't what makes you good in this sport," Scarborough said. "He's a lot better covering all the wood and with accuracy and ax placement."

"The first run, I had a really nice start," Schroeder said. "It's five beeps, and on the sixth beep you get to go. As soon as it starts going 'sssss' on 'six' on the sixth beep, that's when you try to go. That's how everybody tries to time it, but even if you move your foot or bend your knee a little bit, you're done."

According to STS officials, that's exactly what Rick did on her false start. The Plymouth, Minn. STS veteran bent her left knee forward just a millisecond too quickly at the start, tripping the automatic timing sensor. The false start was visually confirmed by a race official.

"She ran a 10.74 in her first run, and I hadn't broken 11.5 since my first run here," Rick said. "To break 11 to get in the 10s, I was going to have to have a perfect start, a perfect run and I was going to have to push it. From what I overheard, Alyse had .03 on her reaction time on her first run, which is incredible. That's all anticipation. I knew that if I was going to have any chance at all of winning, I'd have to really push the start."

Rick lost her balance on the first log on the way back from the turnaround in the first heat, finishing over 1 ½ seconds behind Schroeder and forcing her to anticipate the sixth starter's tone on the second run. She ran a quick, clean second heat, stumbling slightly on her final stride and pitching forward across the finish line in a dead heat with Schroeder.

"Katie ran fabulous and had an amazing race," Schroeder said. "It's unfortunate that she false-started, but it's so, so hard to get that timing down. I've false-started many times, and it's the worst feeling in the world."

Schroeder's gold-medal run typified her entire week. She routinely had the fastest times of the day in both the quarterfinals and semifinals, and appeared to be the most balanced and steady on the logs through six heat runs and several practice runs.

"I felt like I ran fabulous all week," Schroeder said. "I felt like I was stronger this year than last year, so it's been a relaxed week."

That call by event announcer Steve "Lurch" Scott said it all as Bartow finished in 11.73 to Hart's 12.03 to end one of the year's most heated head-to-head rivalries.
Hart, who had gotten out to a quick lead early in the climb, lost traction with both feet and had to catch himself with his rope to prevent a crash-landing back down the tree, giving Bartow all the advantage he needed to win his third STS title.

"We're not looking where each other are in the race, especially in a dead-even race like this, but I heard the announcer say 'Oh, he slipped'," Bartow said.

"Even with a slip, I know he has a faster down than me, so I knew I was going to have to have a pretty good down myself."

Hart had been able to overcome repeated slips with his left foot during the quarter and semifinals, thanks to the fastest descent in the sport.

In Sunday's final, though, his right gaffs sliced completely out of the tree while he was raising his left leg for his next step, leaving him with nothing but his rope to keep him on the tree.

By the time he recovered, he was a full second behind Bartow to the top.

"I didn't have my left foot in on the slip, so it was a double-foot slip and I had to reset the whole thing," Hart said.

"Both feet came out of the tree. The last three years in the finals that's happened to me, at virtually the same spot every year. I guess it's kind of in my head a little bit now."

Bartow fought through a small slip lower in the tree, and although he described his climb as "so so, maybe an 8" on a scale of 1 to 10, his 11.73 was the second-fastest time all week and one of only three under 11 for the three-day competition.

Bartow's victory interrupts a string of head-to-head losses against Hart, who has beaten Bartow three of the last four times they've raced.

"I thought about this competition more this year, because this guy has beaten me three times this year," Bartow said. "We're really evenly matched."

Hart had said following the semifinal that he'd have to perform flawlessly to beat Bartow, who's regarded as one of the best in the sport at the 60-foot tree.

He got off to his fastest start of the week and was slightly ahead of Bartow at the halfway point before losing his gaffs.

"I was probably pushing a little too hard, my technique got out of synch," Hart said. "Sometimes you're trying just a little too hard, your body gets out of line and that stuff happens."

Scheer takes third Cassidy Scheer survived a hair-raising descent down the tree in his third-place match with Guy German.

German had a major slip on the way up, giving Scheer a big cushion on the way down, but Scheer got slightly out of position and finished the bottom half of the descent turned sideways on the tree.

He made the legal touches on the down, though, finishing in 12.98 to German's 14.55.

Defending U.S. champion Arden Cogar, Jr. will captain the five-man team and handle the standing block discipline. His cousin, Matt Cogar, will fill the underhand-chop position. Dave Jewett will handle the single buck.

"Those three positions automatically went to our three best manual cutters," said selection committee member Mike Slingerland. "They're the three best at those events."

The other two postions -the stock-saw and alternate- will be filled by Brandon Sirguy and Will Roberts, who were chosen by their performances in the 2010 STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series National Championship this weekend in Salem, Ore.

"Both of those two positions, we decided to go with the top two point-getters at this event," Slingerland. "I feel like this is one of the strongest events we could ever field. I feel real good about this team."

The five-man team will compete against timbersports athletes from over 20 countries Sept. 3-5. The relay, a first-time event at the World Championship, will pit countries against each other in a seeded, bracket-style format where the U.S. and New Zealand will likely be two of the highest-seeded teams.

"It'll probably start with stock saw, go underhand, then to single buck and finish with the standing block," said Jewett. "My goal as the single sawyer is to gain at least 2 to 5 seconds. The only person in the world who can beat me right now in single bucking is (New Zealand's) Jason Wynyard and the most he's beaten me by is 0.3. If he's not the single sawyer, I feel like I can gain a few seconds to give the choppers a little cushion going into that final standing block."

Lentz wins U.S. title, will compete at world championship

It was an up-and-down day for the "King of the Lumberjacks" Mel Lentz, but a solid hot saw run earned him the title of U.S. champion for 2010. He edged out Mike Sullivan, Will Roberts and 2009 champion Arden Cogar Jr. in the finals on Sunday.

Lentz will the joining the relay team in Austria next week to represent the U.S. team in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS World Championships.

Hart, who had gotten out to a quick lead early in the climb, lost traction with both feet and had to catch himself with his rope to prevent a crash-landing back down the tree, giving Bartow all the advantage he needed to win his third STS title.

"We're not looking where each other are in the race, especially in a dead-even race like this, but I heard the announcer say 'Oh, he slipped'," Bartow said.

"Even with a slip, I know he has a faster down than me, so I knew I was going to have to have a pretty good down myself."

Hart had been able to overcome repeated slips with his left foot during the quarter and semifinals, thanks to the fastest descent in the sport.

In Sunday's final, though, his right gaffs sliced completely out of the tree while he was raising his left leg for his next step, leaving him with nothing but his rope to keep him on the tree.

By the time he recovered, he was a full second behind Bartow to the top.

"I didn't have my left foot in on the slip, so it was a double-foot slip and I had to reset the whole thing," Hart said.

"Both feet came out of the tree. The last three years in the finals that's happened to me, at virtually the same spot every year. I guess it's kind of in my head a little bit now."

Bartow fought through a small slip lower in the tree, and although he described his climb as "so so, maybe an 8" on a scale of 1 to 10, his 11.73 was the second-fastest time all week and one of only three under 11 for the three-day competition.

Bartow's victory interrupts a string of head-to-head losses against Hart, who has beaten Bartow three of the last four times they've raced.

"I thought about this competition more this year, because this guy has beaten me three times this year," Bartow said. "We're really evenly matched."

Hart had said following the semifinal that he'd have to perform flawlessly to beat Bartow, who's regarded as one of the best in the sport at the 60-foot tree.

He got off to his fastest start of the week and was slightly ahead of Bartow at the halfway point before losing his gaffs.

"I was probably pushing a little too hard, my technique got out of synch," Hart said. "Sometimes you're trying just a little too hard, your body gets out of line and that stuff happens."

Scheer takes third Cassidy Scheer survived a hair-raising descent down the tree in his third-place match with Guy German.
German had a major slip on the way up, giving Scheer a big cushion on the way down, but Scheer got slightly out of position and finished the bottom half of the descent turned sideways on the tree.
He made the legal touches on the down, though, finishing in 12.98 to German's 14.55.

"Surprisingly, I was really calm," she said. "I teared up."

Then she went and ordered Christmas cards.

The breast cancer -- requiring intense chemotherapy, a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery with more procedures to come -- has barely slowed the eight-time boom run and log rolling world champion.

Four months after her surgery and with yet another round of "chemo-lite" next Friday, Atkinson is back. She is among the eight boom runners competing this weekend as the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Series Presented By Carhartt holds its U.S. Championship and Collegiate Championship at the Oregon State Fair.

Winning her first STIHL title might be ambitious, but competitors such as reigning champ Alyse Schroeder, whom Atkinson taught to log roll, are thrilled she's back.

"She's so strong," Schroeder said. "Honestly, if this had happened to anybody, Jenny could handle this the best. Mentally, physically, everything.

"She has a child and she handled this. And she's still competing ...! Nothing slows her down, end of story. Ever. Ever."

The native of Stillwater, Minn., kept her focus on life during the difficult journey. She was surprised when she got "the call" while shopping with her mother and 8-month-old son, Berendt, whom they call Bear, last December.

Weeks before, she had found a lump during a self-exam and contacted doctors, who thought at first because she was nursing it might just be a clogged milk duct. Yet massage and heat therapy didn't break it up, as hoped.

"It was definitely big enough, and it wasn't going away," she said. "They said, 'I don't think it's cancer but let's just get a mammogram.' "

She had that procedure on a Monday and was asked if she wanted the results by phone or in person.

"I didn't think I had cancer so why would I need to come in?" she said.

Two days later she stopped near the first register to answer her cell phone. The doctor gave her the bad news, and asked to speak to her mother "because most of the time people don't remember what I said," he told her.

Shock might have hit Atkinson as she held "my lil' baby Bear" while her mother took detailed notes.

"Right after we found out, my mom was kind of frazzled, 'We have to leave,'" Atkinson said. "I was like, 'Oh no we don't. I've got to go order my Christmas cards because life is going to get all busy.'

"I'm going to live life and do the things I need to do whenever I don't have to be dealing with cancer."

With an MRI the next day, a meeting with the oncologist on Friday, the decision to start chemo before or after Christmas and all the scheduling and rescheduling, the third-grade teacher at Elmo Elementary was determined to get those cards.

"No. I'm going to do Christmas cards, and if I don't do them right now, today, I won't be able to do them," she told her mother.

Telling this and how the cards had pictures of Bear, herself and her husband, Niel, brought tears to her eyes. She said she didn't cry much during her treatment.

"I was really fine," she said. "I just felt like I can do it. I never got mad. I never worried. I remember early on getting like 'Aaarrrrggh! I want to be done with this. I'm annoyed. I don't want to deal with this any longer.'"

Chemotherapy didn't make her ill, but thinking back at her early treatments made her cringe. She began intense chemo with "Big Red," or adriamycin, a DNA-interacting drug known for dangerous risks, including congestive heart failure.

Haz-mat suits were worn by those administering it, and she thought it odd that just touching one drop of the bright red drug could do damage, yet this stuff was being injected through a portal implanted under her skin and coursing through her veins.

"You hear horrible things about chemo," she said. "I thought, 'When am I going to feel sick?' And all the sudden four hours went by and I was thinking, 'I'm fine, I'm great.' Right away, Round 1 made me realize don't dread something that may never happen."

Losing all but several eyebrow hairs didn't get to her; she was fine with going out bald. The port sticking out from near her collarbone made her somewhat self-conscious, but when it finally did wear on her, she would give herself a pep talk.

Atkinson realized the 14-month treatment plan would have her on a first-name basis with the oncology staffs at Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater and the Virginia Piper Cancer Institute 40 minutes away in Minneapolis.

"Jenny, you will have over 100 of those wristbands before you can let yourself think you're burned out on this," she told herself. "I believe your attitude affects everything."

Deciding between a lumpectomy and double mastectomy was difficult, she said, but she wanted to attack the cancer aggressively so it doesn't "come back in the next 50 years." She wanted to be around for Bear.

Doctors gave her a 10-pound lifting limit after the surgery and she said it was heartbreaking that she couldn't hold her 20-pound child.

"Certainly, the worst is over," said Atkinson, who now has no evidence of disease. She has a November surgery to take out expanders and put in implants, chemo treatments every third Friday until March and then the port will be taken out.

"Then I should be done." She said. "The future is everything it was always going to be. Do everything I was going to do anyway."

The hardest part is she won't able to have any more children, and she didn't like cancer taking that decision away from her.

"Every woman wants to decide if and when they want to be done having kids. I didn't want cancer to decide that for me. Chemo fries your ovaries. I'm through menopause at 36.

"I feel fortunate that I had Bear. I've known other women who didn't have kids, younger than me, and had breast cancer. You can't feel sorry for yourself because there's so many people around the world who have it so much worse. We are lucky in America to have the medical access that we have."

She appreciates all her friends at STIHL who provided mental support and sponsors Central Boiler and Wood-Mizer, who have allowed her to continue in the sport she loves. She espouses a healthy lifestyle and exercise, especially after learning that women who exercise a half hour five times a week have a 50 percent more successful survival rate.

"It's like the easiest no-brainer. Get out there and exercise, ladies," she said. "It doesn't have to be boom running and tree climbing, it can be walking. Every time I'm at the support group, I'm like, 'Hey, is everybody out there doing their five times a week? Stay active ladies.'"

It's a sure bet Atkinson will. Next year she will celebrate her 20th year as a pro lumberjill. She said she worked hard to get back to compete this week and is excited to return to teach this fall, where she can inspire the next generation.

"I believe your attitude is huge. Absolutely huge," she said. "I feel really fortunate. I was honest with my doctors. This is what I do, I want to live my life."

So nothing will get in the way of her doing something as simple as ordering Christmas cards, but forgive her if she takes a moment to reflect on her journey at the first register at Costco … and if she sheds a tear.

"Any time we're there, we just look at that register and just remember," she said. "I remember just coddling and holding Bear and just quietly crying with him for a while."

"It's not just the chopping wood on stage," Jewett said. "Now I do wood carving and Christmas tree sales, and it's because of connections and friendships I've made in this business."

"None of that would have happened if I wasn't forced to travel and meet people through the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS series. The competing and winning sometimes is just a bonus."

Jewett, who is in his 17th year of competing with STIHL, first caught on to the sport at Fingerlakes Community College. One of the guys on the school team suggested he try out because he knew how to canoe and it was part of the conclave. Jewett picked up on the chopping and sawing pretty quick.

It was around that time that he first noticed STIHL TIMBERSPORTS on television and started taping the shows.
"Once I got on the team I started taping them and studying them," he said. "I had an idea something was going to happen with this sport. My coach, Marty Dodge, was pretty inspirational with it. He sort of gave me the push."

Shortly thereafter, in the early 90s, Jewett rose in the lumberjack ranks and started watching himself on ESPN. Seventeen years and a kidney transplant later, he's still competing.
"It's had its ups and downs," he said. "It's a lot of stress and commitment, but the traveling and the people just keep you coming back. It's such a diverse group of people involved in the sport. It's changed my life."

He said that he has seen the sport move from a wide-open, American-led group of lumberjacks to the domination by New Zealanders David Bolstad and Jason Wynyard.

"The level of competition has gone up, especially with all the guys from Down Under coming in," Jewett said. "That's just the way it is, and that's the way it is in a lot of sports. You can still beat them; you just have to maximize your potential."

Jewett said he's talked with Bolstad about how the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS events are the toughest in the world to win.

"It's such a quick drag race event, there's no room for error," Jewett said. "To win an event in the STIHL series you have to be flawless. You absolutely can't make a mistake - not even for a 10th of a second. It definitely proves who the best choppers and sawyers in the world are."

But as Jewett's life has proven, the series goes well beyond the stage, as does the relationship between the competitors. Aside from the year Jewett finished second in the overall behind Wynyard, he said some of his best memories in 17 years come from sitting around sharing stories with his fellow lumberjacks after an event is over.

"It's a funny sport," he said. "You don't get tired of it, even when things aren't going so hot."

"It's not just the chopping wood on stage," Jewett said. "Now I do wood carving and Christmas tree sales, and it's because of connections and friendships I've made in this business."

"None of that would have happened if I wasn't forced to travel and meet people through the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS series. The competing and winning sometimes is just a bonus."

Jewett, who is in his 17th year of competing with STIHL, first caught on to the sport at Fingerlakes Community College. One of the guys on the school team suggested he try out because he knew how to canoe and it was part of the conclave. Jewett picked up on the chopping and sawing pretty quick.

It was around that time that he first noticed STIHL TIMBERSPORTS on television and started taping the shows.
"Once I got on the team I started taping them and studying them," he said. "I had an idea something was going to happen with this sport. My coach, Marty Dodge, was pretty inspirational with it. He sort of gave me the push."

Shortly thereafter, in the early 90s, Jewett rose in the lumberjack ranks and started watching himself on ESPN. Seventeen years and a kidney transplant later, he's still competing.
"It's had its ups and downs," he said. "It's a lot of stress and commitment, but the traveling and the people just keep you coming back. It's such a diverse group of people involved in the sport. It's changed my life."

He said that he has seen the sport move from a wide-open, American-led group of lumberjacks to the domination by New Zealanders David Bolstad and Jason Wynyard.

"The level of competition has gone up, especially with all the guys from Down Under coming in," Jewett said. "That's just the way it is, and that's the way it is in a lot of sports. You can still beat them; you just have to maximize your potential."

Jewett said he's talked with Bolstad about how the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS events are the toughest in the world to win.

"It's such a quick drag race event, there's no room for error," Jewett said. "To win an event in the STIHL series you have to be flawless. You absolutely can't make a mistake - not even for a 10th of a second. It definitely proves who the best choppers and sawyers in the world are."

But as Jewett's life has proven, the series goes well beyond the stage, as does the relationship between the competitors. Aside from the year Jewett finished second in the overall behind Wynyard, he said some of his best memories in 17 years come from sitting around sharing stories with his fellow lumberjacks after an event is over.

"It's a funny sport," he said. "You don't get tired of it, even when things aren't going so hot."

Matt Chagnon: Well, the company's owned by myself and Don Quigley and Richard Hallett; we're the three principals, I guess, in the business. But, the business started back in the late '80s.

We all competed in lumberjack sports around the Northeast, and we started doing demonstrations, you know: You might be having an open house at a lumberyard and you might want some entertainment for the crowd, so we'd go in there and chop and saw and log-roll and just put on a show for the crowd.

Then, we got asked to also help run some competitions. So, we got involved with a contest here in New Hampshire at the Hopkinton fair, called the New England Cup Lumberjack Championships.

So, when STIHL started doing TIMBERSPORTS, the way they did it was, instead of having their own competition, where they had complete control over everything, they would just go to an existing contest somewhere in the country. They'd come in and say, "We want this to be part of our TIMBERSPORTS competitions." So, STIHL would come in and give them some money, and [the competitions] had to make sure that they had the six STIHL events. STIHL heard about the New England Cup, which was drawing in some big name competitors from the eastern part of the country - so they came and started doing some of their TIMBERSPORTS stuff as part of the New England Cup, and that's how we got hooked up with them.

After a few years, they weren't happy with just walking into a contest and not knowing what they were going to get in terms of wood or how efficiently it would be run, so they asked us to run a couple more contests for them in other parts of the country. We kind of did that a couple years and finally, they said, here's where we want to run our shows this year, give us a bid for how much that would cost, and we've been doing it ever since.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS.com: Is it a pretty big operation - how many people are involved in running it?

Matt Chagnon: When we go on the road to do the shows, we have 18 people, and that includes the timers. We do the scoring, we bring the wood, so we have a truck that hauls all the wood and the stands and stuff. The stage that you see - a 40' x 60' stage - comes out of Wisconsin on a tractor trailer. And then we have two guys who set it up on site. So, it's a bunch of people.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS.com: Did you have a business model to work off of - are there other groups out there that do the same thing as you guys do?

Matt Chagnon: No, we didn't have a business model, we just kind of winged it as we went. This is a part-time thing, Don and I both teach forestry at the University of New Hampshire, Richard is a researcher for the U.S. Forest Service, so we all have real jobs. We have a very different business model from everybody else because we don't need it. Everybody else is trying to get business for their company, and we're trying to not get business, I guess. So, it's kind of funny.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS.com: What's the most interesting place you've put on a STIHL competition?

Matt Chagnon: We've been a lot of places. We did one in Alaska - we had to put our truck on a ferry boat and have it hauled from British Columbia up to Alaska - we've been through some interesting places with STIHL. I'm sure wherever they wanted to hold a competition, we'd figure out a way to do it.
STIHL TIMBERSPORTS.com: Is it true that you feed your entire extended family Thanksgiving dinner from things that you grow and harvest on your own property?

Matt Chagnon: We have a garden, and we don't get everything from our property every single year, but one year, we did have a Thanksgiving where my wife had shot a turkey, one of us had shot a deer, all the vegetables had come from the garden, we made some pies using our pumpkins or we picked some berries off the property to make the pies. A good part of the dinner came from here.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS.com: So, do you consider yourself a conservationist?

Matt Chagnon: A forester is a conservationist - without conservation, you're out of work. If you don't conserve what you have, there's no more forest left to manage, so you'll be looking for a new job. There's got to be something to cut next year and the year after and 100 years from now, so it's all about conservation and sustainability.

We're pretty fortunate in a good part of this country, certainly in the Northeast, that we have forests where if you cut in the forest, it's going to start growing back immediately.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS.com: When did the sustainable harvest practices for wood that's used in competition and wood recycling start?

Matt Chagnon: I would say, probably from the beginning. Any good forestry operation is sustainable. I think anybody that we've ever worked with, it's always been sustainable forestry. The trees that are cut have always been part of a managed forest, so it's part of a management plan that it's time for those trees to be cut.

In the early days, we'd try to cut the wood around the Northeast here, but we just can't find the white pine that we need, because we need to get blocks that are 26 inches long with no knots in them. Here in the Northeast, our growing seasons are so different from year-to-year, you might get one year where a tree grows 24 inches and you've got a nice, clear piece and the next year, it only grows six inches and you've got knots six inches apart, so that's not any good. But we've found timber down in Ohio, and that stuff grows 24 to 30 inches every single year, so you really get better utilization of the tree and there's a lot less waste than you would get out of trees here in the northeast. We've probably been getting wood out of Ohio for ten years, or so.

Once they come in, they're log lengths and then we cut them to length and turn them on the lathe to get the right diameter and we wrap them in plastic to keep the moisture in - you need to have moisture in wood for it to cut well. The sawmill in Ohio is just cutting the trees and numbering the pieces because we have to match the wood so all the blocks from each pool come from the same tree.

When we turn the logs, there's shavings that come off the outside of the block and that all goes to a company called Waste Management, which I think is nationwide, which is just a big waste disposal company. They bring a 30-yard dumpster and we have to make sure that nothing goes in it but wood and then they take all of the shavings and stuff that come off the wood and they take it back to their facility and grind it up some more until it becomes mulch. That's how we recycle it.

STIHL TIMBERSPORTS.com: So, I hear you can judge the health of a tree by site. I'm sure that, in addition to a ton of experience, being able to do that requires a certain amount of love for your job. Out of all the jobs you have that are related to forestry - teaching, coaching, working in the field, putting on competitions - which one is your favorite?

Matt Chagnon: That's a tough question - I would really say all of it. I love teaching; this is my 31st or 32nd year here at the Thompson School (at the University of New Hampshire), something like that, and it's great teaching young people. They're full of energy. They want to learn, so that's exciting.

I'm seeing people now - actually I just saw a kid walk by, this is his second year at the school. He had a job last summer working for a timber harvesting company; the owner was in the very first class I taught here, and he now has a very successful timber harvesting company here in New Hampshire. He also has hired a forester, full-time on his staff, who works with clients to help manage their land and make sure everything is done sustainably. That forester that he hired is another graduate of mine from maybe 15 years ago and now the next generation is going to work for them, too.

It's very rewarding to see people who have come through your program and they've gone out and they've got good jobs, good careers and families and they're just doing great and having a good time, really enjoying what they do based on what they've learned here. So that, for me, is very rewarding.

You have to get old to do that, unfortunately, but it's still fun to see.

I would have to say that when I get up in the morning and I look in the mirror when I'm brushing my teeth, I see that I'm 55 and I'm getting gray, but once I stop looking in the mirror, I really don't feel much older than the 20 year olds, so that's a pretty good feeling.

The hot saw competition - a combination of a combustible rock and roll show (think Jimi Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire) and a drag race - is the loudest, most jolting adrenaline rush in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Professional Series. And, while the echoes rumble just about as long as the chainsaws run, the hot saw has earned its place as the final event.

"The premier event of the day is the hot saws," said Russ Lemke, who started building hot saws almost 30 years ago, in 1980. "You can ask just about anybody, any of the competitors, anyone in the crowd. Everybody waits for the hot saws."

There's more meaning to Lemke's last sentence than it might appear. More than just the money shot for fans enjoying a testosterone-filled afternoon, actually getting a hot saw can be a difficult and expensive endeavor, often costing the buyer or builder in the neighborhood of $10,000.

Though a good saw may be hard to find, the best saws last and often change hands during the course of their lifetimes. One newbie in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS series this year bought his saw from veteran Mike Slingerland who'd bought it from former lumberjack competitor and multiple hot-saw record holder, Rick Halverson. (Slingerland downsized to an MS 880 STIHL Magnum " stock chainsaw modified to run with nitromethane.)

Other young competitors, like Will Roberts and Nathan Waterfield, have purchased saws from world record holder Matt Bush. Bush is an accomplished saw-builder himself, though his 5.085-second time making three cuts through 19 inches of white pine is probably his best-known feat.

However, according to lumberjack Mike Sullivan, approximately 80 percent of the hot saws on the circuit are made by Lemke, an automotive dealer in Mosinee, Wis. In talking to both Sullivan and Lemke, it becomes clear that Lemke takes great pride in his craft - and for good reason.

Sullivan has had his current Lemke saw for 12 years and has won multiple gold medals in the hot saw event at the Great Outdoor Games with it. He said in all that time, the saw has failed to start on the first pull only once during competition. If balancing raw power and reliability in a 250 cubic centimeter, half of a snow mobile engine that cranks out about 100 horse power can be compared to the making of a fine stringed instrument, a Lemke saw may be the Stradivarius of its ilk.

"I'd say personally the ideal saw is the one I have," said Sullivan. "It may not be as powerful as it could be … but as soon as you start getting to that edge, of racing, your engine maybe drops over that edge of becoming so finicky, that now you become unreliable … and it becomes harder and harder to run.

One saw that just dropped over that finicky edge is Jason Wynyard's saw, and it couldn't have picked a worse time. In the 2009 Finals of the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS series, in Columbus, Ga., Wynyard flirted with a record time on Day One, winning the event with a saw he'd spent two years building. Then, his saw promptly and inexplicably stopped working, forcing him to borrow a saw from his brother-in-law and fellow TIMBERSPORTS competitor, Dion Lane, to finish the competition.

"It was bad gas," said Sullivan, of Wynyard's saw problems. "I can basically put any fuel in my saw and it'll run. He gets some bad fuel and it didn't mix well in the engine and it wouldn't run."

Ultimately, Wynyard won the championship, and, typically, everything hinged on the final hot saw competition. In what was a spellbindingly unspectacular show of hot saw operation, Wynyard disqualified, and then David Bolstad, who, along with Wynyard, has dominated the TIMBERSPORTS series for more than a decade, one-upped Wynyard by throwing away a virtually guaranteed championship with a poor performance. Such is the ongoing saga of the hot saw.

If it sounds like hot sawyers are either gamblers or circumspect, straight-laced engineers, consider this: Russ Lemke, who preaches a combination of constant maintenance, consistency and reliability over raw power, came to hot saws by way of drag racing and snowmobiles.

"I've raced about everything that can be raced: cars, boats, go karts and snow mobiles," Lemke laughed, "and always did my own engine work.

"I was working in the woods when I started competing [in lumberjack competitions], and, of course, the hot saws intrigued me right away. The first one I built was a two-cylinder, and I went to the Wisconsin state championships and blew everybody away with it. And the next week, there was a new rule out for single cylinders."

The event rules for the TIMBERSPORTS series specify only three stipulations about the saw's mechanical make-up: it is limited to one cylinder, with a tuned exhaust, and it must have a sprocket cover - other than that, the machines are a mechanical free-for-all.

"The range of displacement goes from about 250 CC's up to about 380 or 404 - Matt Bush ran a 404." said Granite State forestry expert, Don Quigley. "Somebody tried a 500 CC a few years ago, but they just couldn't handle it."

Saws can weigh up to 100 pounds, Quigley said, making them incredibly difficult to lift and maneuver through a block of wood - especially when you add in the kind of power they produce. When a hot saw kicks, it's throwing 100 pounds at speeds produced by an engine with 100 horse power.

All-in-all, success in the hot saw competition takes more than just the operator. Each man standing on stage is allowed a helper, who can aid in getting the saw started during the 60-second warm-up period. And very few lumberjacks go without the assistance of a mechanic for construction and maintenance for their saws.

"These [competitors] sort of arrive, and they put the saws together and they run them a few times and they step out there on the stage, but they really aren't what you'd call a saw mechanic," said Quigley. "It's almost like in NASCAR, where you might have one guy who's a great driver, but he doesn't build the car."

Sullivan, who Quigley listed as the best and most consistent hot sawyer in the STIHL series, makes no bones about how much he's relied on his mechanic Russ Lemke. And Lemke has no problem with taking a piece of the limelight.

"Everybody knows the saws from one to the next; they know who built them and they know who's behind them," Lemke said. "We're all part of one team, as far as that goes. The majority - I'd say 99 percent of the guys out there couldn't build them themselves, anyway."

At 67, Lemke has been there, done that, with hot saws. He's found a formula that works, and he's sticking to it. The future of hot saws, in Lemke's mind, looks a lot like what he's been doing for 30 years: building solid, reliable saws that last. He makes the comparison between the number of manual, cross-cut saws a competitor buys over ten years versus the one saw that Sullivan bought from him 12 years ago.

"It's going on 12 years," Lemke said. "He's probably gone through 100 cross-cut saws since he got that power saw. It was engineered 12 years ago and it's still very competitive today."

German had just climbed 60 feet up and dropped as fast as possible straight down, barely losing to Stewart in the consolation bracket at the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS Championship presented by Carhartt.

Earlier, German also barely lost to Cassidy Scheer while Stewart was beaten by Stirling Hart, putting Hart and Scheer in the semifinals with Bartow and top seed Derek Knutson on Saturday at the Aflac Outdoor Games.

But German wasn't talking about his race or the semifinals. He was talking about slight modifications he'd been making to his equipment that only a speed climber would understand, and Stewart and Bartow were listening intently. It's a respect German has earned with 20 years of innovation in the sport. And it's a respect German is very fond of.

"We all look up to Guy," Bartow said. "To be doing this at his age is amazing. We don't think of him as being that old. It's hard to because he's in such incredible shape."
German said he's still speed climbing because he's found it hard to stop. He retired for a few years in the mid-90s and then tried again in 2005, but he keeps coming back. Speed climbing is a part of German and his history that he doesn't want to let go.
"It's flattering when somebody accepts your style," he said.

German grew up in Alaska as the 15th of 18 children born to the same parents. His love of engineering and architecture led him to the construction business, which is where he's spent most of his working life.

When he was in his late 20s, he attended a lumberjack show that included speed climbing and was immediately intrigued. After watching the show for three years, German came to two conclusions: the field was strong, but he could do it better.

So when he was 29, he decided to buy some gear and give it a shot. He found a suitable tree in what he described as "a hidden place in the woods" and cut all the branches off, leaving just the trunk. Then he started climbing.

The next year the lumberjack show was in town, German entered as a competitor and won. The following year he won again, breaking the local time record. The year after that, he went out to Albany, Ore., and set the world record for the 100-foot climb. But still, through all that, he felt like there was something missing - something that could be better.

"In the back of my mind, I was always thinking, 'It sure would be fun to put these spikes at the front of my feet and spring my way up that tree,'" German said.
And so that's what he did. And it worked beautifully.

"First time out it was an incredible feeling," he said. "It felt so natural and I increased my speed going up by about two seconds. It was accepted immediately and a lot of climbers picked it up right away."

That was his first and most widely accepted innovation, but certainly not his last. German went to work making the climbing load lighter, exchanging boots for wrestling shoes, steel for aluminum, metal for cloth, and the list goes on.

"Every pound you carry up is more energy you expend and less you can spring," he said. "I think I've cut out around five pounds through the years."

After dominating speed climbing through most of the 80s, German decided it was time to retire. So in 1990, he put his equipment in the attic and focused on a career in construction. Seven years later, he went through a divorce and started looking for new purpose in his life.

"I was looking for a way to escape," he said. "And there was speed climbing."

In his first event back, with almost no training, German finished second.
He considered retiring again in the late 90s, but the creation of the Great Outdoor Games kept him competing. The past few years it has been STIHL TIMBERSPORTS and the world championships in Wisconsin that have kept him motivated.
"It's really the big events that are keeping me in it now," he said.

German admits that at 55, he's a prime candidate for retirement, but it's not something he's interested in talking about. He's taking it year by year.

"I've decided then that I'm never telling anybody I'm retiring again because you just never know," he said. "One year I'll know that it's time to quit climbing.

"This year, I'm climbing better than I have in years, and as long as I can do that, I imagine I'll still be climbing."

Plus, German added, if he's healthy, why retire?

"It's an escape from reality," he said. "Day-to-day work isn't always fun. This is like a paid vacation."

A vacation that sometimes has him virtually free-falling from upwards of 100 feet - which is something else German doesn't seem ready to let go of.

"The most exhilarating part is always the race itself," he said, looking up at the towering pole behind him. "It only lasts 15 or 20 seconds, depending on how high we have to go, but there's nothing that can match the feeling of a good race. It's really like a high. I love it."

Average swinging   64.88 
Top Swing Speed   81.10

PERFORMANCE          SWINGS            SECONDS            SEC/HIT DOWN %
Assumptions                    15                       14.00                      1.08  15%

Phi                                    1.618033989
BInverse Phi                    0.618033989

Body Sections                  Dist                     Var
Section#1 (Height)            72.00                  27.50 
Section #2                           44.50                  17.00
Section #3                           27.50                  10.50
Section #4                           17.00                   6.49  
Section #5                           10.50                      -

 Measurements                  Dist(in)                Dist(ft)
Feet to Shoulders              55.00                  4.58
Arms                                     27.50                  2.29
Ax                                           48.00                  4.00
Log(13")                                6.50

Starting Compression         15%
Starting Starting Height       110.93               9.24
Vertical Distance                  117.43               9.79
Angler Distance                    184.46               157

But whether it's trying to muscle one out of the ballpark or chipping away at log underfoot, the most interesting similarity between a big leaguer and a big lumberjack comes in the speed of his swing.

ESPNOutdoors.com turned to Cincinnati Reds shortstop Jeff Keppinger, a pure contact hitter with a .421 spring training average and an admitted fan of lumberjack sports, to get his thoughts on the subject before speaking to an analyst.

"I'm going to guess that I swing between 90 and 110 miles per hour, but that is a total guess," Keppinger said. "I know the baseball comes at me at around 90 (mph), so I figure that I swing that fast to make contact."

As for the swing speed of a lumberjack, Keppinger wagered the ax's heavier weight would produce slower swings.

"I have watched them on television a lot," he said about the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS professional series. "And I feel like those guys swing it pretty fast. I'd say they swing those axs somewhere between 70 and 90 miles per hour."

Both of Keppinger swing speed estimations weren't too far off the mark.
"It's actually on the high end of where Major League Baseball players are swinging bats," said David Newman about ax-swing speeds. Newman serves as vice president of analytics for Atlanta-based Career Sports and Entertainment.

Newman said baseball players swing bats anywhere between 70 and 80 mph on average, and the average lumberjack can produce a top speed of 81.10 mph in the underhand chop. Using a series of formulas to determine an estimate, he offered real numbers to support his findings.

Assuming 6 feet as the average height of the lumberjack, Newman studied the times and scores of world-class competitors during an underhand chop event. He figured it took 13 swings on average to sever a 13-inch log, or 1.1 seconds per hit. The downswing consisted of 15 percent of the total ax-swing cycle and 85 percent of the time was spent removing the ax from the log and returning the ax to its apex.

Next, Newman turned to the theory called phi (pronounced FEE) to divide the body into five equal parts. Also known as the golden ratio, phi is a mathematical constant some believe has been used by scientists, artists and architects dating back to the ancient Greeks. With body measurements set and times recorded, the vertical distance could be determined and Newman could figure the angular distance - and ultimately the ax-swing speed itself.

"Vertical distance is the measurement from the peak of the swing to the actual point of impact on the log," Newman said.

Fifty-five inches represented the distance between feet and shoulders, keeping in mind a competitor's crouch upon the log. Half the log's diameter, or 6.5 inches, also factored in the calculations. And based on phi, arm-length measured 27.5 inches, and 4 feet became the staple length of the ax. In the end, the vertical distance was estimated at over 9 1/2 feet.

"I translated that vertical distance into an angular distance," Newman said, confirming the actual ax blade traveled over 15 feet in flight. "And that's the crux of this whole thing, because once you have the angular distance, you can calculate the average speed."

With all the variables, Newman's formula reported an average swing speed of around 65 mph during the downswing.

"And given there is a natural acceleration as the ax gets closer to the block itself," Newman added, "That translates into speeds over 80 mph - and when you compare that baseball players swing speeds, they're anywhere between 70 and 80 mph, too."

Newman noted big leaguers don't have the advantage of gravity to accelerate their swing. He also said baseball bats don't feature a slashing, weighted razor blade on the end, either.

But Keppinger isn't scared.

"I have a picture of myself splitting my first log from two off-seasons ago," the opening day starting shortstop said. "Of course, I have to admit that it wasn't the best form in the world, but I felt pretty good just to split it open."

And just how would the baseball player fare in a lumberjack competition?

"I would get absolutely worked," said Keppinger. "But I'd love to see some of these lumberjacks stand in the box and face Johan Santana or Dontrelle Willis. That log isn't moving, but the baseball sure is."

"A lot of people think that big guys - guys like Jason, Dion or Dave - that you have to be a big guy to win," STIHL professional series competitor Mike Slingerland said.

"But if they all didn't have good technique, they wouldn't win."

Slingerland likened the importance of technique in lumberjack sports to those found on a golf course, instead of a sport like powerlifting. The reason golfers can drive a 300-yard drive has more to do with the swing than pure brute strength.

"It's accuracy - it's science," STIHL professional competitor and ESPNOutdoors.com color analyst Dave Jewett said. "To cut a log in half, it's not about hitting it as hard as you can hit it. Once you get that technique and accuracy, then you generate the power and can harness it to make that first part work."

Slingerland identified the "whip" at the end of a swing as the focal point of energy provided by the competitor. This whip marks the perfect culmination of placement, efficiency and power that result in the lowest competition times.

Jewett offered fellow STIHL competitor Mitchell Hewitt from Australia as a prime example of a lumberjack mastering the technique. Consistently besting men over twice his size, Hewitt's technical know-how is second to none.

"He's what, about 170 pounds?" Jewett asked Slingerland, rhetorically. "But I've watched him beat 350-pound guys all the time."

Slingerland and Jewett both stress technique so often, many times they will drop in on a college practice to share their knowledge of the sport. Jewett will make the drive from his Rochester, N.Y., home to nearby Finger Lakes Community College several times a year to provide instruction to those interested in learning.

"They're in college, so you have a very short time," Jewett said. "And some of these schools are only two-year programs, so it's somewhat of a crash course."

For Slingerland and Jewett, the most satisfying aspect of helping students comes when they see immediate results.

"It's great when you tell them something and in minutes they can do it," Jewett said.

When Slingerland isn't working in North Carolina schools as a physical therapist for handicapped children, he volunteers at forestry clubs at colleges across the state. His love of instructing has also led him to Europe, to teach aspiring lumberjacks in other countries.

"I live not far from Montgomery Community College, so I'll go down there sometimes," Slingerland said. "Actually, I helped collegiate champion Jay Blackburn get started out of Heywood Community College."

In fact, the North Carolina resident even identified a young Dave Jewett when teaching a collegiate clinic years ago.

"I give Mike a lot of credit - he pulled me right out of college," Jewett said.

Like Jewett, many college-aged lumberjacks already have a natural talent and solid fundamentals in place for slicing wood.

"Some of these guys don't even have a coach," Jewett said. "They just got it, and they're just doing it right."

Although he admits some collegiate lumberjacks learn proper technique by emulating the pros, Slingerland feels those "naturals" more likely owe their skills to childhood chores.

"Look, if you're going out there to the woodpile to split wood for six hours, you're not going to waste a lot of energy," Slingerland said. "Like (STIHL competitor, Matt) Bush, he got so good from splitting tons of wood."