Johnny Bsullak grew up as a multi-sport athlete, running cross country, playing baseball and snowboarding.

He hadn’t skied until several years ago when some neighbors lent him skis to try out. To help him learn, his father, John Bsullak, pulled him from a snowmobile at the family farm, Gathering Winds Farm and Orchard in Poland.

“I think the first day I went skiing, I went with one of my friends mom’s and she tried to teach me how to ski,” Johnny Bsullak said earlier this month while sitting in the lodge at Lost Valley ski area. “Then he (his friend) brought me through park the first day I tried to ski, so that might have been part of it.”

Bsullak, who still runs cross country and plays baseball for Poland, slowly got hooked on freestyle skiing.

“It’s a cool community, you can go up to anybody and just ask them how to do a trick or something, or you can help anybody, and they’ll usually be open help,” he said.

After about a year of skiing, he decided to try his luck at the “King of the Valley Slopestyle Competition” at Lost Valley in Auburn in 2019 and became hooked from there. The competition had rails and jumps, as well as announcers and judges at the top of the hill.

“They would grade and announce our tricks, and then we came back into here (the ski lodge) and they had a ton of prizes from Backwoods,” Bsullak said. “They had goggles and stuff, and everybody got prizes.”

From there, Bsullak said he trained every free hour he had to improve his freestyle skiing skills, both on rail jams and in slopestyle.

Rail jams involve tricks like jumping, sliding or riding on top of objects, such as metal rails, other than snow. In slopestyle, skiers go down a course full of rails, jumps and other terrain park features and are scored on speed, originality and the quality of their tricks.

Before this season, the Poland Regional High School junior was a completely self-trained freestyle skier, excluding a few camps and competitions. After he competed in the King of the Valley competition, he built a rail, made of 24-inch steel beams he bought on Facebook Marketplace, and constructed a course on his family’s farm.

“He got solar lights, so they’ll be out there for hours,” John Bsullak said. “Then he also got a trampoline and he’ll sit out there for hours doing tricks, tricks, tricks, tricks, and to the point where he nails it.

“He’s then taking that information and passing it on — and it’s going to be his worst enemy.”

Bsullak has earned the nickname “Free Range Johnny,” from his father because of his nontraditional training background. He attended two ski camps last year, one at Killington Mountain School in Vermont and one with Freestyle America in New Hampshire.

“He is going up against seasoned skiers that are trained, and he’s beating them,” John Bsullak said. “I mean, it’s impressive that he can do it on his own.”

Both of his parents describe Johnny as an athletic kid, always outdoors and trying new sports.

His dad is from Canada, and has tried nearly every type of outdoor sport there is. Most impressively, he climbed mountains in India while he was serving in the military. His mother, Stacey Bsullak, grew up skiing through high school in Connecticut, even tearing both her ACLs at one point. Johnny’s sister, Abigale, plays field hockey at Plymouth State University.

Johnny is accomplishing more than just winning local weekend ski competitions at Lost Valley. Last year he made it all the way to the national USASA Maine Mountain Series and USASA nationals in Colorado, placing 10th out of 77.

“It’s kind of like you make it, so it’s like, now you can just like enjoy it,” Bsullak said. “I wasn’t trying to do anything crazy. I was just trying to land tricks, because that’s how you usually score well, if you don’t fall and stuff.”

He made it to the national competition based off his qualifying regional score at the race in Maine.

“These two didn’t realize,” John said, referring to Johnny and Stacey. “I said, ‘Did you check your points?’ They said no, and I said, ‘Check your points,’ and then they saw he was offered to go to nationals, because he got the points.

“I tell everybody: it’s all about points. It’s not that you get the most points, it’s that you just get enough points to qualify.”

Johnny, though, said it’s never been about the points for him, but about being out on the snow doing what he loves.

His favorite trick is a 270, which is a mid-air spin move off the rail. He said he also loves front and back swaps, which involve spinning onto the rail in one direction and then entirely stopping the momentum mid-rail to spin off the rail in the opposite direction.

His dad said he admires how smart Johnny is with the tricks he does in competitions, because he remains level-headed and never tries anything he has not extensively practiced beforehand.

“A lot of kids always try to do the best and biggest trick they could possibly do, and not worry about landing,” John Bsullak said. “He was very conscious about landing the trick and … he was consistent. You don’t get any points if you don’t land, and so people with all these big freaking tricks look cool, but they’re not scoring points.”

Following his national success last season, Johnny Bsullak is competing in 10 competitions this winter, starting with the Dec. 10 rail jam competition at Sunday River, where he placed third out of 20.

“That was my first competition of the year, so I still knew from last year that they’re fun, I like doing it,” Johnny Bsullak said. “But it was my first one of the year, so I was kind of nervous. It’s really the best to just go out there to have fun. That’s the best way to do it, and that’s what I did.”

On Dec. 17, he competed in rail jam at Loon Mountain in New Hampshire and placed second. His third competition of the season was slated for Jan. 7 at Sugarloaf Mountain but was canceled due to incoming inclement weather.

His seven remaining competitions this season are at Sunday River again on Jan. 21 (slopestyle), Lost Valley on Jan. 26 (rail jam), Titcomb Mountain on Feb. 4 (rail jam), Sunday River on Feb. 16 (slopestyle), Lost Valley on March 3 (slopestyle) and Loon Mountain on March 10 (rail jam) before wrapping up the season with a run to nationals April 5-11.

In between competitions, Johnny can often be found at Sunday River or Lost Valley practicing his tricks and mentoring younger skiers to perfect the craft of freestyle skiing. He is also training with Devin Flynn, a freestyle coach at Sunday River with Gould Academy. Flynn began his freestyle skiing career at Lost Valley, so Bsullak said he hopes to follow in his footsteps.

“During the pandemic, we started tracking how many Uber rides we gave him before he had his license, and I think we were up to 71 for the ski year,” Stacey Bsullak said with a laugh. “We also taught him how to cook on the camp stove, so when we need mountain lunches from him, we support with season passes.”

Johnny also said he loves coaching his friends, and showing them new tricks to try on the rails. He is currently working with one of his friends at Lost Valley to nail a few rail tricks, and said he drives home the need for repetition until the trick becomes like muscle memory.

“The more they try it, the more they’re going to understand it, and then they actually know what they’re doing wrong,” Johnny Bsullak said. “So you motivate them, but they actually learn it and understand it themselves.”

Johnny said he has taught himself to be comfortable with being uncomfortable in the sport, and to keep trying tricks until he is able to land them over and over again.

“If there’s no risk, there’s no point in doing it,” Johnny Bsullak said. “If everybody could do everything then it wouldn’t be any fun.”

FREESTYLE TAKES A VILLAGE

Like many sporting events, COVID-19 stopped the King of the Valley competition at Lost Valley.

Johnny Bsullak has made a goal to work with the Lost Valley marketing team to bring it back to life, so other kids can get their start in freestyle skiing, just as he did. He said that in the past the competition was quite popular and drew skiers from throughout Maine and neighboring states.

“He’s got the next generation looking up to him, these little kids on the mountain that are 5 and 6 and 7 and 9,” Stacey Bsullak said. “It’s just phenomenal to have this age group willing to mentor, they will you give a high-five, and I just I love it.”

The Bsullaks are quick to mention how instrumental Lost Valley has been for Johnny and other skiers, specifically with the 10-week Lost Valley racing club program.

“I don’t think people realize what Lost Valley and the Lost Valley racing club have to offer here,” Stacey Bsullak said. “It’s a great little mountain. They have awesome programming here for kids and the USASA team. It’s meant to be beginner startups. They have snowboards freestyle, and they have Alpine all the way through slalom through rail jams through slopestyle through ski cross.”

Several Mainers also contributed to a GoFundMe last year that was set up to help fund the Johnny’s trip to nationals in Colorado. He said he is very thankful for the support that the community has poured into him, both for that bid to nationals and since.

“So many community members were all about Johnny, and I think a lot of people were watching the clips that night,” Stacey Bsullak said. “I shared the link, and everybody was at home watching Johnny, and he gets to second heat and comes in, and everyone was so tense, it was unbelievable.”

Johnny works at Lost Valley on week nights, and earned his first sponsorship from Zbon Fitness Gym of Poland. They gave him a year’s membership at a steep discount in September, as well as training tips for year-round training.

“It’s a community in the park skiing,” John Bsullak said. “It all started right here at Lost Valley, with the King of the Valley, because he was skiing here and then we’d come in right in this room and they’d hand out prizes and they’d be hammering the music and calling out the tricks.

“That’s what sucked him into it. Yeah. He hit it right on the head, everybody’s in it together. No one sits on the bench, everybody gets to go.”

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