How much do ski hills love this past week's massive snowstorm? The short answer is — they love it a lot.
A longer answer would be — they expect the storm to make the difference between a so-so season and a great one.
Yves Juneau, the head of the Quebec Ski Areas Association, says he thinks the storm will more than make up for the big thaw over the last few weeks, which melted much of the winter's snow just as students were on their spring breaks.
"Up until this week, especially for the ski areas around Montreal and Ottawa, there wasn't much snow left on the ground," Juneau says. "So we can feel that the spirit is back, and this is the confirmation that the ski season is going to continue all the way through April and Easter weekend."
Juneau says the ski season in much of the province has been an up-and-down one, with periods of wintry weather mixed in with periods of milder weather.
The 2017 season, he says, is already better than the 2016 ski season, which was badly hurt by the mild El Nino winter.
"Last year, we were down by 11 percent," he says. "With the storm and a strong end of the season we can anticipate with this new storm, we are confident we will finish ahead of our five-year average."