posted Jul 20th, 2004 - CanAm Skydiving League director Scott Anderson began his meet report with an unusual opening: "Something strange happened at Meet #2 of the CanAm league. No one was quite sure what to make of it.......It was sunny and winds were low!" No wonder, it is not unusual that skydiving events north of the border have serious weather problems. The first attempt of CanAm meet this year had been weathered out already.

Maybe the weather god decided not to be in the way of Al Altendorfer's comeback as a meet judge for the CanAm Skydiving League. Altendorfer was one of the CanAm founders and helped a lot to launch the league in 2002. Jennifer VanRysdam initiated the momentum for a league on its own in Canada, and Altendorfer supported the efforts and took the position of the CanAm chief judge. Altendorfer used to be a USPA judge for many years and was willing to offer his experiences to the youngest league in the country.

The new CanAm Director of 2003, Scott Anderson, had bad news for the CanAm and NSL in May 2003, right in the middle of the preparations for the new season: "We got some bad news yesterday. Al had to be taken to the hospital last weekend and is having a bunch of tests done. He is not doing well. I don’t want to speculate on what is wrong but it definitely seems serious. Needless to say, he will not be at the first CanAm meet. He will, of course, worry about it and when I talked to him yesterday he was coming up with contingency plans and ideas. He was in no condition to do this, and we want him to concentrate on himself for now."

It was serious, and Altendorfer missed almost the complete CanAm 2003 season. However, he could not handle to stay away all the time and visited the CanAm 2003 July meet. Anderson mentioned that "...he can not do too much, energy wise, but he is eager to get back into things". Altendorfer is now back into things, and he was judging last weekend's CanAm competition. Anderson reported that "Quality judging was provided by Co-League Director Al Altendorfer, Doreen Gemmel, and Gary Connolly." The NSL is glad to see Altendorfer back in action and in good health.

Anderson continues about the actual competition: "Three teams registered for the competition; all of them regular CanAm participants. Canada's national 4-way team, Stratosfear and Team Go competed in the AAA Class, and Vertical Descent competed in the AA Class. Any coaching needs or pointers were provided by Stratosfear who, as always, were more than willing to help. Skydive Burnaby managed to quickly get all teams in the air - in the middle of a large fundraising tandem event and the Canadian Freefly Festival. By 6:00 pm all teams had completed six rounds. Shortly after, the weather moved back in and stuck round the rest of the weekend."