This past weekend Top of the World skateshop hosted Ottawa/Gatineau’s first snowskate contest and open jam. You may have not seen a snowskate at the hill yet, let alone try one, but I assure you that it will have a very strong presence in the near future as this emerging core culture takes its stand. With very few local snow skaters, we were curious to what would come of the event, and to our surprise over 20 people ventured from out of town as far as Sutton, Toronto and Montreal to attend. This is proof that this small sport has a strong core following which people would travel far for, simply to ride with others who share the passion of snowskating.
With no prize money or trophy, this contest could not get any closer to the grassroots of where snowboarding and skateboarding originated from. My first time on a snowskate quite recently, brought me right back to the early days of snowboarding in the 80’s. With colourful leashes, acceptance at only a few local hills (if you are lucky), every run ending with a skier or snowboarder pointing and asking what the hell were doing and my ribs sore from so much giggling; I was hit with nostalgia. This quenched a long overdue thirst for a sprouting core sport in our commercialized snowboard and skateboard world.
We began our day with a DH banked race. Racers embodied the essence of downhill and slalom by tucking gates and picking lines. After a handful of timed qualifiers, racers were bracketed into head to head elimination rounds.
Pro Longboarder Pascal Jean (AKA Rookie) Dominated the day as our top qualifier and first place winner. His experience in slalom and DH was obvious as he picked and knew the best lines, along with being the only rider to tuck the whole course.
Top 8
1- Pascal Jean
2- Henry Siu
3- Thierry Doizon
4- Phil John Grey
5- Samuel Remillard
6- Mike Montgomery
7- Steve Nadeau
8- Cimon Laprise
We then moved to our fenced off, no leash zone for the best trick jam. Camp fortune was gracious enough to build our own skate inspired set up. With riders were going huge off the jump, and getting technical on the box set up, we had a great two hour jam.
Best trick went to Henry Siu, for going huge on the jump with strong methods. Steve Nadeau took best overall as he killed every feature with kick flips off the picnic table and 180s off the jump.
Mike Olsen, Owner of Lib Tech, has been saying since 1997 that snowskating is the future. With its intuitive style in bridging skateboarding and snowboarding, you would think it would hit the public eye hard by 2014, but still today…. snowskating still seems to be the future. As the sport seems to grow one event at a time, we can enjoy these early years of its infancy before the inevitable surge in its popularity. Soak in for what its worth while you can, as these truly are the good old days.