Snowboarding

In a perfect world every day snowboarding would be a WWSRA On-snow demo. Think about it: No gear to haul, a 1,200 board quiver waiting at the bottom of the mountain—all perfectly tuned and ready to ride no matter what the conditions. Pros like Capita’s Durell Williams on hand to swap out your bindings and explain the latest technology, and on top of all that free beer (and lunch). What more could anyone ask for?

Held February 7-8, 2011 at Lake Tahoe’s Alpine Meadows, the WWSRA Northern California On-snow featured products from more than 50 snow hardgoods and accessory brands. Employees and buyers from 65 shops showed up to try out as many of next year’s snowboards as they could in two days.

Follow the jump for the rest of the story and click here for photos.
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The world of snowboarding has moved to Mt. Baker this weekend for Mt. Baker’s Legendary Banked Slalom. At 9:45 AM this morning (February 11, 2011) racers are scheduled to begin dropping in for qualification runs. Qualifiers will continue all day Friday and Saturday with finals on Sunday. Organizer Gwen Howat told the Bellingham Herald that this year’s course is a little different.

One feature unique to this year’s course will be crop circles, a figure-eight feature made of two complete bowls connected. Riders will have to choose which way to go. Howat has also enlisted as many turns as she thinks has ever been allowed. . . “This could pan out to be one of the more interesting courses I’ve set in a really long time,” Howat said. “It’s going to be a head game as well as a fitness game.”

Click here to see who was lucky enough to get a spot in the race. Or here for a full event schedule. And yes, there is still time to jump a flight to Seattle.
[Link: Mt. Baker]

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At 7:30 AM (PST) Saturday, February 12, 2011 the Nike 6.0 Air & Style Munich will kick off. Luckily, for those who didn’t linger on in Germany after ISPO the entire event will be live on Freecaster.tv.

If you’re into the stadium rock huck scene, click the link and watch it all tomorrow morning.

[Link: Freecaster.tv]

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Photo via The TackledBox.

On Monday morning (February 7, 2011) word began to spread around the snowboard world that the 35-year-old snowboarder who died Sunday, February 6, 2011 at Colorado’s Eldora Mountain Resort was former pro snowboarder, and Rockies Stepchild Snowboards, Airblaster, Krew and Supra rep Scotty Goodale.
As the crew at Stepchild said on their site:

For those that had the pleasure of knowing Scotty, he was one of the kindest and humblest individuals and was a positive inspiration to everyone he came into contact with. Scotty was a very passionate person. He loved snowboarding, skateboarding and above all he loved people. His eyes lit up whenever he talked about the people in his life-especially his wife and son.

Nearly everyone we’ve spoken to remembers Scotty as the best friend anyone could ever have. In a comment on Boardistan C3 World Wide Sales Manager Johan Malkoski said Goodale, “was a dad, husband and one hell of a shred. . . He was a great kid that was never with out a smile and always lit up a room with his laughter.” Working Holiday’s Dan McNamara said Goodale “was one of the greatest guys you could have ever met. ”

Milosport’s George Johnston, who worked with Goodale, said there was absolutely nothing Goodale would not do for his friends. “I was just glad I was here snowboarding when I got the news,” Johnson told us at the WWSRA On-Snow at Lake Tahoe’s Alpine Meadows. “Or I don’t know how I would have handled it.”

A memorial fund has been created to help Goodale’s wife, and son. Donations can be sent directly to the following address:

Jennifer Goodale
c/o Crist Mortuary
3395 Penrose Place
Boulder CO 80301
Phone: (303) 442-4411

Anything you can give would be greatly appreciated.

Services to celebrate Scotty’s life are planned for Sunday, February 13, 2011 in Boulder, Colorado. The location has not yet been announced. We will update this post with more info as it arrives.

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Burton’s Kelly Clark (pictured above) and Bonfire’s Kohei Kudo took the halfpipe at the Burton Canadian Open held at Calgary’s WinSport Canada’s Canada Olympic Park on Saturday, February 4, 2010.

Kohei is also no stranger to the BGOS events but this is his first time to the podium and he was surprised at his great finish. “This is my first time to CANO and I am very glad to win. I had a lot of fun!”

Ride’s Sam Hulbert (pictured above) and Billabong’s Jamie Anderson won the slopestyle on Sunday. Sam’s final run was a frontside 180 switch 50-50 switch backside 180 on the first rail, frontboard, boardslide 270, and 50-50 backside 360, with a switch backside 900 indy, frontside 1080 and a backside 720 of the final kickers. Sounds right solid.

“This is awesome,” said Sam Hulbert. “Going into my final run I wanted to win. I just needed to land the jumps and I hoped the wind wouldn’t slow me down. Definitely one of the best moments of my life.”

Follow the jump for the official Burton informations.
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Two snowboarders were killed and three injured in two separate avalanches at Cheget Mountain in the Russian Republic of Kabardino-Balkar over the weekend, according to a story on Itar-Tass, and a 35-year-old Colorado snowboarder died Sunday, February 6, 2011 after hitting at tree at Eldora Mountain Resort, according to a story in the Daily Camera.

The report on the Russian snowboarders claims that two groups of snowboarders were riding in area where it “was prohibited.” Each group triggered an avalanche in which members of their group where buried. The bodies of two snowboarders were recovered from the first avalanche and three were buried, but only injured in the second. The first slide happened at 12:30 local time and then second at approximately 2 PM.

[Links: Daily Camera and Russia-ic.com]

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