US Marines reportedly name their guns and treat them as they would a girlfriend. It appears Torstein Horgmo has a similar attraction to his snowboard. . . or something like that. Oscar talk is making the rounds.
[Link: Method Mag]
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According to a new report by snow injury statistician Jasper Shealy, reported in the Wall Street Journal snowboarders may experience more injuries on the hill, but they die much less often than skiers do.
On paper, snowboarding appears to be more dangerous but less deadly. The injury rate is 50 percent to 70 percent higher than in skiing, Shealy said, which he suspects is due to the people doing it. Snowboarders tend to be young males. . . While snowboarders get injured more often, the death rate is about one-third lower than in skiing. That snowboards don’t release from the feet of the snowboarder is likely explanation, Shealy said. When a rider falls, the edge of the snowboard drags on the snow and acts like a brake. But that can also cause fractures, he said.
Last year the National Ski Areas Association say 25 skiers and 13 snowboarders died on snow. We’ll take the injuries, thank you.
[Link: The Wall Street Journal]
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Josh Dirksen’s Dirksen Derby hand-shaped banked slalom at Mt. Bachelor presented by Bonfire this this weekend (December 11-12, 2010) helped to raise money for snowboarder Tyler Eklund who was paralyzed during the USASA Nationals in February 2009. Looks like a lot of fun even if the weather was less the perfect. Click here for a photo gallery.
[Link: Yobeat.com]
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A month ago Burton Snowboards released a new board that features a design created in partnership a local Burlington, Vermont bong builders The Bern Gallery. The board is called the “Nug” and the Burlington Free Press used this local collab as the perfect hook for a story on one of Burlington’s coolest businesses..
Inside, Burton looks like a ski lodge, combined with an ad agency, a retail store, a mad scientist’s laboratory and a dog kennel. Dogs are everywhere — big ones, little ones, short-haired ones and furry ones, playing in people’s offices, staring sweetly from beneath people’s desks, and tearing around corners in hot pursuit of something, although it’s not always clear what.
See, the Burlington Free Press occasionally does nice stories about Burton, too.
[Link: The Burlington Free Press]
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Louie Vito danced with the stars down Copper Mountain’s halfpipe with a frontside double 10, cab double 10, stiffie, back 9 and front 10 to win US Snowboarding Grand Prix number one today. Luke Mitrani and Scotty Lago got second and third
“I’m really stoked. I’m happy to land a run when I had to and start the season off well,” Vito said. “It’s good to have landed and to be on the podium with two of my best friends.”
Sun Valley, Idaho’s Kaitlyn Farrington edged Kelly Clark to win her first US Grand Prix with an air, backside 9, front 7, cab 7, and air to fakie. Japan’s Rana Okada finished third.
“It was the first time that I’ve landed the backside 9, so I was stoked just to try it and land it,” Farrington said. “I worked on it a lot last year and I’m happy it all came together this year. It’s a good way to start out the season.”
Follow the jump for the more complete results.
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Kevin Jones has always been one of our favorite snowboarders. While we may have been rough on him in the past (when we couldn’t figure why he was giving up so much) it’s good to see that, aside from mucking things up on Buoloco, he’s back on his snowboard as well.
Snowboard Magazine has a great story up on their site titled The Life Between My Ears. Here’s how it starts out:
“Maybe I just love it too much,” Kevin Jones says with more than a hint of nostalgia. “But I feel like I owe it to the snowboarding community to tell it how it is. I owe it to my friends now and gone. I owe it to myself to say what I really think.”
The story (with Jeff Curley photos) pretty much answers every questions we’ve had about why Kevin left snowboarding, where he went, and why he’s back. And it’s all good.
[Link: Snowboard Mag]
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A snowboarder who “undercut a cliff area just sound of No Shadows couloir” got buried in an avalanche on Tuesday morning, December 7, 2010, according to a story in the Jackson Hole News & Guide.
[The snowboarder] was buried with only his fingers exposed in 15 feet of debris at the toe of the slab. The slab propagated up through a cliff area and into drifted snow beneath a cornice.The snowboarder, who was the fourth person to ride or ski the slope, survived with minor injuries.
Quick work by friends got the snowboarder freed. It always helps to ride with good people.
[Link: Jackson Hole News & Guide]
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The last thing we need while stumbling though one of our favorite snowboard parks is more distractions. Apparently, Mammoth, AR4T and the JLA Project aren’t building their new Round Robin Art Park for us.
“Snowboarding has always been about creativity – finding your own line. Art is the exact same. That’s why cultures like snowboarding, skateboarding and art have always gone hand in hand. The great part about the Art Park is that there are no rules; we can get as creative as we like. The artists can go nuts, Dustin – the person who makes the rails come to life and who is an amazing artist himself – can push the limits, and hopefully the folks who come through the park will have fun and go home inspired, feeling a part of the whole experience” said Torrey Cook, AR4T’s curator.
Torrey may be right. It could be quite inspiring to see something beautiful moments before folding into a face whip halfway through an up/flat/down. For the rest of the details, follow the jump.
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Kevin Pearce was interviewed by Fox Boston at the opening of his father Simon Pearce’s Newbury Street store grand opening on Thursday, December 2, 2010. It’s good to see Kevin doing so well at getting his head around his injury and his recovery.
[Link: Fox Boston]
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Using her new ESPN Women blog as her launch pad Gretchen Bleiler has announced that she is eliminating “most of the halfpipe competitions from [her] schedule this season.”
Just as the decision I made in high school wasn’t easy, this one isn’t, either. Competing in the halfpipe is what I know and love, and what I’ve been great at for the past 10 years, which is exactly why it’s time to forge into this new territory. It’s time to learn and time to grow. Seeing snowboarding differently, seeing the mountain differently, and riding with creativity and style — that’s my new goal.
Sometimes the transition from athlete to spokesmodel can be difficult, especially when sponsors’ memories for why they sponsored athletes in the first place seems so short these days.
[Link: ESPN W (you know, it’s like for Women)]
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