The annual SIA/Leisure Trends Group retail audit overview press release was emailed out today. Sadly, they didn’t do much to breakout snowboarding from the rest of the stuff they track, and we couldn’t care less about how many pairs of twin-tip skis were sold or what the Vice President of Descente has to say about anything. So, here are some of the data points that, jumped out at us like a pride of starved snow leopards.
The “Internet” is now responsible for 16.47 percent of all snow sports sales
Snowboard sales in specialty shops have fallen by 1% vs 05-06
Snowboard sales in chain stores fell by 13% in units and 6% in dollars since the 05.06 season
In other words, nothing much to see here. Read the rest after the jump. [click to continue…]
Apparently, the Iranian snowboard team has taken the National title in a snowboard contest held in Iran.
Iran’s snowboard team has claimed the first prize in the international snowboarding competition at Tochal ski resort in Tehran, according to PressTV.com.
The Iranian team won the championship with 969 points. Slovenia and Australia came second and third with 692 and 412 points respectively.
Radoslav Zidek, who won a silver medal in Snowboard Cross at the 2006 Winter Olympics, bagged the gold medal. Charles Ferry from Australia won the silver and Hossein Kalhor from Iran walked away with the bronze medal on Friday.
Thirty-four skiers from Iran, Australia, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and Croatia participated in the three-day event, which ended on Friday.
An International Ski Federation official from Austria was sent as an observer as the winners will qualify for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.
Looks like Travis Rice isn’t the only Oakley sponsored snowboarder who can win his own self-designed contest. Gretchen Bleiler just won an even that she created originally called The Gretchen Bleiler Invitational. They later changed the name to the CoverGirl Snow Angels Invitational, but that didn’t stop Ms. Bleiler.
Even after changing its name to the CoverGirl Snow Angels Invitational, it was all about Bleiler at the inaugural event last weekend. The Aspen hostess took home the mostest at the women-only season-ending snowboard weekend she created, claiming $10,000 for her dominance in the superpipe and being named the event’s MPR (most progressive rider).
In the video Gretchen says she “just wanted it to be an event that the girls would talk about and love and enjoy coming to,” but it’s kind of like going to a birthday party and watching the hostess eat all the cake. . . and ice cream.
Just wait until we host the Boardistan Blowout. . . we’re going to scoop up those medals like spilled Cheerios.
Ai Ito, 25, went missing at Blackcomb Mountain on March 23, 2008. the RCMP said they found her body on April 7, 2008.
Police say the location is described as the water basin beneath the 7th Heaven run on Blackcomb Mountain. And on-scene evidence suggests that Ito had a bad fall, then succumbed to the cold weather before she had a chance to get up and out of the area.
A 34-year-old Italian snowboarder died on Thursday March 27, 2008 when he fell from a 250 foot cliff near the Corona Bowl “just outside the ski-area boundary.”
A helicopter crew spotted him at the bottom of a 75-metre (250-foot) cliff, near the area where he went missing. . . . The man was dead when rescuers reached him and all evidence suggested he had fallen off the cliff by accident, Cst. Yakub said. The man’s body was recovered and was to have been transported to Vancouver General Hospital for an autopsy.
Can you lay 50 people off on April Fools day? Apparently not. According to reports posted on Transworld Business, the Big B offered the big bye bye on April 2, 2008.
While there has been no official press release from Burton, a source says that Burton has eliminated The Syndicate staff on the West Coast, as well as several marketing positions. In all, nearly 50 jobs are said to have been eliminated.
Canada’s top snowboard cross racers, who should be serious medal threats at the 2010 Olympics, were angry yesterday over the sudden termination of their well-liked coach, Austrian Rene Brunner, on the eve of this weekend’s national championships near West Vancouver. Tom McIllfaterick, the snowboard federation’s chief executive officer, would not disclose the reasons why Brunner, who has been with the team since 2005, was let go.
Now, you’ll never be lost on a mountain again. Podpro solved the ski map dilemma for us.
Podpro is offering a free service for skiers and snowboarders that delivers instant access to more than thirty-three of North America’s most popular ski resorts. With Podpro’s service users can retrieve live weather reports, ski conditions, as well as lodging options from anywhere.
We cruised through and it’s a nice, simple interface for viewing big ski area map .jpg files on the iPhone, plus weather, snowfall, links etc. . .
Shop, eat, surf’s, Tiffany Montgomery attended the Quiksilver shareholders meeting on March 28, 2008 so we didn’t have to. Here are her take-aways. . . wait, she didn’t have any take-aways, just the facts:
Company goals include driving growth in apparel and footwear brands, divesting the equipment business, continuing its initiative to streamline global sourcing, cutting expenses, improving operating profit margins, improving cash flow and reducing debt. . . . Quiksilver now owns 406 retail stores, a $392 million business acounting for 20 percent of apparel and footwear sales last year.
