Wonder how Quiksilver shareholders (and former employees) feel about this little line from a Globe and Mail story on how Rossignol has pulled their company back from the brink of bankruptcy.
For a company that has shed 20 per cent of its work force and narrowly escaped bankruptcy, opening a glitzy new headquarters might look like corporate vanity. . . Not so for Skis Rossignol SA, says new chief executive officer Bruno Cercley, who hopes the glass-fronted new building will motivate staff as the 100-year old company tries to turn the page on recession by focusing on core ski brands.
Guess that page turning thing is easier to do after letting another company take the fall for you. . .
When a Japanese company (Phoenix’s X-Nix) purchased the rights to dress the 1998 United States Olympic Snowboard Team Burton Snowboards thought that the whole idea of a “uniform” for snowboarders was a terrible idea. In fact, they said that it went against everything that snowboarding stood for.
Now that Burton is been the official snowboard team supplier for a second Olympics things are a quite different, according to a story in the New York Times.
“Board sports, for the most part, are about expressing individuality — that’s what makes them cool,” said Greg Dacyshyn, the company’s creative director. “So the whole uniform thing, you know, it’s a sensitive subject.” . . . “The inspiration was sort of that classic Americana look: the plaid blazer and old jeans,” Dacyshyn said. “Yeah, it’s a uniform, but it’s also an anti-uniform at the same time.”
But more importantly, the uniforms now sport a couple Burton logos. One thing is for sure: these uniforms are going to look real smooth behind gold medals.
The Euro snowboard season kicks off this weekend in Innsbruck with the Billabong Air & Style. Tune in December 5, 2009 for live coverage form Bergisel Stadium in Innsbruck, Austria on Freecaster.tv. Should be a rocking good show with The Hives and K.I.Z. and Peetu Piiroinen and Travis Rice kicking down some stadium rock snowboarding.
It appears the cool kids stay cool for ever. Take former shred star Ali Goulet for instance. Thanks to a blown ACL in 2001 he faded away from snowboarding just when it was getting blown out. So what’s the coolest thing going right now? Some would argue it’s Cyclocross. And guess who is dominating the 35+ US Gran Prix of Cyclocross series? According to a story in Velonews it’s, Ali Goulet.
Not only is leading the series, but he is dominating it with four wins and two podium finishes. He also won his first cyclocross state championship in Utah this year, beating Cannondale-Monavie’s Bart Gillespie. . . “When I turned 35 I wanted to race the USGP and do my best to try to win it over all. I wanted to have one year to try it and if it didn’t work out, oh well,” he said. “Then I need to get back to taking care of the kid — trying not to be so selfish.”
Looks like plan A is going quite well for Goulet. How cool is that?
Since we seem to be on a Canadian snowboarders and drugs groove today here’s another one.
In his new book Off The Chain, An Insider’s History of SnowboardingRoss Rebagliati suggests that his positive weed drug test at the Nagano Olympic Games was part of an International Olympic Committee plot to put snowboarding in its place, according to a story in the Canadian Press.
“I smoked weed on tour because it relaxed me, and unlike alcohol, it did not result in hangovers or weight gain,” he writes. “To be sure my results would be clear by the Olympics, I’d smoked by last spliff in early April 1997.” . . It wasn’t until after the Olympics Rebagliati learned he had failed every drug test he had taken in the six months leading up to the Games, but was never told the results. . . “When I tested positive for marijuana during those pre-Games doping controls, the FIS said nothing so that, should I win at the Olympics, the IOC could seize the opportunity to show snowboarders what would happen if we didn’t straighten up. . . I’m sure that many other snowboarders failed their drug tests for marijuana in the months leading up to the Games too. And if one of them had won the gold medal, the same thing would have happened to that winner. Too far-fetched? You decide.”
We wouldn’t put anything past the IOC, but this does sound just a tad paranoid. No?
According to Pocketgamer.co.uk a new game Shaun White Snowboarding Origins will be released for the iPhone along side Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage.
Of course, the key feature will be the controls, with AMA – which is developing and publishing – promising trick moves such as ollies, tail grabs, melon, indy grabs, spins and flips will be smooth and intuitive to the touch. . . The action takes places across four geographical areas – Chile, Japan, Spain and the USA. . . Community features will also be covered with the ability to send ghosts to friends, share challenges, as well as compare your scores via global leaderboards.
The game reportedly drops in December in the iTunes store. This could be the first Shaun White Snowboarding game we ever play.
Open Space: The Untold Stories of Mike Basich is up and on the 241-usa.com site in its entirety and worth watching if you have a spare 37 minutes. Mikey B. has always followed his own path and this film puts it all in perspective.
While his contemporaries continued to channel the sport’s core sponsors into career success, White became an overnight industry, trading niche overachievement for mainstream sports superstardom, his image used to launch clothing lines for US superstore Target, his face fronting campaigns for American Express and Hewlett Packard and his signature splattered across the covers of posters, books, DVDs, video games.
When we read stories like this we think back to the time when Shaun was just a tiny kid in a helmet standing quietly by as his mother begged event organizers to let him forerun the US Open halfpipe even though he wasn’t technically old enough.
A partnership that links Wendy’s and Ubisoft’s Shaun White snowboarding video game has helped the Winter Dew Tour sell out of its title sponsorships for the first time. The quick-service restaurant and the video game manufacturer struck a multifaceted partnership deal. . .
Wonder how Quiksilver shareholders (and former employees) feel about this little line from a Globe and Mail story on how Rossignol has pulled their company back from the brink of bankruptcy.
