Each fall members of the US Snowboard Team (and former medalists) attend regional balls to raise money for the US Ski Team organization. Apparently, these parties held in Boston, New York, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and the Bay Area bring in millions of dollars.
“It’s a good way to meet existing U.S. Ski Team and U.S. Snowboarding supporters face-to-face and try to generate new supporters as well,” said snowboardcross great Nate Holland.
Gold medalist Ross Powers will be at the Langham Hotel in the heard of Boston’s financial district for the New England Ski and Snowboard Ball this Wednesday, September 30, 2009. For all the details on the team’s big balls, follow the jump. [click to continue…]
The bargain lift-ticket seller Liftopia.com has added Whistler/Blackcomb, Killington, Mammoth Mountain, Winter Park, Copper Mountain, and Stowe, to its list of discounter resorts this season, and rounded up $1 million more in funding, according to a story on TechCrunch.
Liftopia allows ski resorts to offer variable pricing for tickets based on much how traffic they anticipate seeing on the slopes — in other words, resorts can lower their prices if they think they’re going to have a slow day the same way an airline does if a flight might not fill up. Some resorts have been able to do this to a limited extent with ‘peak season’ tickets (a ticket for Christmas time would cost more than one a month or two later), but up until now they haven’t had a good way to adjust their pricing on a daily basis. Liftopia gives them this option.
Definitely something worth checking out this season. . .
A Fresno City College student in Fresno, California was simply carrying a skateboard across the campus when a City College safety officer demanded that the student hand over the skateboard.
Cell phone video shows officers restraining the skateboarder and telling another student, wearing a white tank top, to back away. . . When he refuses, a city college officer is seen in the video chasing after him, while another appears to be swinging a baton.
Some witnesses said there were 10 to 15 officers involved. After some baton swinging and macing one student was arrested for “resisting arrest.” They always seem to use that one don’t they?
Few have done more with less than Mick Fanning as he destroyed small, mixed up surf early in his final heat against a combo’d Bede Durbidge in the Quiksilver Pro France in Seignosse.
“I was really fortunate to get those couple of good ones at the start because I really ran out of gas there at the end,” Fanning said. “It’s two back-to-back events where I have had to surf four heats on the final day to get the win and it takes a lot out of you. The conditions were deteriorating and I was fortunate to get those scores on the board early on.”
For the rest of the ASP press release and all the results follow the jump. [click to continue…]
The Paramount Studios back lot got its annual dose of serious skateboarding last night as the 5th Vans Downtown Showdown rocked the lot with riders from Girl, Flip, Blind, Creature, Black Label, Foundation, Toy Machine, SK8MAFIA and Zoo York going team vs. team on four team-designed features.
The Foundation team made up of (Corey Duffel, Sierra Fellers, Gareth Stehr, Angel Ramierz, Nick Merlino, David Reyes, Abdias Rivera, Alex Gourodorous) took top team honors with top Am going to Nick Merlino and top pro nabbed by Jani Laitiala.
Conor Dougherty, skateboarding’s best friend at the Wall Street Journal, interviews Sean Cliver on the release of his book The Disposable Skateboard Bible. Sean says he really only has one regret about the book:
My only regret when finally going to the printer this past April—after two-and-a-half years of work compiling images—was not being able to photograph Stacy Peralta’s collection. I was briefly in touch with him, learned he still had the original Zephyr board from the one and only Zephyr ad that ran in the first new issue of Skateboarder Magazine in 1975, but unfortunately that’s as far as I was able to get with him. I guess he was neck-deep in the Crips and Bloods: Made in America documentary at the time and we were never able to hook up to shoot his stash.
Sadly, our intern failed in his quest to cover the Me, Myself, & I premiere at the world famous La Paloma Theatre in Encinitas, California the evening of Thursday, September 24, 2009. And in so doing, our dreams of hanging out with Todd Richards all night (vicariously) were once again dashed. But thankfully, Snowboarder Magazine‘s Kyle Kennedy was on point and pulled down 19 photos from the historic event. And for that we thank him.
Heitor Alves, Roy Powers, and Ben Dunn advanced out of their round 2 heats in the Quiksilver Pro France and then officials called it for the day after running only three heats competition.
Ben Dunn (AUS), 23, current ASP World No. 26, surfed one of the strangest heats of the Quiksilver Pro France thus far. His opponent, Chris Ward (USA), 30, who had already missed his Round 1 heat due to scheduling confusion, overslept this morning and failed to show up until 15 minutes into the 30 minute heat. . . “Well, it definitely plays with your head,” Dunn said. “Wardo missed his Round 1 heat and I thought he was going to show up for today’s heat because I saw him yesterday, but he said he overslept or something. It was still pretty even when he arrived though as I couldn’t get any waves.”
Follow the jump for the rest of the story and complete round 3 match ups. [click to continue…]
Eric Stricker, the Editor of Transworld Skateboarding has passed away. He was a good friend, a great editor, and a fighter.R.I.P.-skin
Eric Stricker (pictured left with Transworld’s Blair Alley on September 10, 2009) was one of the best skate minds in the business. He was cool, kind, and always happy to share his deep, deep knowledge of not only skateboarding but culture in general. He will be greatly missed.
Each fall members of the US Snowboard Team (and former medalists) attend regional balls to raise money for the US Ski Team organization. Apparently, these parties held in Boston, New York, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and the Bay Area bring in millions of dollars.
