A quick ramble.
Natural Selection finally did it. They cracked the code for snowboard contests. Five years in and not only was this latest iteration the best format (also used by the Snow League this year), but the broadcast was exciting from start to finish. Snowboarders always seem to be looking for something to rally behind and it was finally delivered: Live snowboarding during the season that feels like a defining moment of the winter. Podiums and contests are great, but for the most part the standard course and spin-to-win run is forgettable. If it isn’t won in the final lap by a McMorris, Gerard, White, Anderson, Synnott, Kim, James, or Hirano, the moment has no chance to last in brains that are constantly inundated with all the wild shit on the internet. And then came this year’s Revelstoke stop.
The new format debuted in Revelstoke puts everyone in the hot seat to advance. The group stage where the best runs overall punch their ticket to the head-to-head rounds seemed to run smoothly and in a solid cadence for those of us who weren’t standing at the bottom of the slope. I will be the first to admit that I thought head-to-head would offer the most drama, but the golden ticket opportunity offered on day one of the Natural Selection quickly proved me wrong. Not only did most riders throw caution to the wind, the announcers were on one as well and held court in a way that snowboarding broadcasts rarely do. Ed Leigh and Mary Walsh brought the researched side while Todd Richards said whatever the hell came to his mind. Eddie Wall talked with years of expertise and there wasn’t a multiple-hour blackout due to solar flares like last year so everything was great! Every drop had meaning on day one and the endless options in Montana Bowl made it less stale than your average contest with people all hitting the same feature and tossing similar tricks with varying degrees of spin. New names came up big but old reliables still brought their years of talent to the screen in a display of snowboarding not often seen live. Stylish spins and freestyle options on the top features mixed with riders dropping psychotic cliffs made for can’t-miss TV and I don’t think it is recency bias to say this was the best one yet.
There are plenty of reasons a contest can be forgettable. The broadcast gets repetitive, weather conditions limit riders, it runs way too long, or there is a clear winner and the overall day lacks competition. I have had the pleasure of attending countless contests over the past few years where this was the case, and watching on TV with plenty of other options is an even bigger hazard for the competitive scene. If you want to see great snowboarding at home, you can just turn on a movie or spend some time on YouTube with perfect edits now probably ranging in the thousands. But just like traditional sports, highlight reels are nowhere near as satisfying as watching it take place live. Seeing unimaginable riding in person is pretty hard to beat, but sitting on a comfy couch is a close second (and probably first for anyone that wants to see the entirety of the course). Lucky for us, for two days this past weekend the most exciting thing to watch was actual snowboarding.
The NST crew has had years to get it right and live up to their self-proclaimed “Super Bowl of Snowboarding” title, and I think the table has now been set. This was the first iteration that it all seemed to truly line up. Seemingly great snow from the viewers perspective, camera angles that captured how insane some attempts were, and announcers that embraced their roots instead of playing it safe for the FCC’s sake. Just about every rider mic’d up tossing out a “fuck” mid run was the icing on the cake. It just felt different than everything we have seen over the past few years. Not to mention watching former halfpipe and slopestyle heavyweights test their board control alongside born-and-bred backcountry riders. There is nothing else in the snowboarding world like it.
Everyone wants snowboarding to mature for a larger audience but the growing pains have been a bit unbearable to watch at times. THIS CONTEST FINALLY GOT IT RIGHT. Age and experience were tossed out the window this year with rookies doing extremely well on both the men and women’s side which finally delivered on “dramatic” storylines that everyone is always harping about. The final had a new father and Olympic slope rider against a rookie on the men’s side while the women’s had one of the most respected riders in the history of the sport against a decorated slopestyle rider that has reinvented her career out in the mountains. Impressive resumes were matched on screen with impressive riding and the young guns of the contest delivered just as exciting drops that will only get better in the years to come. I guess the biggest challenge for NST is to now back it up next year. I for one can’t wait to watch. If you want all the results, go watch the full thing. My quick recap is it was two days, day one was a bit more exciting, but day two had some great runs as well. Judging seemed great besides not shutting down the whole contest and declaring Brin Alexander the winner after his first run PSYCHOTIC diving board drop into the abyss. Now let’s just hope they can turn it back into an actual tour with more LIVE stops (although that is probably a logistical nightmare) and mother nature keeps blessing Travis Rice with the windows… and maybe no more duels.
