2009 US OPEN

If there is a contest that I look foward to each year, it would definitely be the US Open of Snowboarding. This was my 6th year announcing the event, but this year I did the live event for finals instead of the webcast. It was a long week for me, announcing all of the qualifer events and the semi/finals as well. They brought back the Quarterpipe event on friday night and that went off super well. Lots of good riding from some of the best transition riders in the world. Peter Line, and Seb Touts killed it all night, and NH boys Scotty Lago and Danny Garrity shralped as well. Lago ended up taking the win at the end of the night. On the halfpipe side of things, Danny Kass made history winning his 5th US Open title and absolutely killing it on his 3rd run in finals. Torah Bright won for the ladies with some super progressive tricks like switch backside 7s and starting her run with air to fakies. Slopestyle was super good seeing some riders doing all 4 nine hundreds down the SPT slope course. We also saw the double mango roll from one of our pre-qualifier riders. The highlight of my US Open experience this year was seeing my long time friend Chaz Guldemond win the slopestyle and take that overall Burton Global Open Series title this year. Chaz took home 145k on sunday!! This year was super fun helping T-Bird from Snowboarder Mag shape his announcing skills, and then working with Preston is always rad. Obviously a huge thanks needs to go out to Liam Griffin, Maria McNulty, Christy Nicolay, Preston Strout, Tom Monterosso, and all the riders for making a great event this year.

US Snowboarding Grand Prix Killington

The last stop of the Grand Prix tour just went down last week at Killington in Vermont. I was on hand to lend out my commentary skills for go211.com. The 22ft halfpipe looked to be on the bigger side of that, because it was the largest halfpipe that I have ever seen in person. A lot of the big guns were doing world cups out in Europe to get enough FIS points to qualify for next years Olympic qualifier events. Michael "Goldy" Goldshmidt took the halfpipe contest and the Paul Mitchell progression session was clobbered by my friends from Waterville Valley. 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 12th place were all Waterville kids. Sam Hulbert took down the top spot, and his first big podium finish of his career. Check out the highlights of the webcast on http://www.go211.com/

Alaska Heli-Trip

I usually keep this blog limited to events that I am hosting, but this trip made the cut for sure. I spent a week in Haines Alaska for a trip that was incredible. I have traveled all over the world, and this trip was the best one that I have ever been on. Myself, Junior Kantor, and Scott Keating made the voyage out to AK for a trip with Oakley's Heather Call and her husband Ashley. They are probably two of the best people on this earth. If there is one thing that I took from my trip to Alaska, it is that people in Alaska look out for each other and have a deep respect for the elements around them and the lifestyle that they all live. Heather is more bad ass than anyone I know, and Ashley was quoted by Mark Sullivan as "Ashley Call will save your life if shit goes down" This made me feel really good about my first trip to Alaska. Riding in AK is on a completely different level than anything I have ever done. I pride myself as one of the few that have learned how to race gates from Bill Enos, and can turn my snowboard unlike most of the rail goons out there today. I was striaght up humbled by the terrain we were riding. Our guide Tim Tom was super on point and brought us on some rad runs. Bluebird, bottomless turns, and a great crew made for a memorable time. All of this combined with a Halibut dinner at the Funny Farm, riding sleds in the backcountry, and shooting guns with locals made this the best trip ever!! A huge thanks goes out to Heather and Ashley Call, Bruce from the Funny Farm, Luck, Ken and Amy, Patrick from Sequence, and Sean Dog at http://www.alaskaheliskiing.com/

See you next year!!!