lick my nuts smuggs you have the bad attide, I can't belive I'm still fighting about this shit with you, I feel like a preteen again, isn't that great? But I guess thats what you do when you are this board.
So anyways lets take a trip down snowboarding memory lane so we can make some comparisons with modern freestyle skiing. Shall we?
The first couple of notes here are really not of much importance, it was laying the original ground work for where snowboarding would ultamitly go.
1965--Sherman Poppen invents The Snurfer for his daughter Wendy by bolting two skis together.
1979-- Paul Graves appears riding a Snurfer in the first T.V. snowboarding commercial for LaBatt's beer which runs four years in Canada and the northern U.S
1983--Jake Burton Carpenter puts on the National Snowboarding Championships in the spring at Snow Valley, Vermont. Tom Sims then goes home and holds the inaugural World Snowboarding Championships at Soda Springs Ski Bowl in the Lake Tahoe area. This is the first contest to have a halfpipe event. Jake Burton, Andy Coghlan, and the Burton team members threatened to boycott the event because they felt halfpipe had nothing to do with snowboarding and should not be considered in the overall. INTERESTING SHIT EH?
1983--Jeff Grell designs a highback binding, enabling boards to be ridden effectively on hardpack. The bindings were first used on Flite snowboards, but later developed for Sims. Other's claim a highback was built earlier by Louis Fornier so Jeff's claim to the highback is up for discussion. Ultamitly this a MAJOR factor for the the freestyle progression of snowboarding.
1985--Metal edges are introduced on Sims 1500 FE and Burton Performer models, their winter production models. This ends the era of surfing-influenced fin design once and for all as snowboards become more compatible with ski technology. Yet another HUGE factor in the progresion of freestyle snowboarding.
1985--Absolutely Radical, the first magazine exclusively about snowboarding, appears in March. Six months later the name is changed to International Snowboard Magazine. The birth of the snowboarding media! Over a decade before The introduction of FREEZE magazine. Back at this time skiers were still enjoying the now defunct SNOW COUNTRY magazine. See if you can find one. Its GAY!
1985--Sims introduces the first signature model snowboard in their winterline, bearing Terry Kidwell's name. The Kidwell is also the first freestyle board with a rounded tail. The first free ride marketed Pro Model ski did not apear till over a decade later, and it wasn't even geard towards the freestyle movment as we know it today.
1987--Chuck Barfoot and his company (avalanche) introduce the first twin-tip freestyle shape with an identical nose and tail. The board is designed by Canadians Neil Daffern, Ken and Dave Achenbach.
AGAIN a DECADE ahead of the first modern marketed twin tip ski the 1080. (now don't scream at me about the olin mark 4 or even the k2 poacher. The Mark 4 was geared for ballet, the poacher was a twin tip ski for terrain park riding, but no one really knew what to do with it and it went away.)
1987--Transworld SNOWboarding Magazine publishes first issue in the fall. A DECADE ahead of Freeze. This could be a good place to really start a comparison of freestyle snowboarding and skiing. sports.
1987--In September, Wrigley's chewing gum utilizes snowboarding in a national commercial. Craig Kelly, Bert LaMar, Tom Burt, and Jim Zellers appear in an aerial romp filmed by *Greg Stump.*
1990--Vail Ski Resort tries a new approach by developing an in-bounds obstacle area called a 'snowboard park.' The area is intended to cater to a growing snowboard market and other resorts quickly follow suit.
1991--By now, the pro surfer/pro skater crossover to snowboarding is prevalent.Skaters Steve Caballero and Lance Mountain have been riding since the early 80s at least, Tony Hawk, Kevin Staab, and Joe Johnson have been riding for years. Surf standouts like Gary Elkerton, Mike Parsons, and Noah Budroe bite the snowboarding bait, and most other pro surfers ride regularly, have tried it, or at least have developed an opinion or two about it, more importantly they brought the Skate surf style that everyone is currently emulating in snowboarding AND skiing. Its currently 2003, so lets just say for arguments sake that modern freestyle snowboarding just appeared in 1991 that gives them a six year head start to progress their style to what it is today, but realisticaly its probaly more like 10 or 12 years, because they started with more or less of nothing.
1993-- Snowboarding's third wave of snowboard manufacturers spring up and in the fall of 1993 there are over 50 different companies marketing snowboards to the consuming public. This would be inline with what we are seeing now with Armada, Line, 4frnt, and undoubtably the other companies that will come out of the wood work in the coming few years. Lets backtrack to the first twin tip snowboard in 1987, thats a difference of 7 years, right in there with skiing which has taken from 1997 or 98 with the 1080 and the enemy, till 2002 with companies like Armada and 4frnt. Line does deserve mention, however until recent years skiing wasn't their primary focus. Arugue it if you want, its just my oppinion, and I think nothing less of line because of it.
so let me sum that last point up since its an important one. Seven years from the first twin tip snowboard to the major birth of new blood industry, Skiing has accomplished this feat in about the same time, and depending on who you talk to possibly less. SO to drive the point home, skiing from an idustry stand point has progressed at more or less the same rate as snowboarding, just a decade behind, which gives the athletes, producers, mag publishers and photographers of snowboarding a ten year advantage in STYLE etc. to see how far skiing has come in six years from PBP's State of Mind to Propaganda (which I consider the most ground breaking ski video to date) is revolutionary when it is compared to 17 or so years of progression that snowboarding was affoarded. The gap is closing. Mainly because skiers DO borrow from things already learned by snowboarders, and it won't be long on till skiers are on the same plane (I'd argue that they are on some levels), or even surpass them, just wait, or better yet, shut the fuck up and go do it yourself.
I guess this whole thing is about perspective and taking in the big picture. As far as ski videos go, it might be awhile till there is enough money in the industry to fully suport new forward thinking producers. Currently TGR and MSP each bring in way over a quarter million in sponsor dollars per movie they produce, and that leave scraps for anyone else, way less then what one needs to produce and promote a video the way it needs to be done to sell in any large quantities, somthing that atracts sponsors to a video in the first place. A vicious circle.
