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April, 2025

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Is Freeze Still relevant?

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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22738 - Karma: 77,008
https://www.newschoolers.com/readnews/43286.0/From-the-Archives--Q-A-with-FREEZE-s-Micah-Abrams

This article got me thinking... Is Freeze magazine still relevant, or is it simply the leftovers of a past generation? Some things are better to have burnt out vs. faded away.... and maybe Freeze is one of them?

I don't know. Freeze was such a pivotal moment in my life. Literally the ONLY reason that I'm into this type of skiing is because I was standing at a magazine rack in London, Ontario at a Shoppers drugmart with my buddy Lucas, and saw this fucking dude on the cover of a mag doing some crazy upside down flippy thing. It was Seth Morrison doing a Lincon Loop for reference... but man my life changed that day.

I saw a High North ad, and knew that I needed to get into this type of skiing and get myself out to Whistler. The next year was spent shredding park as hard as I could on 205 slalom skis with no twin-tips, and saving every penny I could to go to Summer Camp. I did, and promptly followed it up by dropping out of school to become a pro skier.

I eventually realized I was better at getting sponsors than I was at filming or winning contests, and as such settled into a role as an ad sales guy at Newschoolers. History that you NSers know follows from there.

I just wonder with all this Freeze hype - how many people really had that type of a connection with it? Is it a romanticized piece that you all simply hold special because you know you should, or did Freeze touch you the same way it touched me?

12 years ago
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seward
Posts: 5233 - Karma: 2,174
im fairly certain i got my first freeze from sign of the skier in downtown toronto.
it basically changed my life. i had always skied, but was now obsessed with park.
i have a bookshelf in my room with every single freeze, axis, NS mag, pretty much every freeskier, and a shit ton o skier, powder, etc.
sooooooo much ski porn.
12 years ago
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KapitolPhoto
Posts: 1399 - Karma: 3,250
Haha. I'm sure Doug never goes to Denver...
12 years ago
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CaptainObvious.
Posts: 5713 - Karma: 20,647
Lol I know. But I didn't want to assume everyone is where I am and/or expect people to come to me. Don't want to be that guy.
12 years ago
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Ducky.
Posts: 5811 - Karma: 1,420
.
12 years ago
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montanan
Posts: 1787 - Karma: 1,346
well, to put it shortly, ive had that RIP FREEZE as my sig since like 2004 or 2005 when they stopped. def had a huge huge impact on my skiing and all my friends skiing as well. still consider it to be the best ski mag ever produced. just to fun to read.
12 years ago
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snowpocalypse
Posts: 1036 - Karma: 3,526
I still have every issue stuck in a box out in the garage somewhere. My dorm room was plastered with images from the purest skiing mag ever imo. I ran into Loubek the other day and spent some time reminiscing about the good old days. The generation that grew up reading and looking at that amazing ski porn are now the people running the companies that are progressing the new generation of "new school" skiing. Is it relevant? Is Warren Miller still relevant? How about Greg Stump or Plake? Of course, its call progression. It will never stop the evolution and flow from one era to the next. Besides I dare any of the new so called thug park rats take in Brad Holmes. Its all about Whisky sippen and Misty Flippen.
12 years ago
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SABEK
Posts: 128 - Karma: 2,809
Powder Mag did it in for me.
12 years ago
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Ryanvdonk
Posts: 12811 - Karma: 1,971
freeze was the perfect blend of fun and good content. the articles actually seemed to give a window into the life of a pro, and the recurring pieces always brought a sense of humor. it also was much better than powder and especially freeskier at bringing content that was relevant. also, without ask brad how would we know the 10 best practical uses for snowblades?
12 years ago
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Blunttip360
Posts: 994 - Karma: 105
All I know is that no matter how many ski mags are above my shitter, the freeze issues with oldschool THALL, CR, Candide, Bushfield, Olenick, Abma, Morrison, The Phils, Raps, Mike D, Chrighton, and the rest of the OGs always find their way to the top of the pile. Long live the memory of Freeze, such an awesome magazine.
12 years ago
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dilla_says_go
Posts: 5333 - Karma: 168
january '99 was the first issue i picked up at the killington resort "shops at the shack". i was 13 and i was immediately sold on the image of seth ripping pow on skis that were probably 90mm underfoot with his hair dyed neon red. articles about "the east: hardcore right coast skiing", "beautiful swedish women" and "punk rock music" probably didnt hurt either.

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i know that's a given these days, but believe it or not, there was a time when skiing was banned from parks/pipes, mainstream events like the Winter X Games wouldn't allow skiing, and 99% of shops didn't carry a single twin tipped ski.

i learned at that point in my life that skiing was, in fact, cool. that, and that beautiful blonde swedish women have phenomenal tits. important lessons for a 13 year old.

over the following 4 years i read every issue of freeze cover to cover, went to UVM so i could spend more time in the mountains than in the library, and ended up getting a job in the industry so i could follow my passion. i'd be lying if i said that freeze wasn't responsible for sparking my passion for skiing.

so is freeze still relevant? ...does brad holmes shit in the woods?
12 years ago
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N.L.
Posts: 2420 - Karma: 2,749
lifty of the month touched me... the rip issue was heartbreaking.
12 years ago
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Craigskis
Posts: 6650 - Karma: 1,645

I can remember back in 96' 97' ish (I think) at Jr Nationals hearing rumours of the New Quebec Air force and the likes of JP, JF, & Vinnie doing tricks like 720 UFO's (What a 720X was called before the Newschool was phrased). The were all Seniors or development team members at a bump contest at Edelweiss, Quebec. JP was wearing a Pompom tuque, and Jean Marc Belliveau had a Quebecois tuque on.

I walked up to Vincent Dorion in the lodge and asked him for his autograph when someone told me he was going to be the next Jean-Luc Brassard. When he stood up I saw I was taller than him, and walked away Haha I was 14... Not too long after that during the summer I picked up the first issue of Freeze I ever saw and he (Vinnie) was on the cover doing a Lu Kang in the Pipe. After that 1st issue i saw the sport exploded into what it is today.

12 years ago
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skiwisconsin
Posts: 290 - Karma: 1,499
Freeze was it as far as ski mags when I started riding park, and I think that literally everyone I knew who skied park had a subscription. Otherwise, you were stuck with Ski Magazine which was-- and still is-- an absolute pile of horseshit.

It was crazy how tight-knit the community was back then too... as there were so few of us. And I too found out about NS on the FREEZE forums. (my old SN is WJBSKI for anyone from those days)

I think it's just a generational thing... if you had a solid connection to freeze, you're probably a little on the older side as park skiers go. And if the young guns want to celebrate something that was an important part of the freeski history, why worry about their motivations?
12 years ago
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NowBetterTasting
Posts: 246 - Karma: 116
Damn I remember reading freeze like it was yesterday... although it's not what got me into everything. I was in college when I started skiing, and through some friends I found out about a little website that called SAS Films (pre-wicked). It really captured the scene as it was blowing up on the east coast, and I was hooked from then on.

Going off this nostalgia kick can we get a Q/A with Niel? He's got to have old edits lying around too... Man I'm so pissed I lost the HDD with everything I had downloaded from back then.
12 years ago
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shredsox
Posts: 66 - Karma: 14
Freeze just captured the spirit of skiing's rebirth at that time perfectly. Park skiing combined with fat ski's really changed the game. I moved to Vail in 98/99 - showed up with 195 salomon force 9's making tight turns, left that season with 181 teneighty's straightlining and skiing switch. Read every issue of Freeze for sure. Best part is that Freeze didn't take itself too seriously. They gave the guys that were changing the game true respect, but also realized it was just skiing and there's a whole lot to make fun of about skiing.

To OP - Powder Mag in the mid 90's changed the course of my life. I remember the first article I read was calleed the "Interplanetary Ski Bohemians will save us All" about Seth and Shane. Pretty much decided after reading that at 14 yrs old that I would move to the mtns. Left after HS and been there since. NS became what Freeze was. Props for that!





12 years ago
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skodeo7
Posts: 14950 - Karma: 9,263
The content within Freeze is definitely still relevant. It's awesome reading old issues and seeing how forward thinking some of the articles, interviews and editorials were. They were continually debating big tricks vs. style and spreading knowledge of why rightside tricks were important. I remember the sickest right cork 5 sequence of Phil Larose from Mammoth (pretty sure it was Larose). Its still one of the sickest photos ever. Such perfect style.

Freeze embodied what skiing is to most of us now. Having fun, tricks, partying, chicks (lifty of the month), doing stupid shit (Ask Brad) and most importantly skiing. I always looked forward to getting the new issue. I remember being pretty young when I first started getting it and keeping them in my room so my mom wouldn't see the scandalous shit within.

RIP Freeze.
12 years ago
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22738 - Karma: 77,008
Lol... sometimes I wonder what happened to him too. ;)
12 years ago
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22738 - Karma: 77,008
I think this finally makes me understand the scene in Star Wars when Obi Wan states that even if Darth Vader kills him he'll only be made stronger.

12 years ago
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22738 - Karma: 77,008
Start up a thread that is an official Q&A request. Start rallying people for questions and get the whole thing moving. If you get the work done, Mousseau and I can track that vagrant down.
12 years ago
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___ASP___
Posts: 3861 - Karma: 490


I started skiing years ago because of Freeze. (im 27 now)
I saw vinnie dorion doing a japan grab on a quarter pipe over a heli on the cover and I couldn't believe it, that moment literally changed my life!
I wish Freeze was still around, I always thought of Freeze as the #1 mag by far and a far 2nd place was Freeskier.
Freeskier has stepped up in recent years and I quite enjoy it now, but nothing can compare to Freeze!





.


12 years ago
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22738 - Karma: 77,008
Yeah I mean that was the ticket - It really was on the pulse of what was going on, and what were the important issues of the revolution. Everything else to someone who was in this thing seemed like such useless crap.

I'd even go so far as to say that we've never even particularly mastered that on Newschoolers. The community as a whole tends to sway in that direction when you look at it in aggregate, but we've never been able to properly pull of the editorial voice that Freeze had.

Now I feel like a fucking idiot for not having saved all my issues. We really got to get these things digitized somehow....

Bad news for anyone volunteering their collection... the mags have to be destroyed in order to properly digitize them.

12 years ago
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JayPeak
Posts: 54 - Karma: 397
By the time I found Freeze, I had already decided that skiing was going to shape my life. I had watched Natural Born Skier and Fistful of Moguls and Glen Plake was my hero. Then I found an issue of Freeze and the first Superpark movie, and everything changed. My friend and I moved from learning to run bumps better to learning 3s and dropping little cliffs. We caught everything on disposable cameras. My heros became the Candide and the Phils. I remember the absolute point of no return was seeing the last shot in an issue of Axis of Luke Van Valin poaching the big jump at Parkasaurus. He had just snuck in there and nailed it, and showed me that this crazy world of freeskiing was totally permeable, not completely out of reach like baseball or football. I knew at that point that I could devote my life to skiing and actually find my way.

Also, Bishop, if you ever want to catch up for a drink, I owe you one for missing TGR in Montreal last year.
12 years ago
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methscratchface
Posts: 1204 - Karma: 4,446
My favorite issue and cover was the Mike Douglas Cover: Mike D. The D is for D-spin. Also mini claim my brother knew Micah Abrams while at Colorado College. Pretty lame claim but I think they worked at the school paper together. Freeze was rad.
12 years ago
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Ryanvdonk
Posts: 12811 - Karma: 1,971
speaking of nostalgia...who else remembers watching skiingmotion on the computers at school? best use of class time ever!
12 years ago
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Literature
Posts: 13673 - Karma: 3,087
Still have a pile of issues kicking around, as well as Axis and Ski Time.

Freeze, to me, is like eating Bugles. Definitely not good for you, and not nutritious, but damn does it taste salty and wonderful. I miss it because it was part of the beginning for me, and because it seems to have been the end of Brad Holmes' writing career.
12 years ago
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anthony_B
Posts: 1279 - Karma: 64
Initially, my friend brought over a copy of "Happy Dayz" and I watched it day and night. If I wasn't watching that flick, or skiing on my first pair of twins; dynastar concepts (also my initial/previous ns username), I was reading that magazine! Also, it's funny of your location when discovering "freeze"... I also was in a Shoppers when it caught my eye. It was in Toronto, and I couldn't put it down from then on. I also indulged in the magazine, "axis". After that day, I bought every mag. I'm guessing circa 2001?

If I could, I would still pick one up!
12 years ago
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22738 - Karma: 77,008
IN!

You should come up for IF3. We'll give ya' the royal tour!

Also total sidebar here -

I'd gander that the average age posting in this thread is 25 - with a bunch of you fucker clocking in solidly north of that shit. ;)
12 years ago
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skodeo7
Posts: 14950 - Karma: 9,263
I have a fair amount but definitely don't have them all. A lot of mine got cut up from making collages and posting up pics on my bedroom walls. Damn. I think I remember hearing that Evo in Seattle has them all mounted on a wall. I wish I could see those early issues and hadn't trashed a lot of mine.
12 years ago
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00000000
Posts: 11075 - Karma: 82,508
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12 years ago
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22738 - Karma: 77,008
^^
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12 years ago
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skiierman
Posts: 28699 - Karma: -5,563
It's amazing at how many of those covers bring you right back to the segments those shots are in.
12 years ago
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N.L.
Posts: 2420 - Karma: 2,749
guilty as charged.
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attending parkasaurus was the dream
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mercon used to run shit^
12 years ago
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RubberSoul
Posts: 11249 - Karma: 14,642
dude let's try to make an online archive of freeze magazines with the eventual goal of having all of them uploaded. my friends and i could probably help with at least the 2002-2003 ones (no idea where the rest are, but id sure love to see the early ones again) and we could have a really cool online resource for people, whether they were into skiing back then or not
12 years ago
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22738 - Karma: 77,008
Don't get crazy with this yet... we'll dig up what we can and see if we can come up with some archives. SOMEONE at transworld has to know where this shit is.
12 years ago
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RubberSoul
Posts: 11249 - Karma: 14,642
ha don't worry, im not gonna sit there scanning page after page unless i know it's gonna be used

plus theyre all at our parents' houses in our home town
12 years ago
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casual
Posts: 6712 - Karma: 6,753
Like a musician that dies young, and isn't around to put out shitty music. I actually agree.
12 years ago
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acc
Posts: 4122 - Karma: 222
It was February of 2001. I was a freshman at UVM and had torn my ACL at Stowe about a month earlier. I was headed to ride a stationary bike for PT and one of the guys on my floor handed me this to read:

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I was hooked. I believe all of my old Freeze, Freeskier, Axis & SkiTime magazines are now at my parents house in Florida.
12 years ago
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lineskier10
Posts: 11339 - Karma: 796
hell ya i had a subscription and still have a giant stack that i collected because i kept every onde, freeze was the shit and definitely got me hooked on freeskiing, and then i went to high north and met bishop and we smoked pot in the woods and from that day forward i wanted to be just like him
12 years ago
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562056961108
Posts: 0 - Karma: 575
Damn, I still remember seeing 1. That Seth Morrison Lincoln Loop and 2. That T-Hall 1080 cover and thinking "Yup, that's gonna be how I self-identify for the rest of my life: I'm gonna be a skier." What a throwback man (on a Thursday, no less!). All those magazines were the best. The Candide Thovex profile, the T-Hall trick tips (gorilla steeze), and the Dave Crighton (sp?) profiles are still some of my favorite ski literature.

I think it's important for the young guns out there to remember: we were not the cool kids on the hill. During this time, we had to explain to people what we were trying to accomplish, why we still were skiers, why we spent so much time in the "snowboard park." Things have changed a bunch, for sure, for better in most cases.

Important to respect the folks that started this stuff... athletes, companies and media folks alike. I can't imagine a world where Solomon, Dynastar, Rossignol and Line skis didn't take a chance on the twin tip.

Awesome thread, awesome post with the covers.
12 years ago
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Melvs
Posts: 15174 - Karma: 480
Ya, you're gonna have to get a move on this.

I am demanding it.
12 years ago
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gbalkman
Posts: 605 - Karma: 4,171
I miss Freeze Magazine. I don't know why it was better than current publications. Maybe it was just the right magazine for that time period. Free skiing was new and rebellious, and Freeze captured that attitude. I remember being completely blown away by most of the shots when it came in the mail. After I read through my first issue of Freeze in the late '90's, I took a heat gun to my K2 el camino mogul skis and bent the tails up.
12 years ago
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22738 - Karma: 77,008
I remember you. That session was a fucking blast man. RIP high north. Greatest ski camp ever to exist.
12 years ago
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Pipe_Munky
Posts: 10888 - Karma: 2,185
Still have my High North ski socks!
12 years ago
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MillPiddy
Posts: 218 - Karma: 668
to many replies to read but it was bought and shut down by transworld.
12 years ago
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Drail
Posts: 14045 - Karma: 10,323
I can send you most of them. Give me a couple weeks and I'll get the package together. I do warn you though - a lot of them got cut the fuck up so I could put pictures on my walls in high school. I'll go through them next weekend and see what I can come up with.
12 years ago
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Pugalope
Posts: 376 - Karma: 508
I have also a pretty good stack of older issue that aren't beat to shit. If you want I would love to see them digitized... Where can I box them up and get them sent out...

Other note: Freeze was and still is the best because the artictles and a majority of the content where written in the "I don't give a shit" style, which thanks to PC and overbearing parents is a dying art...
12 years ago
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MLB
Posts: 4462 - Karma: 298
This was the first Freeze that i ever got. I remember me and one of my friends Bill were one of only 4 guys in town who had an idea freeskiing exsited. I remember talking to him about it and running to the corner store to get it. Just sat on the sidewalk dreaming, and finally knowing that you weren't alone. For a 15 year old kid in northern ontario who skied in a whole with a tow rope lift........well that just meant the world.

I drive snowcats today, and build park. I ski everyday in the winter and I owe part of my life to that mag.


Bring it back. I'll subscribe for life.
12 years ago
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Mr.Huck
Posts: 6096 - Karma: 14,903
I bet some of the pages stick together too. :-D
12 years ago
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3mania
Posts: 2647 - Karma: 10,797
Someone needs to post up Brad Holmes rapping on the hood of that Caddie.
12 years ago
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bakerpunk
Posts: 884 - Karma: 1,126
I still have all my freeze mags from 2000 until its death. looking at all those covers sent me on a trip down memory lane. first time i saw freeze was in a grocery store i flipped through every page then had my mom buy it. If it wasn't for freeze i might of snowboarded to be completely honest. i started skiing because my buddy skied and i had to be better then him at everything. i almost switched to snowboarding because i liked the idea of tricks, big air, and rails. So freeze sealed the deal on that and i wasn't forced to knuckle drag. i think i ended up actually being in a issue. touching story. but to answer the question freeze would still be relevant. old readers would defiantly return and then all the kids on here that where before freeze would try it and fall in love. also you gotta think, if all these people on here have such great story's about how freeze changed there mindset on skiing then who's to say the next younger generation of skier's wouldn't have the same experience.
12 years ago
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