The final award we're giving away for this year's Newschoolers Awards (shoutout to Swany Gloves, @ON3P & @Windells ) is a spot in our Hall Of Fame. In some ways, it's the most significant award, the recognition of a stellar career, a rarely seen body of work, a massive contribution to 'the game'. At this rate, it might take us about 100 years to add all the skiers who deserve it so we might have to work on that somehow but this year, there was a pretty clear candidate for the honor. He dropped the third part of his solo movie trilogy, confirming his position as not only one of the most talented skiers ever but perhaps the most productive. We are, of course, talking about Sammy Carlson. He's done it all from crushing in the streets to winning X Games gold. He then became arguably the most talented backcountry stunter of all time, and now he's pushing it in some of the biggest terrain out there. From standout movie parts back in the day to a whole catalog of solo projects, via three mindblowing X Games Real Ski parts, Sammy is undoubtedly one of the GOATs, and @MattMasson chatted to him about the award and what he's up to these days.

https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/1086283/HALL-OF-FAME-16x9-mp4

You’re this year's inductee to the NS Hall of Fame. What does that mean to you?

It’s been the sickest journey. I started at a young age and this next season will be my 20th season as a professional skier. I still feel pretty connected to those early days, I remember watching THall working on all four 540’s on Hood at Windells and seeing a lot of the pro riders come through Hood in the summer. My passion continues to grow with skiing, every year that passion can be a little different or come from a different place and I guess that’s part of what keeps it fresh and the love strong. My love for skiing and being in the mountains will always exist and that’s forever.

Back in the day Simon Dumont and I had a few alias names that we would log into on NS and stir the pot up a little bit when we were bored. I love to see all the passion and the kids that follow the sport so closely. That’s part of why I go so hard, and part of my goals and focus has been to stay true to freeskiing. That’s kind of why I stepped away from competition when I did. I felt like I had a lot to give in the backcountry and freeriding was where the future of the sport was. When I was competing at first I was really stoked about it, it was fun but it started to feel repetitive and I started thinking what’s one more 180 on a rotation, or why am I going to work so hard all season to put my fate into the hands of judges that I didn't agree with their opinion of what was cool or what was good style.

I never thought I was really that competitive, I just loved skiing. After I won X gold in slope, I just wanted to ride pow and go up to Canada and ride my snowmobile. I knew that was where I could shine. I felt like that was where the real progression was untapped for freeskiing, I believed doing anything else would be disrespectful to what the OG’s started. I’m happy to have had the chance to ride with so many of the OGs of our sport, many of whom kids on NS probably don’t know about, the Entire PoorBoyz Crew JP [Auclair], Anthony [Boronowski], Boyd [Easley], Philou [Poirier], [Eric]Pollard, Pep [Fujas]… I’m forgetting so many! Tanner [Hall] was a huge inspiration to me, Jon [Olson], and all of the OGs that I was lucky enough to meet, they were legends I spent some time with Candide one fall which was also really inspiring. Freeskiing was a revolutionary thing. It wasn’t the same back when I was first getting into it. A lot of other kids were ski-racing or doing moguls, this whole thing started from the pioneers not wanting to be limited to rules and do their own thing, so this whole style of skiing was a revolutionary time in skiing. I feel honored to be recognized and a part of it. I want to push it hard for all those dudes that started it. There are so many different styles of skiing and it’s been a pleasure to explore a lot of them. I still think, in the big mountains, that there’s more to do and I still want to explore. When you’re out there, your Imagination is the only limit.

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It's been a big change since you started in the game, what are your views on The Olympics, FIS, and everyone traveling with ‘National Teams’?

Straight up f*ck FIS. They’re all in it for themselves and I feel like they’re just taking away from a lot of the riders that are coming up. I’ve always said that we don’t need FIS, FIS needs us. Before slopestyle and halfpipe came into the Olympics, it was more or less a dying sport. Aerials, Moguls, and Racing. I think freeskiing has just been on the up and I think they need us. I’d like to see them giving back more to the freeski culture. Same thing with the national teams as well. I do think it’s really rad for some aspects of it, for kids to have a legitimate program that they can get into. When I was younger the only programs that existed were ski racing programs or potentially a mogul one. I think it’s rad for young kids to have that, get out there with the team, and meet people who are into freeskiing and riding the park. On the national level, I just hope that the riders involved, look out for themselves. Sometimes I see that the team has their main sponsors and they’re controlling where the money’s going and not giving it back to the athletes. One of the things that frustrated me, when I was with the US Ski Team, was to see – not necessarily the park riders, because we had our own sponsors, before the Olympics even existed-- was that all these mogul skiers and racers. They worked so hard, would train all day in the gym to get to the level they’re at, then go home to work at a restaurant job and simultaneously you’ll see the coaches drive off in their brand-new Audi. Audi sponsors the team because of the athletes, so I would like to see that benefit the athletes more and hope the money goes back to the athletes and not just those running the programs.

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So, every year you’re just stacking these crazy projects and you’ve proved yourself in everything. Some people have even started comparing you to Candide! What do you have to say about that?

Haha, It’s definitely an honor to be compared to Candide. I’m just happy to be in the conversation and it’s been an honor to be able to do my own thing! Big Shout out to Candide, I’d love to work on a project with him one day but I know it's tuff we're both pretty focused on doing our own thing.

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The newest project is called Kamase, what does Kamase mean?

Kamsase is Japanese slang. Originally it was from the gang days, but it still exists in the mountain culture and it means: ‘Go kill it!’ If you’re at the top of the drop-in, homie’s about to drop, you look at him, give him knucks and say: ”Kamase!” It means ‘kill it’. Our season started off in Japan and we learned of the word pretty early on in the trip. Pretty much from the moment we heard it, Brody [Jones], the principal cinematographer and I really liked it and we wanted to call the film Kamase and that was our theme for the season.

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I was going say, it starts in Japan so maybe a bit more chill and it’s maybe not as full-throttle as last year’s movie, YUP, was that deliberate? Just a bit more relaxed?

Yeah, I think so. We just wanted to match the vibe of the place. Japan is one of the most relaxing places and the culture there is super inspiring, it’s always been one of my favorite places to ski. Blake Vincent Kueny found the song early on in the edit and we felt like that song represented the footage. Japan is not about getting super gnarly, but just about enjoying the deep snow and shredding pow with your homies.

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You’re in Chamonix tonight for a screening. How many times have you been here before?

This is my second time in Chamonix. Unfortunately, I haven’t really had a good ski session here. The last time I was here was for the Quicksilver Young Guns. That was like a week before COVID broke out. I was actually in this store, we had a big poster signing at the end of the contest. It was gnarly, I was throwing out high fives and people were telling me how they’d been riding in Italy. The next day, as I was boarding my flight, I heard news about this crazy outbreak in Italy. When I got home I had Covid.

From those high fives?

Probably. Luckily I was able to shake it pretty quick. So yeah this is my second time in Cham, it isn’t the same without Tof around. RIP Tof, but I’m for sure going to be back. I’m here in Europe doing a few premieres with Quiksilver the next week.

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Have you started thinking about a project for this year yet?

Yeah. I’m actually going home to start shooting my next project next week. We’re all excited to make something for next season, we just need the conditions to line up.

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It’s X Games this weekend. Do you still keep an eye on the park rats or is it big mountain or nothing for you these days?

To be honest, from the moment that I left the park game, I haven't really been following it. I still take some laps in the park and enjoy hitting some park jumps to keep a few tricks in the bag. I am stoked to see so many young riders in the park, the sport has grown a lot which is rad but I’m not really following it. I try to keep up with some of the Armada riders, I watch what Dollo and BDog are putting out, they're killing it. I’m psyched on Matej, the Unicorn. He’s my favorite young blood to watch. I definitely respect the progression on the women's side too. But honestly, at the competitive level, it’s like a different sport from when I was into it. Once the coaches got involved it changed things for me but it is what it is. I’m stoked on back country free-riding, its the future, resorts are getting too busy.

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So, you won’t be watching the X Games?

I’ll try and tune in. I still try to tune in to X, just to see what’s going down, but it's changed a lot since I was competing, it's getting a little too close to aerials for me but I respect the progression. But the only thing I miss about park riding is how many laps you can get! After a sick day in the backcountry, I’m just like: ‘f*ck that was such a good day, how can I get more laps out there. it’s a lot more challenging to get laps out in the backcountry and I love to ski.

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*Edit: Updated, sorry for the blackout - @Twig *