I’ve been yelling about Travis Rice for goddamn ever. With the best snow of 2012 hitting just as the miserable season ends, it’s been a rough and ironic couple months for a serious snow sports athlete. Watching THE ART OF FLIGHT without good riding conditions, while probably the best way to get over dryland doldrums, can feel like watching porn without the prospect of getting laid. And looking at the setup for the Supernatural Contest but not being able to actually see the guys crush it, well, that was like getting a peek into a strip club full of supermodels but only while the dancers were still fully clothed.
Frustration set in, my friends, and I began filling my days with intense peeling of beer bottle labels and aggressive workouts. Hours playing SHAUN WHITE SNOWBOARDING on my Wii fit board. Occasionally I’d get hopped up on turpentine and in a blind rage stumble down Hollywood Blvd hollering that the end was near and you should repent, then switch gears and protest my local Chic-Fil-A store with placards about their support of anti-gay hate organizations. I even watched a few episodes of BAD GIRLS CLUB. Jesus. How depraved.
And then it happened. We got some snow. Not much but enough for myself and a tree trunk from the backwoods of Utah to hightail it to Mt.High where we schralped through 18 inches of fresh pow until our legs were jell-o and, because it was dangerously shallow, our boards were more dinged up than Charlie Sheen on a Saturday at Heidi Fleiss’ house. We had one glory run, in the out of bounds between East and West where it was endless first tracks, small hucks, spinach puffs and a few attempts at the powder nosepress that John Jackson, Travis Rice et al throw down with so much ease and aplomb. Still, that was the best I got and for the way this season has been, I felt lucky to have that.
I bring this up because on that day I was reminded, again, what snowboarding’s really about. Hanging with your friends, looking for something new to see, do, show, and feel. Looking to express ourselves and let ourselves go by how we ride – do you bomb the hill or lay in deep carves; hit the park or try to find hucks and trees to play off. The adventure’s part of it, sure enough. And powder. Powder is the manna of any real snowboarder or skier, the crystals on which we fly; an untouched canvas just waiting for us to lay in the lines. All the halfpipes and groomed runs and all, that's just hype. That's the flesh of snowboarding, the pretty face; powder days with your friends, that's snowboarding's soul.
So as I watched the above trailer for the contest, which will be airing this Saturday on NBC at 1 PM EST/10 AM PST, this all came flooding back to me. It showed me again why T. Rice is so great. Because when you watch the trailer you don’t see a bunch of geeks holding up rulebooks, pinning numbers on people’s backs and trying to think of various ways to define, limit, and hem in this experience-cum-sport. Rather you see a bunch of friends. Above a sick run with deep, epic powder and endless lines they can each ride however they want. With beastly tree hucks all over the place. And they're all not really competing. They’re just trying to have fun, express themselves, push the sport forward not for the sake of getting the squares back at home to be able to fit it into their rigid paradigms of athleticism but rather for the sake of getting the squares back at home to go outside their own box and see what is possible in the world of athletics, what is possible for the human spirit, was is possible for man, what is possible in the world of snowboarding. And the one who pushes that to its edge is the one who "wins".So check it out as NBC heats up a series of events, in conjunction with Red Bull, that will be this generation’s Wide World of Sports, no doubt, with the airing of the most epic highlights from the Supernatural Contest. While you’re at it, for those of you with your smartphones and iPhones and whatnot, they’ve got this app, Shazam, that'll let you watch helmet cam footage from the point of view of the riders as they do the unthinkable in an unimaginably dirty run (if you tried to equate it to something at a regular ski resort, think quadruple black diamond). Again, innovation, even in the way we watch events.
So go forth, my young men, and glimpse the future of athletics, of entertainment, of what a man can do. That is, until the HungerGames become real. I mean, seriously, nothing will top that. Unless the Japanese finally legalize the idea they had first, Battle Royale.
Saturday, 10 PST/1 EST. NBC. Mindblowing. Be there.
- Ryan
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