Friday, June 27, 2008

Groms Flying Everywhere

Rolled up to a "spot" with Mackenzie and Gary the other day. It was our first spot of the day and already a total bust.

Guess the spot!


Oh well, next spot. Mackenzie had some business to take care of on the Pita Pit ledges and did just that. Gary did too but I did the thing where I accidentally deleted his sequence. Sorry bud! He was okay with it though, he just said that it was a sign he had to do it better next time. Holla!

Gary in full attack mode. He
kept saying that he had to do
a back smith like Mike Carroll.
Smart kid.


Mackenzie was checking out all
the women that came out of the gym
in their spandex.


Roller? Not quite.


There were some kinks to be
worked out.


Some serious kinks.


Don't worry, they actually did land stuff though.

Mackenzie, 5-0 shove.


Not finished quite yet, Mackenzie finishes the ledge
off with a feasible 5-0 3shove out.



Next we were off to the flatgap where we almost got kicked out by squatters living in the bushes on "family property." Once they saw we were actually brooming the place from all the broken glass and cleaning up the spot they became really friendly and even watched us skate. This time Mackenzie really went down and did roll his ankle. Bummer for him but he came out with a really dope looking shirt.

Josh Cowan, friend-maker and
peace keeper extraordinaire.


Scott, varial heel.


Mackenzie, rethinking Josh's
broom technique.



Finally, If you had guessed "Mini Golf" at the
beginning of the post, you were right.

Scott, heelflip. Mini Golf R.I.P.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Better Looking Sister, Waterloo.

Ah yeah, Uptown Waterloo! Really, who doesn't love Uptown? Maybe not so kind and fun loving but the vibe Uptown is just great for some reason. Crack whores? No chance. Prostitutes? None in sight! It's amazing how you pass the hospital and it's like night and day. How do they keep all the homeless out of Waterloo?

Anyways. After skating around that hydrant for a bit we decided to take a break at the park and see if anyone was willing to come Uptown to do some shredding. Sure enough Josh, Scott and Cameron decided to tag along while Adam stuck around as well. Right off the bat we hit up the super smooth bank to see if anything was happening. I got Adam to retry a back tail (for the fourth time I think) because the sun was being too kind and giving off a super nice rim. When we were all over the bank we hit up the Bonnie Togs ledge. This thing isn't that easy to skate on account of it being slanted downwards throwing you right off. All the dudes did what they do best and got tricks. I think the highlight was Josh's super solid switch front nose back to switch I shot on film. Mid session we all had two surprises. One was Greg showing up with some smokin' chick that Josh wanted to steal from him and then this dude walking his cat named Nos. Kind of funny the people you meet all over the city if you stick around long enough.

Aside from all this peep the pictures and enjoy the beautiful one we all know as Waterloo!

Adam, back tailing, again. Thanks dude!


Scooter, nosebluntin'.


"Can I take a picture of your cat?"


NOS!


There's that girl! Oh, Greg was
there too.


Scooter, crookin'.


Cameron, back 50.


The sun might even shine brighter in Waterloo, don't know that for sure though.

Downtown Kitchener, the Ugly Sister.

You really never know what you're going to see downtown Kitchener. One thing you can for sure count on for sure is that whatever you do see is not going to be normal. I spent a good hour or so sitting in an alley way shooting some of Palmer's, Adam's and Matt's tricks over this hydrant and saw some of the weirder things I haven't before. I don't care to describe these things as I might puke on my keyboard but if you dare scroll down below you can check out the pictures for yourselves.

Palmer, frontside 180. An ABD trick on my
blog? Aw shit!


Adam backside 180'd the hydrant real nice.


Adam keeping a watchful eye
on the downtown situation.



Matt, nollie 180. Too dope!

Cig break.


"Am I in your shot?"


One of Kitchener's finest.


Adam put the hydrant in
check.


Another example of downtown
Kitchener's hot-fire.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

GO SKATEBOARDING DAY!

You knew this post was coming, how could I avoid it? I couldn't and wouldn't ever, this day is like Christmas (but better!) to skateboarders. Yes, a day dedicated to people going skateboarding for the day, what else could you want? Cash prizes, free clothes, boards, redbull, etc. That's what!

June 21st started off not looking so good. Everyone in the city woke up to dark storm clouds, rain and the wet ground, not an ideal day to go skateboarding. By 12pm, the destined kick-off time for the celebration at the Kitchener skatepark the storm clouds had blown over and the sun had come out. It was so hot and sunny people were complaining and I even got a sunburn...perfect weather for the day!

Back to the day, everything got going quick. There was a jam session for about an hour and at 1pm best trick on the pyramid started up. Carcass tossing and crushing everywhere. I really have never seen so many people running into eachother wanting to skate the pyramid at the Kitchener skatepark, it was insane but I guess that's what happens when you throw up $100 for a damn good trick. The original jam sesh ended with a three-way tie between Erik, Josh and Byron so they had to duel that out. In the end Byron ended with first, Erik with second and Josh with third. Pretty heated but these dudes were HUNGRY!

Next up! Rail session. Quite possibly even crazier than the pyramid jam. I think I might have been way to worried about getting my camera smoked by flying boards than anything. Just picture 4 dudes each coming from left and right trying to hit both sides of the rail. How anyone got tricks in, I'm not sure but Mr. Isaac Watamaniuk ended up walking away with a hundred bucks. Word up!

After (probably) dealing with a head ache from trying to judge kids coming from every direction at the rail the judges decided to get on with bowl session. This was probably the best of all the things to hit because you can use the lip, fly out of the deep end or get some decent gnarpopz out of the shallow end. At this point you could see some people really getting heated from getting snaked so badly but you have to expect that at an event like this. Regardless, shit went right off. John Powers took first with his fucking massive kickflip indy out of the deepness of the bowl while other honourable mentions go out to Scooter for his first backside 360 kickflip out of the shallow and Plamer busting a blunt finger flip on the REAL lip of the bowl. Hypehypehypehypehype!

I imagine everyone has seen those videos of crowds of kids going absolutely crazy over a product toss. Piling on top of each other, sometimes fighting, the whole works. Well today there wasn't any fighting but there definitely was an entire mob jumping on Isaac and then the nice guy decided to toss that board in which case Palmer caught it. Now this dude is a grown adult, probably six feet or more but kids are ruthless and just jumped on him. In the end he was victorious in owning the board but I don't think I'd ever want to be in that position.

By this time all the people that hadn't won anything were really looking to get some. What had also become apparent to everyone in the park that some dark storm clouds were moving in fairly quick. What went from harmless drops turned into heavy rain and even a bit of hail very fast. People were trying to get the free food and as much redbull as possible before finally heading for the trees and what little coverage there actually was at the park. The rain had put an end to an extremely great day that nobody thought would turn out very well to begin with but everyone was stoked regardless! I know I was and still am as I write this, I even came right home and did all the sequences really quick so I could get them on the blog, how unlike myself!

All in all, thanks to every one that came out and made this day a success, without the real skateboarders the west49 bandanas would have taken over the park, and really, who wants that?

Now feast your eyes on the photos of the day. Sorry about the contact sheets, that's all your getting in regards to sequences, click them to see them larger.


I told you it was intense! Jame Harmer can't
even contain himself on his skateboard.


Scoot busting trix.


A busy intersection on the way to a
$100 prize.


Mackenzie in full attack mode.


The line up.


Bunch of dudes.


Bunch of dudes and Dalton's mug.


It was a high-fiving type of
day.


Stu and Damien were there,
all grins.


Frontal view of the pyramid best trick line
up.


Shreddin'.


FACT: TUAN IS THE BEST
BLACK SKATER EVER.


This was during the finalist
best trick on the pyramid, no
word of a lie. Shred 'till you're
dead!


Crew of dudes round 2.


...more dudes.


Taylor coming in with the graf, word up!


Justin handing out Diamond prizes to the
pyramid shredders.


Byron deserved a high five
for first place. Front 360 over
the top? No jokes.


Justin thought Byron deserved
another.


Oliver and the main brains
behind the day's operation.
Thanks a mill!


PRODUCT TOSS! KILL YOURSELF FOR A
SKATEBOARD!


Palmer is in there.


Told you.


A rained out Go Skate Day calls for more product
tossing, this time things get slippery.


Tossin'.


Redbullin'.


Chillin'.


Flossin'.


Ah yes, the Redbull ladies. Free
Redbull and goodlooks, I'm not
complaining.


Really, where the fuck is True Love?


Byron bigspin heelflipping his way to first place.


Eric Griffiths bigspin flipping into a frontboard.
Cool eh?




Eric throwing a tweaked grab over the top
for second place. Yeah dude!


Backside 360 kickflip by Scooter Varney
himself, yeah dude!


This was before Palmer got mauled by little
skate kids. Blunt finger flip in the bowl.


That's it for now, my stomach is killing me from all the free Redbull. See everyone and then some next year!