Features

The Quiksilver Showdown Over the City

by Roberta Rodger

The end of the year Showdown at Grouse is always a good time—massive hips, rails, BBQ, tons of spectators and a plethora of who’s who of Canadian snowboarding. Unfortunately the event has been missing over the past couple of years, but lucky for us, Quiksilver revived the much-loved event this season. And as it was in the past, there was no shortage of good times in the sun, hot dogs and hamburgers, and of course, progressive snowboarding.

The contest kicked off Friday night with the evening Jib Session consisting of a flat box gap to down box, a flat down rail, and down-flat-down kink rail. There was a long list of guys at the event including Logan Short, Andrew Geeves, Jeff Pepperdine, Kael Hill, Mike Osachuk and Aaron Shapiro to name a few. The women’s list was considerably shorter but rail masters Molly Milligan, Raewyn Reid and Jess Kimura all stepped up with ease.

Whistler local Molly Milligan was attacking all the rails; smooth boardslides through the kink, gap to boardslides on the down flat rail and a multitude of combo tricks on the boxes. Meanwhile Jess Kimura was charging no matter what she was hitting, hiking up farther and launching the biggest gap to Front Board on the flat down as well as some super stylish Nose Press Backside 180s out. Raewyn Reid was so smooth and stylish that some of the judges thought she was a little dude. She showed them what she was capable of with some nice 5-0’s to Frontside 180 outs. New comers Brittany Davis and Stephanie Just showed they were up for the challenge charging at both the kinked rail and the flat down rail. In the end it was Molly who took home the win. Not only did she impress the crowd with dominance on the rails, but after taking one of the gnarliest falls of the night on the kink, she composed herself and was once again charging. Ya Molly! But let’s be honest. The best part of the night was Trini and Pete Andersons commenting of the event. They were never afraid to call someone out or crack a joke and they kept the crowd amped, even in the rain.

The weather wasn’t cooperating on Saturday morning for the Park Session. The sky had a mixture of cloud and fog. The format for the day was to hit up the jibs for an hour and then the hips for an hour, and an overall score from the two sessions would be tallied to determine the winner. It was a bit foggy for the jib session but the girls made it work. Raewyn locked in some nice 270s on the flat gap down box. Molly’s gap to Frontsides were impressive. Brittany locked in some smooth 50-50s through the kink, and Stephanie Just took out the kink with some solid gap to Tails.

The sun came out for the hip session, which pretty much turned into a men’s session as the guys just killed it. Logan Shorts BS 720s were huge as well as his mean Frontside Alley Oop 720s. There were plenty of huge airs by the likes of Johnny Lyall and Andrew Geeves. Kael Hill brought out smooth Crails, and of course, Dave Fortin was unstoppable with huge 1260s, and switch Back Flips. I think some of the girls were intimidated by the guys’ level of riding as most of them just stood in awe. A couple girls started doing laps for fun, but it was Stephanie Just who was able to get some amplitude on the intimidating tombstone and sealing the overall win.