Here’s the first Battle at Hastings 3 video I’ve caught so far. Brought to you by Arnica Productions it shows off a lot of the chaos that went down that day. Adam Hopkins, Mason Merlino, Chris Steggles and many more. Not much to say except push play…
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West49 Take the Cake contest just went down at Toronto’s own Canada’s Wonderland. Lots of Canadian Skaters representing hard in the Finals including both Decenzos, Paulie Machnau, Matt Berger and Micky Papa. All these dudes kill it on a normal basis and showed up to this event in West Coast Fashion, shreddin’! I’m not gonna talk much about this event except to say that once again, the ruler of Street Skateboarding – Nyjah Huston – takes first place. But I love that the rest of the Top 5 were Vancouver Area Loc’s proving none the less that we live in the skateboard capital of Canada…
1st Place – Nyjah Huston
2nd Place – Micky Papa
3rd Place – Matt Berger
4th Place – Ryan Decenzo
5th Place – Scott Decenzo
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What an insane contest. You couldn’t pick a better name for this event because it was absolutely nothing but a battle. Soldiers giving it their all and getting their asses kicked in return. Dave Priest went down with a dislocated knee, Adam Hopkins popped his shoulder out and smacked his face on a 540 in the finals, and many others slammed as hard as possible multiple times. It was more like the battle for survival at times. This was the most hardcore contest I’ve been at in years. Everyone wanted their share of the $10,000.
Thanks to Vans, Real, Bones, BLVD, Kevin Kelly and the rest of the guys that made today possible. It was sick.
A lot of head bangs, knee bongs and solid lands.
Here’s a little slideshow of some good times, we’ll get the video up soon.
And congrats to the top 5
Who will be the winner of the $500? That’s up to the voters now.
You have until 11:59pm – September 11th to cast your votes.
Make it count…
Vote Here – http://www.protestskateboards.com/leaderboard/
The winner will be announced September 15th, 2012 at the Grand Finale of Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey competition held at South Surrey/White Rock Skate Park, approximately 4:00pm.
It’s a long boring story, but it ends well. Years and years ago I was sponsored by Substance Skate Shop and I was the Team Manager. In ignorance I brought Jay Mykyte, Stu Benoit and Drew Boyle on to the Team from the other Surrey Sk8 Shop – Coastal Riders. I say ignorance not because it was a bad move to bring them on, I love all those guys and am stoked for the relationships we built, but in hindsight it should have gone the other way and instead of taking 3 riders from Coastal’s Team, I should have moved on to theirs. Eventually the atmosphere at Substance was getting a little weird, and people were not as happy, and I ended up leaving the Team and going into Coastal Riders and asking if they’d hook me up. I didn’t need my name published, and I don’t really need any product because I already get everything I need for free or for cost. It was just for the sake of having a shop to promote. Then last year Jay Mykyte started his underground shop, Royalty Skate Shop in New West and so I started reppin’ for him to help promote his shop, but unfortunately things fell apart and the shop closed during the winter. Hopefully Jay will get it reopened one day, somewhere in Surrey.
So through all this battle of life, and a decade of chaos, I watched all these skate shops close in my part of town, West49 closed both their Surrey locations, Fluid disappeared of the planet, Board Kennel went under, Paul’s Boutique lives in the mall and doesn’t count in my eye as a Skate Shop, and Coastal Riders stood there alone, eventually moving out to Langley where majority of the clientele had been coming from for the past 10 years. I have always been strong friends with all the guys from Coastal and never had any bad blood, and I was looking at their team on the website one day and it just astonished me. I helped create that team in a sense. Most of the guys on the team grew up under my wings, learning through the contests and events I provided for them, and even just from being around me in their younger years. And I love all of them like my children. I remember little Magnus when he was like 12 years old and I called him “Mr. Varial Heelflip” because he demoed them everywhere. I knew way back then that we were gonna see his skills go off the chart someday. I remember watching John Hanlon learning back lips on the Bear Creek rail, and teaching Scotty Tyson Blunt Airwalks, and putting Andrew Classon on the Protest Team when he was barely 11 and filming him kickflipping huge sets of stairs and hittin’ rails. Almost every single one of these guys grew up competing in my contests and have fully impressed me at some point their young lives and I’m proud to be a part of their future. Dustin, Zaz, Hashbrown, Machnau, Stu, Derek Mayer and more. It’s a true team of real skateboarders who are out there to have fun while they skate, it’s a solid skate shop that is committed to promoting and supporting skateboarding to the fullest, and it’s where I belong.
Thanks to Billy McElhinney, Scott Fierbach and Adam Field for always supporting me without question.
Coastal Riders for life…
Now get ready for some nasty Hippie Mike footage again
Here’s a little slide show by Laine Siebert showcasing some of the Ollie North Crew at the Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey Cloverdale Contest last Saturday. Nothing too crazy in these photos, just a bunch of skater dudes having a good time at a fun event. My favorite is the one of Mitch Salter and Jay White hugging and cheering. Makes you wonder what the hell was happening behind the camera.
Just saw the Whistler Bowl Series Video posted up on www.bcskateparks.com and had to put the link up.
My favorite place to be each August.
It’s a great video, really showcases how the day went, but it makes me jealous that I wasn’t able to skate in the contest this year, stupid pulled back… At least I got to be on the mic, another place I love.
Filmed and edited by Lenny Rubenovitch,
Check the vid
http://www.bcskateparks.com/archives/whistler-bowl-series-final-video
Don’t forget that this Saturday is Battle at Hastings #3. Presented by Vans, Bones, Thunder, Thrasher Mag, Alien Workshop, 187, Real, Fourstar, Brixton, BLVD and Kevin Kelly, lots of cash to be won. It’ll be a sick event with some of the gnarliest Bowl Skaters Vancouver area has to offer. We’ll be entering Andy Anderson and Stu Benoit to represent for Protest Skateboards, they both know that bowl very well.
There’s gonna be a ton of rippers there. Pro or Am doesn’t matter, it’s a battle.
The big question is – who will beat Hopkins??
Saturday, September 1st, 2012
Hasting Park
Finally a super sunny day in Cloverdale for a Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey. 3 years in a row it rained and then last year it was just cloudy and cold. But not this time, sunny, clear and hot…
The Mini started off the day with aggressive moves, Jon Schrack was flying into the bowl, Mark Melyukov was stomping flip tricks and even little Aiden threw himself off the big drop which is taller than he is. Those Mini’s are crazy, and if you haven’t seen them in action, make sure you come out to the next comp on September 15th.
The Beginners are even more nuts. Morgan Skinner and Kai Searle led the crowd with outstanding runs. Kai had a completely flawless run and was not trying easy tricks, and Morgan was busting huge gap tricks including fakie Ollie off the halfpipe drop and a big half cab into the bowl. 1 point separated their total scores, wow!! They demolished the rest of the competition but it was super close for 3rd place between Justin Fiorante and Zacc Laster, but Zacc managed to hold on for the prizes. That’s two 4th places in a row Justin, step it up buddy…
The Girls category was just Carrie Williams and Cali Martin but they both did their best and landed everything they tried, so it was all good.
The Intermediates got busy on the ledges and rails but were all dominated by ex-longhair William LeTourneau. This kid has been skating this Cloverdale Skate Park religiously since he started skateboarding and it shows. He’s got all the tranny lines in the nasty bowl and grew up to lock down a whole bunch of ledge and rail tricks. Won by a mile. Little Luke Thodus could be in the Mini category since he’s 10 years old, but entered the Intermediate where he belonged. This kid’s pushing 4’ tall and is completely fearless, and super skilled. 50-50’s down the kinked rail, lipslide on the rail down the stairs and whatever else he felt like going for. The best part of Intermediate was seeing Francois LeBlanc with his pants and socks hiked up as far as he could get them for his second run, just cruising around doing pointless old school for a laugh, but landing everything. Francois is heading back to the East Coast this week so that was the last contest we’ll see him in for a while…
Shawn Jafarnejad from Ollie North Skate Shop had a Best Trick Contest on the 3 stair rail before Advanced and gave away a Deck, a Shirt and a Pair of Shoes. Quick and serious.
The Advanced was stacked with rippers, a lot of them who had plenty of experience at the old Cloverdale Park, Mitch Salter, Jay Mykyte, Jordan Strong, Brendan Nielsen, Keegan Anderson, Andre Bissonnette…. But they were all trying their hardest not to lose to The Dominator, Dominic Devries. Nice try boys, maybe next time. Brendan came the closest. We finished off the contest with a chance to see if anyone could Ollie the old gap into the shallow end of the bowl and land on the hotdog. Jordan Strong, Allen Handley and Mitch Salter went for it and nasty as it was, Allen won it as the only one to ride away. Good job dude.
Well, this was most likely the last ever Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey Contest at the Old Cloverdale Skate Park since New Line Skate Parks is already trying to lock down the designs for the new one. The old park will be removed and the new one will be built around the corner beside the Cloverdale Recreation Centre – 6188 176st and should be done Spring 2013. I’ll be left with a ton of awesome memories of lots of kids that I raised as skateboarders in that park through skateboard lessons, camps, and tons of competitions.
RIP old Clovy, and Good Riddance…
Results
Mini: 1. Mark Melyukov; 2.Jon Schrack; 3. Parker Sherwin; 4. Joe Maillet & Isaiah Stroud; 6. Aiden Eastman; 7. Eli Paad; 8. Kaelen Faux
Beginner: 1. Kai Searle; 2. Morgan Skinner; 3. Zacc Lester; 4. Justin Fiorante; 5. Nick Bachmeier; 6. David Martin & Justin Gouthier; 8. Riley Allen & Weston Hutchinson; 10. Patrick Jonas; 11. Adam Lewis; 12. Riley Robertson; 13. Bachouch Michael; 14. Finn Schanlka; 15. Matthew Lalim
Girls: 1. Carrie Williams; 2. Cali Martin
Advanced: 1. Dominic Devries; 2. Brendan Nielsen; 3. Jay Mykyte; 4. Calvin Dignard; 5. Jordan Strong; 6. Mitch Salter; 7. Keegan Anderson; 8. Allen Handley; 9. Ryan Barron; 10. Alexander Savage; 11. Quinton Salter; 12. Andre Bissonnette; 13. Ben; 14. Robert Wylie
See you next time at this year’s Grand Finale
South Surrey – September 15th, 2012
Remember to prepare for a full day as I won’t announce any winners until the end that day. Top 3 in each category will receive plaques, the King of Surrey 2012 will be announced and the so will the winner of the Show Up Mike Contest…
A fresh video for “Beef Under the Chief”, the Squamish stop on the Bowl Series is now up on Push.ca
Have a look and see Adam Hopkins, Eve Feaver, Andy Anderson, Steve Denham, Bushman and more slay the bowl. I guess I should have tried to skate better that day, I could’ve been in it…
Nice video Sheldon
http://push.ca/blogs/skatenews/archive/2012/08/24/video-beef-under-the-chief-2012.aspx