Them Winter Sports are Getting Too Brutal (Shut it Down)

With XGames, Olympic Training, Dewtour, and the Boloney Battle all gearing up to full swing, the crashes are getting graphic.  And ugly.  And nearly death-inducing.  For years now free skiing and snowboarding have gotten more "extreme" and are now resulting in tricks so complicated and technical that the slightest miscalculation guarantees a hospital visit.  My call?  Shut it down.  Shut it down now.  To summarize a few:

Kevin Pearce:  Olympic halfpipe training.  Trying to go for the double cork - ugh, I hate to even say the phrase - didn't quite make it.  On the second off axis rotation, he clipped his toe edge on the deck or top of the wall, and slammed, hard, on his head.  Even though he was wearing a helmet, he basically gave himself the scrambler and received a severe traumatic brain injury.  And get this, he even had a helmet on.  He would have been a dead man riding without one.  He went from unresponsive to "recovering" while in a hospital near Park City, Utah.  Prognosis, who knows.

Simon Dumont:  This time, Xgames training in Aspen, Simon slammed on a double flip (I don't know if it was front or back) and according to ESPN "exploded off the deck."  Lovely.  He then catapulted all the way to the base of the pipe where he lay for 10 minutes.  Ugly.

Danny Davis:  Another gold medal contender for the Olympics, this guy got shutdown not on some double back cork mcrodeo, but good old Darwin stupidity.  Jumping on a quad at 3am, he slammed into a fence after completing - in I believe a Dewtour stop - perhaps the "greatest half-pipe runs in the history of the sport."  So excited, he cracked his pelvis and a vertebrate.  Great....

But then, Shaun White is nailing tricks that are truly video-game quality.  His most recent, which will likely make it into his Olympic run, not just a double cork, but a double cork mctwist 1260.  I'm not sure what that is, but take a look.

Shaun White Double McTwist - watch more skate, snow, surf, and moto videos

These kids are getting out of control and paying the price for it.  I'm sure they will all heal up and get back on the slopes, but for sure, the crashes will keep coming.

Shreduary Commences in Five Days (The Bums Win)

Winter is here and my job isn't.  The apartment is in boxes and the furniture on craigslist.  Good bye swamps of the Mid Atlantic, hello True North.

As I take my leave from a big boy job to pursue the dream and become a U.S. tax dollar-sponsored snowboarder, my plans for the great month of Shreduary are in place.  Not familiar with Shreduary?  It's of course somewhere between Shredember and Smarch.  My goal?  Simple.  Attempt to land 15/30 days of snowboarding.  Banged up shin or not, I'm getting the shred on.

Mid week days?  Check.  Out West trips?  Check.  Icy frontier of Maine?  Check.  Everywhere in between?  Yes.  Boloney on hand sandwiches and keystone light?  Check.  Growing a grungy stache and developing that magical boot aroma?  ... well I already did that.

Too further appease Ullr and the rest of the snow gods (Radio Ron included), I make it my solemn duty to rock the award-winning Onesie as much as physically possible.

If this appeals to you, sign up for the Power Seen Shreduary experience now!

And to get you further amped, check out TRice chatting about the North Face Masters at Snowbird:

Words With Travis Rice from The North Face Masters on Vimeo.