First and foremost, the best played moment of the day goes to the D.J. at the top of the pipe blasting Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" as Louie Vito dropped into his first run of the day.

Vito's good humor accounted for, he went with it. A little help from Elton, two double corks later and Louie had the second best score of Men's Qualifiers. With a stacked heat on hand it wasn't necessarily what anybody expected going into tomorrow's Finals, but it was more than deserved for Dancing With the Star's first snowboarding superstar.

The crowd was in for more of a treat than just seeing Louie "Frodo" in person or getting his autograph. As Louie linked his double-corks together he upped the ante for the man in black, Shaun White, to unleash tricks he may have been holding back for tomorrow's finals.

Indisputably, White set the bar and stole the show, securing the lead going into Saturday's finals with an unheard score of 49.50 out of a possible 50.00 points.

Here's the real kicker... It's quite possible that White wasn't even throwing out his best yet.

Rumor has it that White still has a few more tricks up his sleeve that even his fiercest American competitors haven't been witness to yet. It's hard to believe that we'll see riding more progressive than what was thrown down today, but if anybody wants to come-up on White then it will take unseen and unexpected exploits of snowboarding in tomorrow's podium competition.

Regardless, the buzz from today lies in the talent-show that was only a qualifier. If today is a taste of the level of evolution snowboarding has seen in barely a year's time, than this halfpipe Olympic season is off to a good start.

You can see the good start for yourself here: