The start gate at the NZ Burton Open, where no one could see the course thanks to mother nature. (P) Phil Erickson

Photos by Phil Erickson courtesy of Burton

The first few days of any of the Burton Global Open Series stops are brutal. They have to whittle fields of hundreds of riders down to just 10 men and 5 women. They do this for the men with a pre-qualifier (25 men get in) and then a qualifier (the 25 dudes compete against each other for the 10 spots.) The 45 women vying to even make it in the even don't get a pre-qualifier. They cut them down from 45 to 5 in one foul swoop. Harsh.

They do this in two days. One day for Slopestyle, and one for Halfpipe. They are long-ass days. Take it from me, I've been at plenty of them- including a couple in New Zealand.

They are even longer when the weather is crappy. And insider reports claim that the weather was not only crappy on the first day during the Slopestyle knock-out rounds at Cardrona Resort, but that it was downright shitty. And, as fate would have it, the shitty weather got shittier after the men finished competing, just as the girls stepped up to the plate. Poor darlings really got the blunt end of the stick this day.

The girls took their first run and the weather got so bad that they postponed the second run until the next day, a rare occurrence at any snowboard competition. The girls are slated to battle out the final run on Friday morning. The top five will go straight into Finals that afternoon.

Here are the Men's results from Slopestyle Qualifications. These lucky few will go on to compete against the riders that are previously qualified from last year's BGOS rankings for Semi-Finals (Semi-Finals and Finals happen this weekend), and the fields are STACKED. The mens start list is boasting riders like Torstein Horgmo, Chas Guldemond, Antti Autti, Danny Davis, Peetu Piiroinen, and Tim Humphreys. On the Women's side slopestyle slayers like Chanelle Sladics, Jamie Anderson, Silvia Mittermuller, and Spencer O'Brien. It's gonna be a good one.

Slopestyle Qualification Results

MEN
1 Atsushi Ishikawa JPN Flow
2 Sergey Tarasov RUS Burton
3 Christian "Hitch" Haller SUI Burton
4 Tore Holvik NOR Sweet
5 Arthur Longo FRA Volcom
6 Sage Kotsenburg USA Quiksilver
7 Eric Beauchemin USA DC
8 Gjermund Braaten NOR DC Shoe Co USA
9 Johann Baisamy FRA Billabong
10 Jye Kearney AUS Burton


Check back for more results and other random crap from the 2009 Burton New Zealand Open.

Training at the Burton New Zealand Open, August 2009 (P) Phil Erickson

Photos by Phil Erickson courtesy of Burton

Right now down in New Zealand, where it's already mid-day tomorrow, the Burton Global Open Series (BGOS) is kicking off at Cardrona Resort outside of Wanaka. The BGOS is pretty much as big a deal as it gets in Snowboarding competition (well, ok besides the Winter X Games and the Olympics). Here's why.

First of the year
Not only is this the first stop in the five stop Burton Global Open Series, but its officially the first competition of the year in Snowboarding.

$100,000 on the line
At the end of the five competitions Burton hands out TWO $100,000 dollar checks. One to the overall women. One to the overall man. (Overall means both halfpipe and slopestyle, which they have at all five stops)

A whole lotta other money
They hand out a butt-load of cash at each of the competitions. The purse varies from stop to stop, but its usually enough incentive to draw in the best of the best.

Pressure's off
The Burton Global Open Series doesn't official earn the riders a spot into the Olympics this February (that would be the Grand Prix series, more on that later) so the riders can "let their hair down" so-to-speak.

Pressure's on
The riders can earn points towards TTR (Ticket to Ride) the most noted ranking system within snowboarding. It's a big honor (and some big money) to win the overall title each season on the TTR tour. The majority of competitions in snowboarding are given a "Star" status depending on how big a deal the competition is. (5 Star, 4 Star, 3 Star, etc.) The higher the TTR Star status, the higher the points earned for placing well.

Each stop of the BGOS is a 6 Star event including this one in New Zealand, so yeah... its kinda a big deal.

The Darkhorse
By definition of the contest being an "open", anybody and their sister can sister can sign up for it. So that means a lot of riders who you and I have never heard of have a chance of getting some exposure by good-'ol-fashioned hard work and standout riding. It's how a lot of the pro's you know of now have made their mark.

It takes a couple days of eliminations to whittle it down, but it's always exciting to see the Finals line-up in each event. You'll have two or three no-names standing at the top of the pipe with riders like Shaun White and Danny Kass- (talk about pressure)

Never before seen tricks?
The newest fad in snowboarding is a trick called a "double-cork". Lucky for you, double corks are about as cool to watch as a huge backflip gainer- but much harder to execute, so riders will actually score uber-points with the judges. (Big ol' gainer backflips are neat to watch but don't score high with judges b/c they are actually easier than flat-spins to perform.)

It is quite possible that we may seen some never-before-done-in-competition tricks at the New Zealand Open since the top guys have been training for months trying to gain the advantage with their own versions of the double-cork. Shaun White is said to have a halfpipe run with four double-corks in a row. Louie Vito, Luke Mitrani, Danny Kass are all pre-qualified for semi-finals and they are all rumored to have a double cork. There are others too.

On the other hand... if none of the riders who "have a double-cork" in their bag of tricks decide to step-it up and throw one down, raising the standard, than we may not see the phenomena this week in New Zealand. These riders may collectively choose to save these harder tricks for competitions that will qualify them for the Olympics.

It's hot here and it's not there
Get your snow fix. Its the middle of winter in New Zealand. After this, we're not going to see much action on the snowboard competition side of things until November... which is still 3 months away.



Check back for updates, photos and results from the New Zealand Burton Open. Other sweet sites to check out are www.opensnowboarding.com and www.ttrworldtour.com

Well, I guess we'll see about that. I almost didn't think they could get any better, but they are claiming it pretty big-time over at Quiksilver. Apparently its time for Season Two... and look, they even made a trailer for it!



But yes, if you haven't caught on yet, the Todcasts are amazingly funny, and they aren't ALL about snowboarding. (As you'll see from the cameo's in the first episode below. Tony Hawk, what?!? Bruce Irons, what?!?! Ken Block, what?!?) Although it sure looks like Quik is gearing it up to make sure each of their pro-snowboarders gets a character part in at least one of the "megacasts" they promise to grace us with at the beginning of each month. This means we get to look forward to hanging out with the likes of Travis Rice, Austin Smith, Bryan Fox, and Louie Fontain. Or more like, Todd gets to hang out with those guys, and we get to watch the hilarity that ensues.

Oh Todcast, you've gotten us all riled up! Now its time to deliver!



Catch up on last season over at the Quicksilver blog. Todcast Tuesdays.

The weather during Session Six at Windells was bright, sunny, and extraordinarily hot. When it’s over 80 degrees on hill, there’s only one thing to do: have a pool party! Flow Snowboard’s Tim Humphreys, Brandon Reis, Jeremy Thompson and Jake Black were visiting to build their Dream Feature and created The Pool Party, a Dream Feature that brought the beach to the mountain. The Pool Party included mini jumps, Zumiez couch jib, mailbox and more that led into a channel box, with a gap through the channel that went over a sweet, sweet pool.

Check out the video to see what a beach day at the mountain is like and check out www.windells.com/blog for more!

On the left: Danny Kass, two-time Olympic medalist and one of the U.S. snowboarders rumored to be caught in New Zealand this week with "not an insignificant amount" of marijuana.

The rumor mill has been hard at work today. A few snowboarding websites have been posting a similar story regarding a New Zealand newspaper (Queenstown's The Southland TImes) headlining "US Snowboarders Up On Dope Charges". Link.

The article states that there were two American snowboarders, ages 21 and 26, pulled over in Wanaka, NZ during a random roadside breath testing.

The article continues on to quote the sergeant Paul Crosswell of Wanaka Police Department who said the two males were caught with "not an insignificant amount" of cannabis in the car. (Interesting wording there)

The author of the story does not name names, but does call out the 26 year old male as an "influential male snowboarder" who has won double Winter Olympic medals. He then refers to the 21 year old male as a candidate "vying to represent the US at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver next year."

Which leads anyone with any capable google-ing skill to figure out that Danny Kass is a 26 year old male who has won two medals at Winter Olympic games.

And, furthermore, it is seemingly known within tight snowboarding circles that Danny and Louie Vito (age 21) are currently traveling and riding together in New Zealand in a van that they purchased and had painted. Danny just posted a picture of the van on his twitter account.


Not too conspicuous. Not really.

Oh boys, boys, boys. There is no authoritative answer from any source at this point acknowledging that it was Danny and Louie, but we can certainly see where all the speculation comes from.

The Southland Times article says the men will stand in front of the District Court in Queenstown on Monday (August 10th).

Another slightly odd part of the article points out that the riders are very "high profile", and the only other high-profile cannabis case in New Zealand was in 2000 when a US billionaire philanthropist Peter Lewis was "discharged without a conviction when he paid more than $50,000 to charity after admittedly importing more than 23g of cannabis".

$50,000 dollars! Yikes. (Thats 33,000 + in US dollars). But wait, the guy imported weed and got off without a conviction because he paid off charity? Did we read that right?

Anyway, the smart guys over at Boardistan looked up cannabis charges in New Zealand via the New Zealand Herald and found that "that maximum penalty for a conviction for possession of marijuana is three months' jail and/or a NZ$500 fine (US$330)". Link.

If there is any more news regarding the US riders caught with weed in New Zealand we will post it here at the GrindTV.com snow blog. Otherwise we'll be looking forward to seeing both Louie and Danny riding in the Burton New Zealand Open next week at Cardrona Resort just outside of Wanaka, as well as in the World Cup Olympic Qualifier the following week.


Louie Vito, the younger rider rumored to be involved. Just to make it clear. Nothing is official. No one knows yet the true identity of the riders. (Editor Note: While we do not promote the use of drugs in any way, we do promote both Danny Kass and Louie Vito as stand up guys, exceptional athletes and great representations of our country in the upcoming Olympics should they succeed to qualify.)

[other sources via Yobeat and ESPN]

Must be 21 + to Enter

So a handful of you are sitting in the bleachers at the X Games. Kudos. It's hot. It's crowded, and security is tighter than a puckered starfish. But- you get to see the action live. Woo Hoo!

You DON'T get to drink beer.

For the rest of us (majority), we watch a few hours of it on ESPN at night while it's happening. That's if we're not off getting too extreme ourselves. Otherwise we'll tune in Monday online and find out who did what. NBD.

But, for those of us who are watching it live... thank the heavens... we have a drinking game to make it better.

MEGA-MO. A drinking game almost as fun as the name itself. Every time one of the fearless commentators refers to ESPN's overplayed/overused HD camera (600 frames a second) take a swig. Collectively we can possibly redefine swirly.

That's all.

Travis Rice and Bluebird gave away a butt-load of free stuff. And not just like some t-shirts and stickers... good free stuff. Like brand new Lib-tech snowboards, next years Quiksilver Outerwear, a brand new Red Bull PSP, and apparently a slightly used Bluebird Bus. (We're still trying to figure that one out.)

If you did enter, watch the video to hear Travis draw your name out of the bucket and butcher it. Or maybe you are one of the guys that almost won (unfortunately, and this is a little known fact, T.Rice is a bit of a pyro and lit some of the entries on fire). You'll never know unless you scope this video out.

Plus, some lost shred footage of Travis from god-knows-where. Yeah, bonus.

Interview by Jeff Schmuck/Newschoolers.com

NS: You're finally dropping the long-awaited 5th episode of Chug Life right now. What can we expect to see in the latest and greatest from Chug?

Chug: Well it's not as exciting as Chug Life 4 I don't think, but it's got some stuff in it that’s watch-worthy. I think some parts are funny as balls but, I sometimes think I am the only one that finds my friends and I funny.

What's your favorite episode that you've done?

I still think Chug Life 1 is my favorite, because it was filmed over a three-month span and I had tons of time to do it. It was the most fun to make because I was just getting it started and everything was still fresh in my mind. But Chug Life 4 is the most funny it seems.

Is Chug Life going to be taking a break over the summer or will there be more episodes before next winter?

No actually I’m going to be dropping one from Momentum Ski Camps that will have some of my summer travels in it as well, like this trip up to the Yukon and the 82-pound Halibut I caught in AK!

When you first set out to do Chug Life and I talked to you about it, you said it was basically just going to be a fun thing for you to do with filming your 'idiot friends' and showing a different perspective than what was going on in Jon's blogs. And then over the course of this past season, it's absolutely exploded and has arguably become one of the most popular videoblogs out there. How's that make you feel?

It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, because initially I figured it would only be hilarious for my group of friends, but I wanted to post it and see what other people thought. And then when it was so well received it made me super stoked to do more.

Did you ever think it was going to be as popular and big as it's become?

Not at all. And even though I got a bit discouraged mid-season, and I didn't even want to release Chug Life 4 because I didn't think people would think it was funny, it was everyone's support that kept me going.

You didn't think it was going to be funny enough or you didn't think it was going to be appropriate enough? (laughs)

(laughs) Nah I made it appropriate. It was a challenge though, because initially I didn't think it would be appropriate enough, but when I started putting it all together I didn't think it was going to be funny enough.

And where's all the inappropriate footage from that trip? (laughs)

Locked away in a secret file. (laughs)

What are your plans and goals for Chug Life for next year?

For the upcoming season I’ve got my agent, Fergie (goodlife.ca), talking to some TV channels about making Chug Life TV, but this is a long term goal. As for now, I’ve got some good support from Atomic coming in and am stoked to keep this thing going online!

And in closing, what would you like to say to all the kids out there that are now part of the cult-like following of Chug Life, and who start threads and message you all the time on Newschoolers.com about when the next episode is coming?

JEAAAAA!!!! (laughs) But seriously, you guys rule and if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be continuing with it. It’s a lot more work than most people think creating a production entirely on my own. Filming, capturing, labeling, editing, etc ain’t easy! So thank you so much for the support and keep watching and they will keep coming! At a faster rate I promise…

Talk about a d*ck tease. It's the middle of July, 90 plus degrees and humid outside, and Absinthe Films chooses now to drop the teaser for the 2009 fall release of their new movie "Neverland".

Chock-full of face shots, white-rooms and bangers, (that accidentally came out sounding like a promo for a porn movie) I think it's safe to say this trailer is here to taunt and tantalize us (still on that porn note...) while we soak up the wife-beaters we're wearing with our own sweat (jeez). That's ok though, with a trailer this good, we'll suffer through it. (really? Honestly, there were the best intentions to keep that clean.)

Enjoy. And remember... we're past the halfway mark of summer. You'll be on snow again in no time. (See that was clean.)

North American Fall Premier Tour:
Click HERE

Lauri Heiskari- Overall winner

This past weekend Snowboarder Magazine held it's inventive new contest "America's Next Top Pro Model" at the summer shredding glacier on Mt. Hood, Oregon in the world acclaimed Windells snowboard park. If you missed our coverage from the first day, pop-in over here to check out some video shorts from the "High-Ollie" and "Best Jibber" contest.

Going into day two of the contest the 20 pro riders, all riding their new insignia snowboards, were tasked with three more on-snow mini-events. This time the schedule for the day started with the "Spin to Win" contest, followed by the "Biggest Air" and then capped off with the carnage-filled, crowd-pleasing "Chinese Downhill".

Rather than force your eyes to go numb by actually reading, go ahead and check out these vids we whipped together. (We're not aiming for quality here, obviously. Our apologies.)

For banger photo coverage you'll have to head over to Snowboardermag.com. It's their signature contest so they have the legit coverage in the works... we were more like the annoying friend of a friend that showed up and out of pity was allowed to hang out.

Spin to Win:



Biggest Air:



For footage from the Chinese Downhill you'll have to wait with bated breath for the official Snowboarder Magazine video edit (coming soon to a website near you). We totally missed it... but we were told that yes, indeed there was plenty of spitting, shoving and carnage. Breaking thru the finnish line first was the unstoppable Fin Lauri Heiskari, followed by American badass Bryan Fox, with another Finnish luminary, Eero Ettala, coming in third.

After shredding the hot snow all day the riders and the crowd moved down the hill to the Windells Campus where the pro's put on their philanthropist game-faces and started hawking their own pro-models to the Windells campers in a silent auction.

Each board sold to the highest bidder, and the money for all the boards was collected and given to the charity chosen by the rider who received the highest bid out of all the boards. That rider who received the highest bid out of everyone was the revered Eddie Wall, who brought in $300 bucks for his Forum pro-model. The auction pulled together a total of $1909.00 that was donated to St. Judes Hospital, Eddie's charity of choice.

With each mini contest, including the five on snow events and the silent auction, the riders stacked up points that went towards determining the overall rider who would win the title of "America's Next Top Pro Model". Throughout the weekend there was an undeniable standout. Lauri Heiskari, on his DC Snowboards XFB Pro board, won the Highest Ollie, Chinese Downhill and Biggest Air contests, and even placed third in the Spin to Win, making him the most winningest rider of the weekend and earning him the crown of America's Top Pro Model. If that's not some bragging rights for DC Snowboards and Lauri's R&D skills than we'd like to know what is.

Besides checking out all of the coverage online, be sure to pick up a copy of Snowboarder Magazine's November issue to see America's Next Top Pro Model in all it's glory with the aesthetics of print.