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We will be at the Brampton skate plaza this saturday Aug 1st.  This is the last stop on the tour and your  last chance to qualify for the finals at the King Of Vancouver August 22nd-23rd.

Check out this link from SBC for photo's and info on the park
 

http://www.sbcskateboard.com/features?news_id=265&uniqid=121

Montreal qualifiers were held at the new Taz skate park, this place is a skaters’ dream. It has ledges, rails, hips, pyramids, wall rides; hubbas manual pads anything you would want in a street park. On the second floor, there is a huge half pipe with a spine to a bowled section. There are also plans to make an outside cement plaza to be finished by next year. If you are ever in Montréal, do yourself a favor and get to Taz and skate.

There was a lot of good skating over the weekend, so much that my brain can’t recall everything that went down, you will have to check the video for proof. I can tell you this, the new generation of skating is alive in Montreal in one little ripper who took 5^th place. Gab Veniot is the next mini shredder on the east coast. Although Gab is small, his skating is bigger than you would expect. He is only 12 and skates with style, speed and consistency of someone twice his age. Gab pulled together two solid runs in the finals to guarantee him a spot at the finale in Vancouver.

The next rider to make it in to the King Of Vancouver was Greg Brewer. We actually picked Greg up in the morning on our way to the park with DC rider Josh Clark, Greg is staying with Josh. Greg didn’t say much the whole ride out to the park but let his skating speak for him. Greg was skating one of his final runs when he split his pants and cracked his board. He came back for his second run with a grip of duct tape wrapped around his leg. It seemed to work because he landed almost everything in his final run and took home fourth 4^th place.

Have you ever seen someone skate and they just make you laugh, not because they suck or you’re trying to be mean to the dude, but because they are so good that you just cant help but laugh because what you are watching is almost a joke. How can someone be that in control of there board? How can they make it look so easy?  This is JS Lapierre, he won the Nationals last year and was back again this year better than ever. These kinds of skaters come around every few years and if you have ever seen McCrank or Haslam skate in person then you know what I am talking about, they control the board; the board does not control them. JS was on point all day, so it was a shock when he missed some tricks in the finals. It was still enough to land him in 3^rd place.

2^nd place went to Etienne Dumas who skates very smooth and elegant cruising around the course dancing on top of the rails and ledges very light on his feet. He was consistent the whole day and the judges took note putting him through to the finals in Vancouver. Can’t wait to see more of this guy.

1^st place went to Will Cristofaro, who put together hard tricks and wasn’t afraid to step to some big things during his time on the course. He held down two consistent runs and had the crowd cheering for him to stick a switch 360 down the big gap, which he almost did butt slid out at the end of his run. Check the video to see all this footage plus more, and some quick clips from the very fast and hectic best trick jam

I flew in early on Friday and had the rest of the day to check out Regina. I cruised around downtown and saw some good skate spots but no skaters. Nice granite ledges and no skate marks. I later found out from some of the locals that it is illegal to skate downtown in Regina and the police have no problem giving out $250.00 dollar tickets. There wasn’t a whole lot to do now that I wasn’t able to shred the city so I met up with an old friend and was taken to a small bon fire party on the outskirts of town at a cool farm.

The property could be a skaters dream with a little work. There were abandoned barns with more than enough room for a half pipes or street set ups, an empty pool which was constructed in the 1920’s would make for a perfect session with a little bondo and some love.

I reminisced with some locals about the Regina skate scene; I had been here before on skate tours and always had a good time. The locals let me know who to look out for at the contest the next day. I also learned of Regina’s many haunted houses, in which I wish I could have had the chance to see. When I dug deeper into why the houses were so called haunted, no one could give me any real facts on this. Has anyone ever seen a ghost? I don’t know, all I was told was that they were littered with dead birds. I was a bit bummed I wouldn’t get the full effect of these haunted houses.

Regina has a super fun skate plaza. It’s not surprising that this plaza was built with all the amenities a street skater would want to skate considering it was constructed by the good folks at newline skate parks. 

The next day I was with Noel from the Tiki Room skate shop. We set up early and watched as kids came rolling in under cloudy and windy skies. I saw some good skating that day and everyone was hyped to be there. 13-year-old Jesse Nichols won the contest, who we met last year at the finals in Montreal. Sarah Molder is the only girl so far to qualifie for the King Of Van. She seriously ripped the park up the whole day, using most of the course and switching up her run through out the day to keep the judges on there toes. After all the riders had skated, we had the top ten from the day, which was Cory Lakeman, Taylor Senft, Liam Trainor, Steve Dearing, Dave Chapados, Eric Milinkovic, Brock Anderson, J-tap, Sarah Molder and Jesse Nicols.

All these riders skated hard for there last runs of the day. We had a best trick contest rolling right after the finals but it was shut down due to rain. After a good day of skating, here is the tope 5 who will be at the King of Vancouver.

1. Jesse Nichols
2. Dave Chapados
3. Steve Dearing
4. Sarah Molder
5. Taylor Senft

We'll be in the fine province of Saskatchewan this weekend. The contest will be at the Skate Plaza. Full day of shredding followed by a best trick for ca$h.

The night before this contest, I was sitting in the park enjoying some adult beverages when I realized that we are half way through this year’s DC nationals and getting closer and closer the King Of Vancouver, where the top five skaters from across the country will meet up and rip Vancouver for 2 days. I’m hyped to be able to meet all these kids and get to see such diversity in skateboarding. Everyone at these contests are so hyped to be there that it makes for such a great contest series. In each province I go to I see at least one trick I haven’t seen before or one little dude around 11 or 12 just charging the course with all the old dudes and killing it.

The Poco Park is a really fun skate park and was glad we were able to hold the contest there again this year. It has some perfect hips and smooth ledges, little bump to rails and a serious ten-stair rail that was skated hard in the best trick contest.

The day started early, we were at the park at 9am and there were already a few kids rolling around braving the heat, oh the heat. The sun was already blazing and would continue for the rest of the day. Over 40 people entered this contest and the park was packed. Underworld skate shop showed up just in time with loads of water to keep these guys ripping and manned the free bbq as well, thanks to Underworld for the support and feeding the kids up with a healthy product toss in the bowl. I think another reason why everyone had so much energy, might have had something to do with Monster energy giving away a ton of drinks that had everyone buzzed while they cruised around the park.

I had stacks of Color magazines to give away and as soon as I mentioned on the mic that the mags on the table were free, they were gone in minutes. I love color mag because it really is about the culture of us skaters and not only chooses to run good skate shots but also shows you a little of what makes us skaters tick and the lifestyle we chose to live, a big thanks to Color for these mags for the kids, they were stoked.

The contest was in full effect right as the first rider rolled in, there was 9 heats with 5 skaters per heat, after I checked the riders list and saw the numbers, I knew this was going to be a long day, although it didn’t seem that long because, come on its skating and its easy on the eyes.

With so much that went on in the day it would be impossible for me to tell you about every dudes run, so well move onto the finals. After so much had gone down in the day, everyone was itching to see who would be in the top ten. In no particular order, this was the top ten of the day, Jamie Walker, Aj Mcalister, Mike Rogers, Dallas Ives, Mike Schutlz, Will Durie, John Hanlon, Joel Logan, Jonthan Reichard and Dustin Columbo.

Each person in this final had some solid tricks in there runs but only Mike Shultz had a run with out slipping, including a perfect switch front side feeble grind down the ten stair, in his run! After seeing him skating so good the whole day, I don’t think that it was any surprise to anyone that he took home first place. I don’t know how these guys still had energy to skate, by this time we had been there under the sun for 6 hours. John Hanlon probably has the best 3 flip, he stomped one down the ten and took home second. Our third place guy I had heard of for a few years now and everyone who mentioned him kept saying, “you just have to see him skate." Dallas Ives was fun to watch. Starting off his run with a switch lip on the ten stair and followed that up with a gap to lip down the double set rail. He cruised over to the ten again and locked into a popped switch Front side 180 to smith grind.

Jamie walker took home fourth place with some seriously styling skating, his kick flips up the big step up were so popped and clean that it looked like he was asleep at the wheel. I had seen Jamie skating around van or the last few years, but never really got to see him rip, super stoked to see more of his skating at the final.

Fifth place went to Johnathon Reichart whose name I pronounced wrong all day but he never seemed to care. He even told me how to say it and I still messed it up, sorry John I’ll work on that pronunciation. John wasn't there in the morning and I didn’t see him much in the day but was ready when he was suppose to take his run, I think his wife signed him up and he showed up later, so we bumped him to the end of the list and forgot about it. The second time around his name was called he was out there and throwing done three flips with ease up the big step up and super smooth backside tail slide

The day was already running late, but I still had a grip of cash to give away for the best trick contest. So we hussled into it right away after the finals. Two-obstacle ten minutes each. First up was the ten stair and rail. Magnus Hanson is by far one of the most consistent guys skating these days, I am sure he did more than this but this is what I can recall right now, you’ll have to check the video to see everything, there was a Kick flip backside lip slide, fakie ollie switch 50 50, then Hanlon comes right behind him with a nollie big spin back lip. Mike “hash brown” Schultz (still don’t know why he’s called has brown) pulled out a switch front side feeble grind and then pulled out a trick I had never see in person, a fakie ollie switch front side feeble. The guy is good on that board. As I was saying, I know there was more that went down, but my brain is mushy right now and you have to check the footage for more.

We moved onto the second spot, the double kinked step up/rail. Five minutes going up, five minutes going down. Magnus started it off with a backside three sixty kick flip up and a 360 flip nose slide down the hubba first try. Hanlon jumped in a kick flip back lip up the step up rail and “Hash brown” had a nice front side tail slide kick flip fakie. Once again, there is much more that went down, so click the video link and get stoked.

Vancouver Results:

1-     Mike Schultz

2-     John Hanlon

4-     Jamie Walker

5-     Jonathon Reichart

The Calgary contest was held at the Cochrane skatepark just outside of calgary. The day turned out perfect, the weather was on our side, the winds stayed calm, it was a good day to skate.  A lot of people showed up to enter. When it was all said and done, we had one sliced chin, one broken nose, 3 broken boards and a healthy amount of sick skating.
Here is the Top 5 who advance to the King Of Vancouver.

1-Jed Anderson
2-Devin Morrison
3-Tyler Warren
4-Tom Nelner
5- Dustin Henry