New York City Hearts Snowboarding

Never one to miss out on a chance to freeze our toes off with thousands of shivering hipsters, FanHouse hit the man-made slopes of Manhattan to check out the Red Bull Snowscrapers competition that took place Thursday in downtown New York City. Here are photos, videos and one writer's observations from the event.



While walking over to the towering, nine-story ramp that Red Bull had constructed in Manhattan's Lower East Side for Thursday's Snowscrapers snowboarding competition, I was approached by a middle-aged mother with two young kids. She was walking out of one of the nearby public-housing projects and upon seeing my press pass, stopped me on the street and asked me what time the event started. Around six o'clock, I told her. Then she asked if Shaun White was really going to be over there. I said yes, he certainly was. The woman smiled and said she'd better hurry up and get over there then.

Well, I thought to myself. That's not your typical snowboarding fan.

Later, while I was buying a slice of pizza at an old East Village pizzeria, the cook behind the counter saw my press pass and talked excitedly about seeing Shaun White and some of the other riders ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

I've been going to this pizzeria for, oh, 14 years now? And I've certainly never heard anyone behind the counter discuss snowboarding before.

And then, as I was walking to the subway after the event, I saw two bankers have a chance encounter on the street. After exchanging hugs, one of the bankers explained why his voice was so hoarse. "I was just over at the snowboarding event! It was nuts! There are thousands of people over there, dude! I was screaming my [expletive] face off!"

The point of all of this? For one day, at least, NYC had snowboarding on its collective mind. And it had a nine-story ramp and a redheaded Olympic gold-medalist to thank for this.

Boasting a $100,000 purse, "Snowscrapers" brought 16 of snowboarding's most talented riders together to showcase an outdoor sport in an urban setting. And judging by the thousands of spectators that turned out, this odd juxtaposition turned out to be a winning formula for Red Bull.

According to Red Bull's press release, the event was created to have "snowboarders from around the globe compete against the majestic backdrop of the New York City skyline." Those snowboarders included big names like White, X Games gold medalist Travis Rice, soulful stylist Pat Moore, and "Living Legend" Terje Haakonsen, so there was no shortage of talent vying for the top prize.

Yet, despite this technically being a competition, as an event, "Snowscrapers" was really about two things: the huge, icy megaramp and 2006 Olympic gold-medalist Shaun White.

From the perspective of spectacle, neither of these two things disappointed. The ramp itself has been talked about, and blogged about, for weeks leading up to the event, and seeing it framed against the Williamsburg Bridge did nothing to lessen its impact. And as for White, watch the video below to see how beloved he is by New Yorkers young and old.

Yet while the ramp and White both delivered in terms of showmanship, both the ramp's and White's actual performances came up short within the context of the sport of snowboarding.

Constructed primarily out of huge cargo containers, the ramp -- while extremely impressive in stature -- didn't actually give the riders enough speed to get a lot of pop off of the kicker at the end. The crew even brought out a makeshift winch to help pull the riders more quickly down the slope, but eventually scrapped that and resorted to physically throwing them from the top of the ramp to give them extra speed.

Moreover, the landing ramp was higher than the actual top of the kicker itself, which made it appear as if the riders weren't going all that high (at least not compared to what one is accustomed to seeing on the X-Games, etc.) Couple that with relatively low approach speeds, and big air was in short supply.

Like the ramp, White didn't perform extremely well, either.

The "Flying Tomato" (a nickname White seems to have outgrown) looked great during practice and in the preliminary rounds. The amount of pop he gets off the lip is really an extraordinary thing to see in person, especially when compared to how much higher he was going than the other riders.

Even more impressive than White's riding, however, was to see first-hand the huge response he got from New York fans. Again, watch the video below to get a better idea, but suffice it to say that if Tony Hawk is the Michael Jordan of action sports, then White is LeBron James. (And Ryan Sheckler is Kobe Bryant.)

Yet, despite White's solid preliminary-round performance, not to mention his fanfare, the Tomato's night ended early. He was eliminated by Torstein Horgmo in the quarterfinals after White didn't get enough spin on a 900 and scored lower than Horgmo. Hence, the crowd was deprived of the event's biggest name for roughly the final hour of the competition.

The eventual winner turned out to be unheralded Shayne Pospisil, a local rider from New Jersey. Afterwards, Pospisil was beaming, saying that his friends and family don't usually get a chance to see him ride, so to win in New York City was a dream come true.

So in the end, it actually was quite fitting that Pospisil, not a big name like White or even Travis Rice, wound up taking home the huge $50,000 first-place purse. This event, after all, was about New York City and stoking the locals more than it was about snowboarding excellence.

And on that front, Red Bull and White were huge winners.

Just ask any mom, dough-roller or banker you happen across on the streets of lower Manhattan.

Shaun White Gets Mobbed:


Rider Hits the Nine-Story Ramp: