Canadian Burton Open 2011

Halfpipe Finals Friday night:

Mens

1 Kohei Kudo JPN

2 Scotty James AUS

3 Christian Haller SUI

Womens

1 Kelly Clark USA

2 Cilka Sadar SLO

3 Mercedes Nicoll CAN

Canadian Burton Open

Slope Style finals

Mens
1 Sam Hulbert USA
2 Zak Stone CAN
3 Francis Bourgeois CAN

Womens
1 Jamie Anderson USA
2 Silvia Mittermuller GER
3 Ty Walker USA

Here we go ....

It it has been a while, and a couple of you have been giving me a hard time (yah you!) ... but I am back! And you want to know what else is back? The Canadian Burton Open at COP, which start today.

COP . . . Last call this weekend!

It is sad to know COP's last weekend this season is the one coming up. With the tempuratures getting warmer it is not hard to believe at all. Last weekend at COP I was only able to get two hours of ridable time till the snow got too sticky and rendered unridable. Mind you I did have a late start at around noon.

Since it is going to the last weekend for COP, officially called the Canada Olympic Park's 4th Annual Winter Season Ender Bender, there will be plenty of Easter themed activites and some contests/challenges for prizes.

For those of you shredding the little time left in the park, it is COP Last Call Photo Session.

1.5 hr Sesh at COP

2010 Mission Girls Rail Jam

Big congrats to my girl Jenna Mae for winning the Missions Girls Rail Jam at COP tonight.

Check out the rest of the pics on Flickr.

Ladies 16+

Under 16 (Hi-Fives all round)

Top left: Jenna Mae  Top right: Nicole

Bottom: Jordana

Killing it!

2010 Burton Canadian Open

Friday February 5, 2010
Slope Style Semi-Finals

Jon Versteeg. Seriously, amazing style.

Craig Beaulieu another Canadian with great skill.

Saturday February 6, 2010 
Half Pipe Finals
Absolutely gorgeous day with the sun warming up the pipe. 

                                          Iouri Podladtchikov

HP Men's Finals

1. Iouri Podladtchikov (SUI )

2. Justin Lamoureux (CAN)
3. Markus Malin (FIN)

HP Women's Finals

1. Kendall Brown (NZL)
2. Sarah Conrad (CAN)
3. Mercedes Nicoll (CAN)


Sunday February 7, 2010
Slope Style Finals
Where did this weather come from? Such a difference from the past two days of sun and blue skies. The fog rolled in or shall I say frosty fog, and made viewing and photographing kinda difficult, not to mention cold as well. Check out the results and the pics (attempted pics).

Womens's Finals 
1. Enni Rukajarvi (FIN)
2. Lisa Wiik (NOR)
3. Sina Candrian (SUI)
4. Breanna Strangeland (CAN)

Men's Finals
1. Brett Esser (USA)
2. Jon Versteeg (CAN)
3. Robby Balharry (CAN)
4. Mark Sollors (CAN)

For full final results check out the Burton Open site:
http://www.opensnowboarding.com/Home.aspx?openid=CNO

Freestyle Ski Jumping World Cup

Some Pics from Sunday's Ski Jumping event. Cool to watch, these guys/ girls are crazy!

Freestyle Skiing World Cup

Canada Olympic Park has a full event line up this winter season. This month includes Freestyle Skiing, Skeleton, Canada Snowboard tour (half pipe and new this year slopestyle), Snowboard World Cup, Bobsled and ofcourse the Olympic torch relay.  .  .  Just to name a few full listing here http://www.winsportcanada.ca/cop/copevents/special_events.cfm#altius1

Today's event at COP, the Freestyle Skiing World Cup, had a warm day with temperatures around 7 degrees, but had strong 30 km winds. You could see the coaches doing their best to signal in their athletes when they thought a window of low winds presented itself. But these athletes were finely tuned and were able to complete their course, which went something like this:

Mogul Mogul Mogul Jump/Aerial Mogul Mogul Mogul Mogul Jump Aerial Mogul Mogul

   Pretty intense on the knees if you were wondering. If you have never seen this sort of event I would highly recommend watching it if you are in town. It is free, so why not check out the finals which are happening tomorrow (Sunday).

COP looking like an Ant Hill from all the hype of the Competition. On the right is the drop in point at the top of the course.

Bottom of the course where all the spectators can watch and OOoooooo and Aaaaaa.

Competitors getting corked on their first Aerial on the course during Men's Qualifiers.

Last night was a goggle night cause the snow gods were working:

Blizzard in town

Originally I was going to talk about board basics, the breakdown of a snowboard, all the boards I have been through in my past few years of riding, my perfect board and some tips on how to find your perfect board.
 . . . . .  then the BLIZZARD rolled in.

By definition, according to Environment Canada, a Blizzard must meet the following criteria:
- must have winds of 40 km/h or more
- have snow or blowing snow
- visibility less than 1 km and a windchill of less than -25 degrees celsius.
- All of these conditions must last for 4 hours or more.

When these conditions persist after snow has stopped falling, it is called a ground blizzard.

So, yesterday (friday) I took the day off work (yes I work. Just because I mostly blog about snowboarding doesn`t mean that is all I do) and the blizzard strolled in. Being my day off, it can be assumed snowboarding would be a given. Funny thing. Tons of snow and too much wind put a hault on the plan. Got to COP or shall I say the snow desert. I think it was the exact same snow desert from Star Wars Episode V. Can someone look it up, I think that part of the movie was filmed exactly where I was standing.

So in summary couldn`t see a thing and the wind was pushing me up the mountain.

Oh well lets just hike the park. WHAT!!! closed. should have checked the site before we got there. See next post for websites you should check before you to the mountains. 
Well, PLAN B. Set up the boxes that we made and have a private session in a nice location out of the wind. Unfotunately, the combination of variables OUT + OF + THE + WIND = does not exist.