As far as I can remember, Vancouver was always the skateboarding capital of Canada and it got proven once again by hosting the prestigious Vans Van Doren Invitational this past weekend. It was the first time since the days of the Slam City Jam that a major pro skateboarding contest was happening in the city.
It was a pretty crazy weekend filled with awesomeness and some of the best skateboarding I ever seen in one of my personal favorite skateparka, the Hastings Bowl. It was incredible to just cruise around or just sit down watch some crazy locals just shredding it.
Everything started on friday afternoon with the qualifiers and the skating was ridiculous already. It was hard to believe that the guys would be able to top that on saturday for the semis and the finals. The skatepark was filled with some of the hottest names in today’s skateboard industry and I was more then happy to be there and try to capture some pictures of the event.
Here’s a list of my favorites skateboards highlights.
First, just watching Brad McClain cruising so fast and smoothly squeezing at least 5 more tricks then anybody else in is 40 seconds runs.
James Clark doing the longest grinds, biggest airs in the deep end and keeping on skating after surviving a heavy crash.
Adam Hopkins doing some snowboarding style methods/grassers on the black russian titty
Ranay Beres had the craziest bails I ever seen, it will probably end up being one of the next Thrasher magazine hall of meat, he tried the gnarliest vert to vert transfert. It was good to see him get back up on is own and big props on Cardiel to give him all of the best trick money.
Jerry Gurney in the middle of his last run in the semis went to get a beer and power slid to the top of the black russian titty (in tribute to Josh Evan) while chugged his beer live on the Thrasher Magazine live broadcast, coolest thing ever.
Just watching Raven Tershay blasting huge airs and Ben Raybourne being a loose cannon and trying to do the coffin rolling in the deep end.
I don't think I can stop writing about all the cool stuff that happen during this weekend, but la creme de la creme was Rob "Sluggo" Boyce, a 44 years old canadian legend, landing a head high backflip in the deep end bowl first try in the qualifiers and a second one in the semis after a few tries. The crowd was going nuts and he received 2 well deserved standing ovation.
Outside of skateboarding, there was a couple good parties. On friday night, there was a Bryce Kanight photo exhibition at the fortune sound club. Bryce is a well known photographer that as been shooting the best of skateboarding for the last 30 years, so those were pretty much the best pictures I've ever seen.
On saturday night, to finish this whole amazing week end, Vans was hosting a punk rock show at the art chapel. They had one of my favorite band from Vancouver, The Tubuloids, bringing their cool old surf style punk rock and to put an end to this, they had one the biggest punk canadian legend, Dayglo Abortion, I can tell you guys, there was a lot of dancing collisions and a lots of beers on the ground.
To conclude this, I just wanna say that this contest didn't feel like a contest, the MC's killed it and they kept giving everybody some rebates when they were trying crazy tricks. The tricks were more important then the results and that whats makes this contest the coolest contest ever. Can't wait for next year!
Result:
1st Alex Sorgente
2nd Raven Tershay
3rd Brad McClain
4th Tom Shaar
5th Nolan Monroe
6th Adam Hopkins
