Athletes Eric Jackson, Leanne Pelosi and Director Travis Robb heat up “Winterpeg’s” Premier of “Black Winter” . Prairies Tour Part 2 of 2.

Next on the Black Winter “prairie tour” was the fine city of Winnipeg, Manitoba featuring an IMAX screening of the movie and a hang session with athletes Eric Jackson, Leanne Pelosi and director Travis Robb. The crew at Royal Sports and Kings Snow, Skate, Surf along with Monster Energy wrangled up the snowboard community which is pretty hefty considering the town’s proximity to the mountains. But in spite of its isolation from anything considerably vertical and snowy it has produced some great riders and more recently the young Andrew Geeves (also in the movie).

Premiering the movie on an IMAX screen raises the energy level a bit especially when the director is also in the house and excited to see his work projected on a 72 ft wide x 53 ft high canvas. The fine detail of the athletes “crash-face” comes across much better on a screen that size and so do those sketchy but salivary big mountain lines. But better than IMAX is having the ‘real thing’ present and have the riders connect with the audience in person by sharing stories and signing autographs. Turns out some of the best stories came from the locals, like the history lesson that Leanne Pelosi got from a Flin Flon local. Yes, Flin Flon is a town in Manitoba and it’s named after a man called Flintabody Flonitan. Let that fun word combo soak in a minute….
As the movie progressed, the crowd showed their love for Leanne and Eric’s parts and gave the “that’s our boy!!” props for Andrew Geeves.  After seeing many of these premieres in the last few weeks I would say that Chas Guldemond’s part always leaves a hush in the audience as people try to wrap their brain around the number of rotations he does.

Black Ice Highway Driving and Standard Films Black Winter Premiere Blows Across the Canadian Prairies. Part 1 of 2.

 Winter has officially arrived in parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan. And by ‘parts’ I mean, in its entirety. I’m not aware of any balmy pockets of the prairies that Mother Nature has stowed away. Except for when Chinooks roll through. Regardless, the black ice on the local highway validates my hunch that winter has coated the region. The temperatures are not yet savage but seeing your breath is painful, yet thrilling because you know those fun park days and deep pow days are looming. In the mean time, looming more urgently were the movie premieres in Edmonton (presented by The Easy Rider) and Saskatoon (presented by Momentum and Outtabounds).

The prairie tour began with Edmonton at the Garneau Theatre on Wednesday October 7th. The night was presented by The Easy Rider snowboard shop and a bunch of the shop’s new guard and old guard were in attendance. If there was ever a shop that bore witness to snowboarding’s awesome development to it’s current bonafide Olympic sport status it’s The Easy Rider. The shop launched an annual snowboard contest back in 1988 around the time that Transworld Snowboarding Magazine launched and Calgary, Alberta hosted the Winter Olympic Games (10 years before snowboarding could take part). Ronald Reagan was US president and Madonna wasn’t a Material Girl yet. So it’s safe to say Waide Currie and his brother Scott have been staples in the Edmonton scene for a long time and it’s very cool to see them tirelessly supporting snowboarding to this day. The 22nd Annual Easy Rider Snowboard Cup runs April 2010. Call the shop (780-413-4554) or become friends with “The Easy Rider” on Facebook for more information.

Yesterday evening Standard Films Black Winter debuted to a sold out audience of more than 350 people in the prairie city of Calgary, Alberta. People began to amass at The Plaza Theatre over an hour and half before the movie was set to begin and frantically tap the Steam Whistle beer and Monster Energy reserves. Albertans are savages; a reputation supported not only by their massive secret jumps but also by their massive bar tabs (it’s part of their appeal). Especially savage is Calgary’s weather. It might be ‘summer’ as you enter the theatre and ‘winter’ as you leave so it’s in your best interest to pay close attention to the movie and build that trick list because you might be snowboarding sooner than you thought.

Faces began to stream into the theatre and amongst the anticipation some of Canada’s finest riders could be seen shuffling into the theatre including Raewyn Reid, Dustin Craven and late arrival Leanne Pelosi. With a good sprinkling of celebrity athletes in attendance, and the sound of smuggled beers being uncomfortably opened, it was show time! Footage that really had people going was Monster Energy athlete Torstein Horgmo’s insane park follow-cam and Xavier Delerue’s savage rock lines. Chas Guldemond’s part was also one to soak up because he completed an entire video part in spite of spending most of his time at contests landing tricks with obscene rotations and gymnast precision (recall that Chas recently led the TTR World Tour by landing on the podium of almost every major slope style contest in the world). Monster Energy athlete Leanne Pelosi had some respectable rail representation and shares a section with always-colourful Andrew Geeves. There was also abundant avalanche footage in Black Winter, leading one to wonder if perhaps those close calls were the inspiration for the movie’s title.