SIA kicks off this Thursday and as a result most of the industry is busy building booths, booking plane tickets and in my case, filling in ESTA forms and hoping Trump doesn't think I live near too many Muslims to come in. For me, the story of the past week is comebacks. Hot off the back of taking out three of Norway's upcoming talents in SLVSH, Andreas Hatveit made a guest appearance in Oystein Braten's latest Fast Laps episode. The edit, filmed in Andreas's home 'resort' Skibyen, shows off both Oystein's mind boggling rail game and the fact that Andreas, despite having 'retired' a couple of years ago is still at the very forefront of skiing. Judging by the website, Skibyen is open to the public and Andreas might even coach you. Dream trip much?
And on the subject of comebacks Mike Hornbeck dropped a cut called Wreckanize, which we can only hope is a trailer for something full length. I'd argue Wrecka is the OG responsible for the direction of much of skiing today. Do you think we'd have The Bunch or even BE Inspired without Hornbeck? I don't think so. That straight air ender is one of the most beautiful things I've seen for some time. Long live the king!
The big behind the scenes story of the week was X Games Real Ski judging. It'll be a couple of weeks before the edits go live on world wide web boxes, but they're done, the TV show has been recorded, and from what I've been told, the edits are insane. In the meantime, Quebec's Snow Jamboree is running a similar street contest in the form of O'Neill Stairsmaster. Emile Bergeron's is my personal favorite but all five are pretty nuts, well worth a watch.
I'm not entirely sure why the current trend is to try to look like your dad in the 90s (or like someone from a London estate of the same period) and make your edits look like you borrowed his camera. I expect Lev Tanju is somewhat culpable. But Alex Hackel is damn good at skiing. He has it all: style, ridiculously technical tricks, he even has the swerve down. His summer offering is a banger and it bagged him the highest rated video of the week on NS.
There's usually no snow in the midwest in typical Gaper Day season, so Minnesota locals have adopted MLK day instead. The following edit is carnage, it's mind boggling to me everyone survived with their knees intact. You've probably seen it but it's well worth another watch.
And last, but not least (again), there's Candide. Two pieces of Candide content in two weeks is something of a godsend for the traffic of all ski websites worldwide. His latest release, a behind the scenes look at the Audi Quattro commercial he shot last spring is as mind blowing as anything he's done. Not least because it proves to the doubters claiming CGI that the vast majority of the shots are, in fact, real.