Photo Feature
Befriend The Zamboni Driver
Street Snowboarding Where It Doesn't Snow
It pays to befriend your local Zamboni driver. When snow isn’t falling from the sky, you can usually count on the ice rink to hook it up. After resurfacing an indoor skating rink, Zamboni drivers are left with a large pile of usable shavings. Our crew discovered that if coordinated correctly, we can link up with the Zamboni driver at our local rink in Bellingham, WA just after his afternoon scrape and have him dump that resulting snow directly into the back of our rented Uhaul.
The Zamboni drivers are stoked because they don’t have to pay to have the snow removed, and we’re hyped because we’ve got snow for our street rail sessions in an area where it doesn’t generally snow. It’s really helped propel our productive 2018/19 preseason, and the win-win situation for both parties is a plus. Does that count as a symbiotic relationship? Seems to fit the definition. Like I said, it pays to befriend your local Zamboni driver.
ABOVE Justin Norman led the charge in organizing the crew, renting the Uhaul and coordinating with the Zamboni drivers. Here he back ups the Uhaul for the Zamboni driver to fill it up on one of the hottest days we saw in October.
ABOVE Justin Norman, Ted Elliott and Frankie Devlin putting in work to transport snow and set up a spot.
ABOVE Frankie Devlin lacing up and stomping the landing on his first attempt. As a Mt. Baker local Frankie doesn’t ride rails often, but his New York roots came through strong for him on this down-flat-down.
ABOVE Justin Norman, backside boardslide. He put on a handrail 101 clinic for these kids. This down-flat-down is at a middle school but everyone who rolled by seemed pretty stoked on what we were doing, except for those cops who came at the end. Although their only concern was us dumping the pallets we used for our drop-in, apparently they “could care less about the snowboarding.”
ABOVE Justin Norman, backside 50-50.
ABOVE Justin Norman, fronstide boardslide.
ABOVE On to the next one.
ABOVE Max Dre, frontside 50-50 (left) and Justin Norman, fronstide boardslide (right). We hit this spot prior to the down-flat-down session, back in August. It was a very warm, melty mission.
ABOVE With the sun setting over the horizon Justin Norman put down a textbook backside lipslide to end the session. Justin abides by the G-code.