Snowboarding Research Paper

Snowboarding was a sport that was created as a way to surf and skateboard in the winter. Many people had already been snowboarding by standing up on toboggans and sleds, but the first real product that came out was called the Snurfer in 1965 by a man named Sherman Poppen. Some people quickly started picking up on the idea and two men named Tom Sims and Dimitrije Milovich who created Sims Snowboards (1976), and Winterstick (1972) started coming out with their own designs and input on the sport. Jake Burton Carpenter created Burton Snowboards in 1977, which is one of the most famous and most used snowboard company in the whole business, even today. Although snowboarding was taking off, all ski resorts but a few were closing their doors to the
new boarders. Suicide Six was the first to open up to snowboarders and many like Breckenridge, Stowe, and Mammoth followed. The art and lifestyle of snowboarding has turned into many different types of snowboarding like contests, backcountry, and urban because people came from all different situations who wanted to snowboard.
Contest were the sports true beginning and the way snowboarding became an industry.
The first contest was in 1979 at the annual Snurfer contest held by Sherman Poppen. Competitions were the only way to get known in snowboarding back then because there were no snowboard movies and snowboard magazines at that time. The top contest riders in the sport were Craig Kelly, who was the holy one, Terry Kidwell, Bert Lamar, Noah Salasnek, and Andy Coghlan. Craig Kelly was the household name for snowboarders. He won the US Open three times, the World Championships four times, first to be in a commercial, which was Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Gum, and was sponsored by Sims but in 1988 he left Sims to the more popular company Burton. Also showing that not all snowboarders were punk rocking teenagers, he was a Chemical Engineer who got straight A’s in school. Snowboarding contests quickly started picking up fans who were just amazed about what they could do and soon competitions would be televised and gain attention to the new sport. Today Snowboard Competitions are a huge money making business. The two main competitions nowadays are the X Games, created in 1997, and The Olympics
(1998). Snowboarding started off as a backyard sport that was meant for untouched snow.
The first snowboards were created not for the groomed runs and the jumps, but for the soft powder. Boards were made without metal edges, swallow tails, and were one directional. Backcountry and big mountain snowboarding was not really a thing until Craig Kelly ditched the whole competitive world and the sponsorships and sort of fell off the face of the earth trying to find the best snow and the best terrain. Soon more and more guys started to follow and backcountry really took off when some of the sponsors and the magazines and even some of the filmmakers wanted to see what it was like around the mid-nineties. Backcountry riding is like a peaceful way to get away from the contests, but also so many people loved it because it was even more indulging with each turn because it feels elevated in the clouds. The first snowboarding movies back then had mostly back country riding because it and competition were the only two types of snowboarding so far and it was had to film competition and make it look entertaining. Filming at this time is starting to change the way people snowboard because it gives riders other ways of snowboarding and making money. Nowadays a lot of snowboarders rely on movies, video parts, and sponsorships to make money in order to keep snowboarding. One of the first movies was Creatures of Habit 3 made in 1993. Most snowboard movies nowadays are mainly backcountry besides for the
urban street snowboarding movies. Backcountry snowboarding is the hardest to master but the most satisfying to many. Urban or street snowboarding is the youngest branch of snowboarding, and that also relates to movies and video parts coming out. Urban snowboarding is a part of snowboarding where a group of guys and a filmer or many filmers go around town trying to find the sickest looking spot to snowboard. They can ride rails, large gaps, wallrides, gap to a change of directions, pretty much anything that looks stunning on video. Without filming urban snowboarding probably wouldn’t even exist. It is getting more and more dangerous because riders are higher and faster to progress the sport. Unlike competitions and backcountry snowboarding the streets are not totally covered in snow so when you fall it hurts a lot more. Snowboarding is a team sport almost because of the focus not only the snowboarder has to have but also the filmer in order to get the shot because what if the snowboarder has been trying to land this one huge trick the whole day and has beaten himself up to get the trick, and then he gets it, but the filmer was not ready, or did not have the right angle. That's why this part of snowboarding is most in video parts and movies because it is so challenging to get the right shot but it looks amazing in the end. Snowboarding was created because people were bored in the winter and wanted to do another sport which was surfing and skateboarding, but nowadays more people are trying to figure out how to snowboard in the summer which shows how far the sport has gone. Snowboarding is a global sport and it is great for there to be many different types of snowboarding because kids who come from a region or area with little to no mountains they can still snowboard but on the streets, and kids who live in colorado or the alps can snowboard in the backcountry. I think because of the fact that snowboarding is so world wide, people will come up with even more and more ways to snowboard, and that's partly the beauty of the sport because anyone can make snowboarding however they want it.