With no lift in place to whisk us away to the Icy playground, Taylor and I found ourselves at a bit of a loose end. Ghent is away, so who are we meant to turn to for direction? After consulting Ghent’s bible, we realised that we really just wanted to hit a ledge and the Varsity seemed as good as any. First there are a couple of shots of Erik and Blair at the Bathurst and Dundas park, then the rest of the shots are from the evening’s skate.

Blair gets first photo with an awesome top mistrial, even more incredible that he managed it with a skateboarder wedged firmly up his backside.

Erik is leaving soon to visit skating wonderland for six weeks, so I guess this was our goodbye session? Travel safely, bro.

Blair took a daytrip down to the city to get some skating in before work… Alleyoop makios never looked so good.

Erik stuck an awesome Sweatstance to fakie off the bank.

Next up we moved to Varsity ledge at St. George athletic stadium, where Taylor and I were met by Reece from England, Huy and a non-Ghent Dave.

Cory appeared on the random and rushed home to get his skates.

The rest of the images are HERE on our Flickr.

See you next week!.

So much about learning photography is hit or miss- I just hope I get less shit at it before my endlessly patient friends are completely bored of hearing “Can you do that again? I missed it, sorry”. Thursday Night Skates are a bit up in the air at the moment- nobody seems able to co-ordinate far enough in advance that we all move as a Unit, so we end end up in tiny little groups across the GTA, grumbling about how no-one seems to want to skate together any more. Not true!

From a Downtown perspective it is difficult to get to parks outside the city without a car unless Kevin or Dan drive (and now we have enough skaters downtown that we need both to transport everyone out there), and with our little scene blossoming again in the city we’re exploring and finding new things to skate every time we go out. I promise we’ll start to see more of a united front in the coming months; it just requires better planning and co-ordination.

Enough waffle! Last night we ended up skating a great ledge that Dave recently spent the time bricking and waxing conveniently over the road from St George subway station. Its an awesome spot and once we’ve finished bricking everything it’ll be great for some awesome lines.

Jay Smith, one of Toronto’s secret weapons.

Taylor Ritchie spent the last two weeks in Vancouver and San Fransisco and was itching to skate. Fresh from Kevin’s skate workshop and a lot happier with his skates after some Dremel action, hai Taylor.

Aaron Wheat, the original cool snake.

And of course, the kendama kids.

Now, some skating! A grabbed true makio. Fucking steeze.

Jay fishbraining in the first of three pairs of skates he’d try on during the session.

Wheat LOVES his new skates, and well he should; they’re awesome.

Happy with your wax job, Dave?

Some people just know that ungrabbed tricks are incomplete.

Wheat looks so much more comfortable on his new skates already compared to his old busted ass skates.

Continuing his smiley destruction session, TR with a sick (grabbed) front torque.

Dan loves switchups, and he should- he’s bloody good at them.
This true mistrial switched to alleyoop top porn, but I’m rubbish and didn’t sequence it.

“I think I’m gonna go try a true fish” -Taylor Ritchie

Kevin wiping the ledge down with a true savannah in a quick break from Kendama. Pimping ain’t easy.

Wheat is a sexy bitch.

Dan wants… “but in a size 9″.

I hate to finish on a blurry picture, but the rest of it was so good…
sorry Jay, I’ll work the camera out by next time!

All the photos are available in higher resolution on our flickr.