I randomly got an email a while back from my friend James Fisher asking “hey do you want some visitors?” Since I can’t blade, and can only live vicariously through others, I said sure, come on down.
James loaded his little VW Rabbit full, and showed up with Cody Boulay, Mikey Blair and Brian Weis.
Canada’s biggest and most prestigious contest returned for another year, but bringing the event forward to June produced a smaller attendance- although the quality of skating was unaffected.
The amateur contest continued to be nothing short of a Montreal showcase demo with the locals taking full advantage of hours of practise to comfortably own the top spots… Respect to Max Free, Kevin Lapierre and Dan Millar who stood out for me. (Cont’d. after video)
The Pro contest -despite a smaller turnout than previous years- was as tense as always. Jerry Butler pushing through exhaustion to throw down some of the biggest stunts capable in such a challenging park; Adrien Anne was style personified with relaxed butter-smooth switchups and a flawless zero fish down the big grindbox.
Franco Cammayo is a force of nature! Having taken a brutal fall halfway through the final (so bad it warranted the music being turned off and silence falling on the park) he pulled himself back up and carried on as if he didn’t just dent the floor with his back. Roman Abrate was smooth and showed off natural spins to fakie switch spins into grinds… mental. Chris Haffey did Haffey, turned up and killed it with his first trick- fullcab true soul to fullcab out. Everything he did was flawless. It was great to see him landing tricks first time that last year took him five or six attempts and shows just how much at the top of his game he continues to be… he deserved the win.
Finally; A massive thank you and congratulations to Stephane Julien and Marie-France Denoncourt, who were married on the day of the Classic but still were kind enough to let us stay at their house!
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