Much like full-on denim is dubbed The Canadian Tuxedo, another classic Canadian skate-staple is the makeshift park that occurs during hockey's off-season in the nearest indoor community arena (selfishly, you'd hope the local Pee-Wee team didn't make the playoffs so the arena could be de-iced a little earlier). On Easter Sunday in Vancouver's sleepy west side Kerrisdale ‘hood, Step In The Arena was reason enough to not sadly sit at home and watch the spring downpour through a rain pelted window pane.
Kerrisdale Arena. Caissie photo.
Kevin Kelly, owner of Boulevard Skateshop, is no stranger to putting on skate events. He has a decade of experience under his vulcs, including a role as the "Skateboard Industry Coordinator" with the production team at Slam City Jam ‘05—the second-last year the west coast city hosted it.
Kevin Kelly: host, MC, and iTunes DJ for the day with skate-breaks in between. Caissie photo.
"Exactly 10 years ago was the very first event I did—Skate It Up '99 at the Croatian Cultural Centre on Commercial Drive. It was an indoor mini-ramp challenge with a $1000 first prize. That was also one of Jordan Hoffart's first contests—he was a barrel-bodied 12 year-old," Kevin recalls with a laugh. "I'd say this would be the 10th or 11th larger-scale event I've done that took a lot of planning and had cash prizes and stuff."
Desmond Hoostie, nosegrind to backside bigspin out. Caissie sequence.
Since opening in early December 2008, Boulevard pulled off its first back-to-back events under the shop's banner during the April long weekend. For Kevin, it was an experience that was far more fun and frenetic than toiling over Kinder Surprises by the fireplace while waiting for turkey dinner to be served.
"The first big things I've done with the shop were on the Easter weekend," he explains. "We hosted the Vancouver Fun! premiere with the Powell team on the Saturday night, then this contest on Sunday."
Mike Schultze, front 180 to switch crook. Caissie sequence.
Step In The Arena was an event more along the lines of a rainy-day indoor Sunday skate sesh with homies than a regimented contest. The cash and product perks didn't hurt, and Thunder Bay's Adam Hopkins relayed this emphatically by claiming he could pay his hydro bill and eat after copping a pink banknote for lofting a serious kickflip during the wedge-to-wedge challenge. The historic Kerrisdale Arena was the venue for this shindig and couldn't be a more fitting place to skate since its walls have witnessed past concerts by The Clash and Motorhead. Read on for a little Q & A with Kevin Kelly about the arena jam:
Why did you conjure up this comp?
In Vancouver, there's always this lull through the winter where there doesn't seem to be anything going on skateboarding-wise. I really like to do things that basically bring people together and fire people up for spring and summer time, when the real skateboard season starts out here. I find that the contests in the summer are fun and everything, but it seems like there's 5 every weekend, so they kind of get forgotten about a day later. I also thought Step In The Arena would be a good way to get the juices flowing for skateboarding on the west side. I find that, for some reason, it's kind of been a dead-zone here for a number of years—I don't really know why because there's a lot of kids who skate and people interested in it. Now, there's one little skatepark (Quilchena) and one skateshop (BLVD) for the entire area, so I thought this contest would be a good way to get kids out, parents out, and just promote skateboarding in that part of town. Eventually I want to get petitions going for more parks on the west side.
Caissie photo.
What's the historical relevance of the contest's venue?
Kerrisdale Arena was built in 1949, I think, and it was apparently the host of Vancouver's very first rock ‘n' roll show, which I believe was Bill Haley and The Comets in 1956. They started allowing more concerts in there over the years, and some of the more epic ones that were ever seen in Vancouver, were at the Kerrisdale Arena—The Clash, Peter Tosh, Devo, Motorhead, among many other ones. Apparently they shut down the concerts in '82 after Motorhead played [laughs]. Apparently it was one of the loudest concerts in Vancouver's history, and there were thousands of bikers wandering around Kerrisdale after the show [laughs].
Tony Ferguson, classic kickflip backtail to fakie. Caissie sequence.
Did you have a hard-lined approach to the contest, or was it pretty loose?
To me, fundamentally, skateboarding isn't about colouring between the lines. I let practice go for like 2 hours and I just watched what people were skating and how they were skating it, and I just sort of went from there. I did a jam format on the different obstacles—no judges or first/second/third. Whoever was ripping got something, and if someone was killing it, they got some cash. I had about a thousand bucks to give out. At the very end, I had a pile of product that I put out on the floor and just told people who had entered to take something, and anything that was left over went to the kids.
Stacy Gabriel, fakie heelflip to switch front crook (What!?). Caissie sequence.
Everyone kept saying it was just a fun session more than anything...
It was a really rainy day out and it was a dry place to skate with some really fun obstacles. It seemed like a lot of people that showed up just wanted to skate, so it was like they paid their entrance fee to skate an indoor skate park. When it came time to call people over to grab a prize, they almost didn't care [laughs]. They just wanted to skate. Even when we were focusing on skating a certain obstacle, people just kept skating everything. Everyone ripped that I expected would, and then there was around 15 up-and-comers I didn't recognize that were really good. T-Ferg was out there for hours—he just came out to skate.
Caissie photo.
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Related:
WAM 2008 Contest