On a nice balmy afternoon a week before Christmas, the Dew Tour Nike 6.0 stop at Breckenridge saw three Canadians on the podium. Seriously, it was t-shirt weather, and I was ready to burn my puffy jacket if the heat didn't beat me to it. Judging by the magnitude of Canucks boarding here for the past month, going home to pow might not be on Santa's wish-list just yet.

Let's start by breaking down the Dew: both men's and women's superpipe and slopestyle contests consisted of three days of competition: qualifications, semi-finals, and then finals. The pipe was the usual-sized monster ditch: 550-feet long, 150-feet wide, 22-feet high, and basically big enough to launch those Shaun White-styled methods on the first hit. The slopestyle course consisted of a double set of rails, followed by a down rail or a down-flat rail, then a 55-foot jump to a 65-foot jump, to a choice of two up-rails or a wall ride, followed by a 70-foot jump, and finished with a 55-footer.

Torstein Horgmo on the wall feature.

Now if one actually made it onto the elite rider list, it was like they had just received entry into the most exclusive party, but instead of clinking glasses with some of the most solid snowboarders in the world, you landed yourself in registration lock-down – five hours of their lives were spent waiting in line just to sign waivers. Twitter and Facebook went into overdrive that night with riders dropping complaints. Favourite quote? Alex Duckworth: "I just farted in the lineup; come find me." True to form, the next day every time Duckworth dropped into the pipe, the announcers couldn't come up with any better material than going off about her dance moves; however, who can't help like this girl that can fart and then bust out some sweet moves.

Kicking off the tour, it was truly Canada representing. For the girls, Mercedes Nicholl, Alex Duckworth, Calynn Irwin, Laura Shanahan, Katie Tsuyuki, and Sarah Conrad competed in pipe. Then in the slopestyle, Kara Rennie, Alex Duckworth, and Spencer O'Brien competed. In the men's superpipe, coming out of the great white north were Trevor Niblett, Derek Livingston, Anthony Wolf, Brad Martin, Zach Stone, Harry Gray, and Charles Reid. Men's slope saw Darcy Sharpe, Andrew Burns (yes, Burns), Zach Stone, Antoine Truchon, Charles Reid, Robby Balharry, Craig McMorris, Maxence Parrot all competing, alongside Seb Toutant (invited straight to semi-finals) and Mark McMorris (automatically in the finals because of his overall Dew Tour win last season).

Spencer O'Brien.

Conrad went through the first superpipe qualifier round in fifth place, but like Martin, neither made it to the finals. In the qualifications, most dudes seemed to go down, but Livingston did a rad hella huge 15ft cab seven in a run of a Front 7 Melon, Cab 7 switch Indy, Front 9 tail, Back 9 Mute, Front 10 Melon which ended with him sitting down on his bum. Gray explained that day one of the comp was extremely windy with no sun at all, and lots of snow, which made the pipe kind of slow; although, halfway through the day it sped up.

"My runs were personally not great," says Gray, "but the 13-year-old Japanese kid (Ayumu Hirano) is insane, and something needs to be done about him because snowboarding is just going to go to hell with him - if he keeps going, we are all screwed."

When asking Zach Stone how his day was he laughed and said, "Well, I beat the halfpipe-champion Harrison Gray, so no complaints there. I feel awesome beating Harry, Anthony and Derek; however, I didn't beat Brad."

The slopestyle open qualifiers saw Zach Stone placing third, Antoine Truchon placing fourth, and along with Charles Reid, making their way into slopestyle semi-finals where Sebastien Toutant was already invited.

In the semi-finals, Stone did a Switch Blunt 270, Cab 2, Switch Back 5, Front 10, Cab 9 Double, Back 10 to eat shit and then did his second run the same, but when he got to his cab 9 double, he ate shit again.

"The last jump wasn't so bad, kind of mellow," explains Stone, "it was the speed that was kind of iffy today: you had to point it, stomp the third jump and just point it again. The third jump was kind of rough, super poppy, flat landing, where you would have to just stomp perfect and tuck into the last one. There were a lot of falls and not to many stomps, but the ones that did stomp, obviously just killed it.."

The Canadians held it down in slope for days: O'Brien was the only Canadian girl to qualify into finals, while Reid's style and solid rail tricks got him through alongside Truchon and Toutant, hooking up with McMorris for the finals. As for the pipe, there were no Canucks that made it through - end of story.

Superpipe Finals:

One of Shaun White's first-hit methods.

All photos: Nat Langmann

(Not "end of story"! Keep reading for slope finals, and more promising Canadian results)