[by Nat Langmann]

Kicking off the Telus Ski and Snowboard Festival is tantamount to waking up and washing your mouth out with the remains of last night's mickey of good ol' Canadian Whiskey. Yes, the shit show is back and Monster has officially moved back into Whistler, – taking over where the Grenade Games left off – and coming in stronger than ever by twisting up this year's festival's events with snowboarding leading the charge. The mixed-bag of snowboarding events on this week's agenda are equivalent to the schizophrenic selection of shooters downed the moment that Danny and the Dingo and their tour bus of roadies, film crews, and mixed-media hoopla rolled into town: Day one are mogul qualifications and a slopestyle at the base followed by Trouble Andrew at the GLC; Day two is the mogul finals; Day three is the slopestyle/ boardercross (yes, thats right; riders are judged on speed and hits); and Day four is Dustin Craven's halfpipe. It's the Monster Show; things are about to get downright nasty. Let the games begin.

Molly Milligan on course. Langmann photo.

Day one's mogul qualifications consisted of big-name riders and a bunch of hell-bent-on-owning-their-own-hill locals. It's pretty rad when locals can come out and bash it out through gates: Travis Williams and Zach Wade are head-to-head, with Rube Goldberg and Akasha Weisgarber rounding out the top five. The rad thing is that the times for first to tenth place are not even a half second apart. For the girls, Helen Schettini was rumored to be in the top 15 – maybe I'm still too drunk to find her on the list, or maybe she was mistaken for a dude as she was racing all her heat against Weisgarber -- and Mercedes Nicoll and Molly Milligan will be back up today to kill it for the chicks. The Dingo threw down some solid times, but the way that the locals came out and represented says that Mogul Master bragging rights might stay in Whistler.

Straight outta Brooklyn and back to his old hood, Trevor 'Trouble' Andrew belted out lyrics like, "Take it to the top; living the dream; never gonna sleep" on the main stage – setting the theme of the week – before the finals for the slopestyle went down. The crowd was huge and the riders were amped. The course just looked fun: nothing too huge and tons to play around on. There were two sides, starting off with either a gap jump versus a huge cannon rail, the second options being either a down rail or a down-flat-down kink, thirdly a hip or a flat rail over a Monster van or hitting the side of the van, followed by a double wall-ride transfer option to an Oakley 'O' shaped box.

Grznar photo.

Grznar photo.

Craig Beaulieu. Grznar photo.

The riders were hitting either all rail side or all hip side, and going into the finals Craig Bealieau, Matts Kulisek and Mikey Pederson had three runs to throw down. The judges were looking for three consistent runs, and throughout their run riders had hit every obstacle, packing in the variety. Pederson was sending huge Michaelchuks off the hip, but it was Beaulieu running to the bank $10k richer with a sick frontside 7 tailgrab off the first table, hit the Monster van with a 180 on, switch tailpress, to 540 out; ollied into the quarter pipe, and sealing the deal with a cab 270 on and a 450 off the Oakley box-style rail. The judges realized there were more consequences hitting the icy hip-side, so they were rewarding more to riders hitting that side, but in the end, Beaulieu has such style and was so smooth on the rail line that there was no question that he slayed the course.

Grznar photo.

The winners, L to R: Matts Kulisek (2nd), Craig Beaulieu (1st), Mikey Pederson (3rd). Grznar photo.

Beaulieu should have been out partying, but instead he made a promise to himself to stay sober for all of April, so he went home to kick off his wet boots. The once king of the underground scene may be richer, but he has left this post with not an ounce of greasy dirt. Not much else can be told from the rest of the evening, except that the peeps that were lucky enough to get into the GLC for Monster's Shit Show got down to Trouble Andrew dropping his new album. Don't wait too long before checking it out; it will get you owning the dance floor.

Trouble Andrew at the GLC. Langmann photo.