Snowboarding: The New Football

By Mike Brown
mikebrown048@hotmail.com

The air is getting crisper, and, by golly, the leaves are changing. Soon my clock will be set back an hour, the days will be getting shorter and I'll be filling up my Thermos with a nice warm mixture of cough syrup and hot cocoa. Time to gear up�but I won't be heading to no stadium. I'll be taking advice from Iron Maiden and running towards the hills. Snowboard season is almost upon us.

This article is not intended to slander the act of snowboarding or talk about how lame it's become. I personally love doing the sideways-slide down an icy mountain. But, fact of the matter is, skateboarding has become just as lame in the last couple of years. There are some things I just have to get off my skinny white chest.

First of all, as far as I can tell, snowboarding is the new football. I deeply apologize to any football players or fans that I may have offended with that statement. But it's true. Not so much in a literal sense, but more metaphorical. I really can't explain why. It just seems like the same kids I see at my work buying snowboards have the same mentality of the kids that used to fuck with me in the brutal vortex known as junior high.

And hey, do you know how much it costs a snowboarder to change a light bulb? $1,002, two dollars to buy the light bulb, and a thousand bucks buying the gear so he looks dope doing it. Yes, football players and snowboarders must proceed with the ritual of suiting up. They also both share the uncanny ability to decipher who's who while engaging in these activities. When I'm watching a football game on TV, I have no fucking idea who's who if not for John Madden's brilliant insight. Same with when I'm snowboarding. It's like some sixth sense that expert riders have developed, to be able to know who you're talking to when they have goggles on their faces. Whenever I go snowboarding I just have the same mild, boring, non-threatening, non-judgmental conversation with everyone I talk to, hoping not to be embarrassed by accidentally having the same boring conversation twice with the same person.

That conversation usually goes like this: I say, "Good snow today, huh?" They say, "Yup."

Another resemblance snowboarding has to football is the cheerleader. But, in the snowboard world, I like to refer to them as Snow Hos. Much like cheerleaders, Snow Hos get decked out in their favorite snow-time wardrobes and just kind of sit there on the sides of the action, yelling shit. They don't really snowboard, per say. Also, like cheerleaders, a Snow Ho will almost exclusively date Snow Bros � Bros with sponsored status, being the cream of the crop. It is not uncommon for a Snow Ho to dump a liftie in order to date a Cat driver. I can't really blame a Snow Ho for this, because we all know that a Cat driver can take you places that a liftie cannot.

Snow Hos also have a tendency to match their outfits to the color of their snowboards, and also usually wear really bad makeup. Or maybe it's not so much that the makeup is bad, but more the fact that it becomes frozen to their fucking faces. Snow Hos are usually trouble, and it can be a good idea for any pure rider to just stay away from broads like this. If your average, intelligent and mildly attractive girl is a trout, a Snow Ho is a carp.

Not everything in snowboarding is like football, however. Like, you can be from the ghetto and play football. Lift tickets are expensive and, for the most part, the activity of snowboarding is limited to over-privileged white kids (I humbly include myself in this category). But right now, it's important to act mad-thuggish in snowboarding, even if you wouldn't last two seconds in Harlem.

When I started snowboarding, it was all about fluorescent outfits and jester hats; now it's all about Triple X and DMX. Frankly, I don't know what's worse. It's weird that kids will spend shitloads of money to get the lightest setups possible, but then spend shitloads more to get the heaviest and baggiest outerwear. This trend makes little sense to me, but perhaps I am just thinking too much.

Despite all that, I have stated in this article that it would be sad if you didn't enjoy your favorite pastime just because so many lame-wads do it. I don't care that a bunch of lame people snowboard, I'll do it anyway. If I didn't do something because someone else who was lame did it too, I really wouldn't do a goddamn thing at all.

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