March 21, 2017

BC Park and Pipe team athletes have returned home following a successful and intense competition season. We targeted both the Canadian Open Tour and Nor-Am Cup circuits, attending a total of 6 slopestyle, 3 halfpipe and 1 big air events.

We started our season attending the Yukon COT in November and Silverstar COT in January to gain starts on the Nor-Am circuit. We then attended Nor-Am circuit events in Aspen, Calgary and Moonstone.

It was an exciting start to the season in Aspen with former team member now NextGen athlete Elena Gaskell taking the win in the slope style, congratulations goes out to her. Current BC athletes put down solid runs on the x-games course but struggled to get near the podium with a stacked field from USA, NZ, KOR and Canada.

Onto Calgary where Luke Smart put down consistent technical rail runs and placed 5th in a final of international athletes. Patrick Dew was chasing the win with a solid run but didn’t manage to land everything quite the way he wanted to on his final run. Glad he is ok! We then moved east onto the Moonstone event. We were met with a very challenging course and tough conditions, elevated rails and three large back to back jumps combined with wind created challenges for many. Patrick Dew, Luke Smart, Oscar Blyth and Dillan Glennie all put down solid runs and results at the event despite the heavy winds during qualifiers. Patrick Dew took the win on finals day doing a flawless run that included a switch left dub 900, right dub 1080 and an impressive Rodeo 900 Octo grab. Luke Smart placed 3rd spinning large 900’s both directions and keeping it clean and tech on the rails. Dillan put down a massive run with a 360, 540 and switch 180 narrowly missing the podium and placing 4th.

In addition to attending these events Patrick Dew earned a spot in the Quebec World Cup, he placed a very respectable 34th in slope style and 33rd in big air amongst the best in the world. He also attended the 7springs Nor-Am placing 3rd in slope style and landed himself 2nd in the overall Nor-Am Grand Prix.

It was great to see all the athletes on the team compete at the Nor-Am Cup level this season. It made for a great development year for the younger athletes experiencing their first international competitions. While team veterans excelled at these events and chased podium finishes on the big challenging courses.

Evan Wilcox
Head Coach, BC Park & Pipe Team