Freestyle FUNdamentalz aims to launch next generation

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This article was published 17/01/2025 (244 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The snowmaker hummed all morning, tossing a plume of frozen white crystals while snow fell from the sky, blanketing the banks of the Pembina Valley.

The groomer ran back and forth on the terrain park, working quickly to put finishing touches on the features and jumps that adventure seekers anxiously await to try their next trick on.

It was a typical Saturday morning at Holiday Mountain. Snowmaking efforts combined with the previous night’s snowfall brought crowds out in droves.

Lines were long in the rental shop, for the concessions and the lifts.

Once you get to the top, you’re rewarded with a view of the Pembina Valley and town of La Riviere below.

While it might not be thousands of feet of elevation like the mountains out west, it didn’t bother those ready to ride for the day.

Especially the freestylers.

Coach Logan Unger led participants ranging from age eight to 12 on a few warm-up runs before progressing to beginner features like small rails, boxes and jumps.

It wasn’t long before they were launching themselves, continually pushing through to the next obstacle and flying higher with each attempt.

“This is awesome. I should have brought my GoPro,” said 10-year-old Mathieu Gaudet, one of the participants that registered for the first session of the Freestyle FUNdamentalz program.

The program is the first of its kind in Manitoba, as Sport Manitoba, Freestyle Manitoba and Snowboard Manitoba have all partnered to invest in the terrain parks at Holiday Mountain and Asessippi.

If participant satisfaction is any indication, the future of freestyle skiing, while maybe not in huge numbers at the moment, has a bright future in our province.

That’s the hope of Dave Parnell, president of Freestyle Manitoba.

“The goal is to have safe equipment that will really foster the development of these athletes,” said Parnell.

“You can have the high performance athletes but without that grassroots, which for us is FUNdamentalz and for snowboarding is is called Groms, if we don’t have these kids getting stoked on skiing or boarding at a young age we don’t have that development and those kids can’t eventually turn into high-performance athletes,” said Parnell.

A longtime skier and gymnast who is now past the point of competing but still launches himself off jumps and perfectly executes back flips at the age of 47, Parnell wants to see more opportunity for youth to receive high-level coaching and continue progressing through the sport.

The provincial sport organizations (PSOs) are working with local hills with the goal of making terrain parks closer to mountain style, despite our geography and terrain.

The aim is to make terrain park features like rails, boxes, and jumps safer for riders with the installation of new equipment, but also by training local operators on how to keep them tip-top all season long.

A $10,000 grant from Sport Manitoba combined with investments from both Freestyle Manitoba and Snowboard Manitoba helped with the improvements.

The groups partnered to bring in Arena Snowparks, a company based out of British Columbia that specializes in designing, building, and instructing local operators on how to maintain terrain parks with the user experience top of mind.

“Some of the people we have working on these parks are the best in the world at it. We’re fortunate that they’re helping not only set these up, but they’re also transferring their knowledge to local operators so that after two or three years the hope is that they will get to that point, but be operators that live and work in this area rather than out west,” Parnell said.

While Parnell is the president of Freestyle Manitoba, the PSO that oversees operations in the sport in our province, he also runs his own freestyle ski club out of Winnipeg that trains at Springhill Winter Park on the outskirts of Winnipeg.

“We’re a PSO that has a minimal base. We’re not like the PSOs … that have tons of money and resources. I run my own freestyle club as well, so it’s a matter of doing as much as we can to teach and educate these kids how to not only execute the tricks and manoeuvres but safely.”

GROWING THE SPORT

Parnell relishes the opportunity to push kids past their comfort zones, finding courage in launching themselves higher and executing more tricks with more training.

If they do, he’ll often reward them by executing a backflip of his own.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree either, as Parnell’s son Rowan, 20, was the team captain of Freestyle Manitoba at the Canada Winter Games.

The younger Parnell competed at junior nationals in Whistler at the age of 13 and finished fourth in the Big Air Canadian Open Tour in Horseshoe, Ont. in 2022.

He also nearly reached the podium at a slopestyle event in Prince Edward Island in 2023, but finished fifth after not having a perfect final run in the event.

To many, a kid from Manitoba reaching that high of a finish is great, but to the Parnells it wasn’t ideal.

Rowan is now coaching in Freestyle skiing, as both Parnell’s hope to continue improving and advancing the sport in Manitoba with the goal of one day reaching the podium of a national event.

And perhaps beyond.

“I’m hoping that these hills will see a lot of value in what we’re doing. Best case scenario, would be to train for Canada Winter Games which in two years from now are in Quebec, it’s a huge tool and a huge help for our athletes and parents to be able to train here in province rather than have to travel to do so,” said Parnell.

“It’s imparting knowledge that these hills are hopefully going to take. These park builders are world class, so we’re just hoping to transfer knowledge and see the value in bringing safe parks, not only for freestylers and snowboarders, the high-performance athletes, but also for the public and the young ones just starting out.”

The goal is to sink the hooks of the sport in youth while they’re young and have both PSOs partner with local coaches to continue climbing the national ranks.

“I’d like to see us be able to collaborate together even more,” said Catherine Jordan, Snow School director at Holiday Mountain.

“Even though there is some distance between us, if we can collaborate together we’ll be stronger together for all in Manitoba if we work together.

“We want to just keep growing those partnerships and continue growing both participant and coaching opportunities so that as kids age out they still have a way to stay involved with the sport. The potential to continue growing that base of participants and coaches would be great for us because it would be great to one day have teams from Manitoba go out west and represent our province and our hills and clubs in competitions against others. That’s the long-term goal,” Jordan added.

Jordan operates her own Freestyle Club out of Holiday Mountain called the HMR Rail Riders, and has two sons that are frequently on the hill practising their own skills as well, the oldest of the two working on coaching certification in snowboarding.

Seeing the results of instruction and coaching produce tangible results is the most rewarding part for Jordan.

“When I see the joy on their face and see them doing their training and starting to acquire new skills and working on it, and when they’re done the official training you see them practice those skills on the hill on their own time,” said Jordan.

“They’ll show their parents and I get excited too. It’s important that we keep that fire burning and feed the flame so that they feed that passion. If you feed that passion their growth and excitement is contagious. You’ll often see after a training session that they’re still out there working on it and that is amazing to see.”

Parnell acknowledges that it’s been a challenge the past few years to stay as competitive as those in other provinces that historically have been able to train much more than those competing in Manitoba.

This is where the investment in parks comes in.

The PSOs combined with the local hills to bring in world class park designers.

Arena Snowparks spent three days at Asessippi last week and three days at Holiday Mountain, assisting in the building and working with local equipment operators on how to properly maintain terrain parks.

The PSOs also have contributed by purchasing features for the parks, but it’s the collaborative efforts of all involved that will lead to participation and results.

“You need local champions. It doesn’t have to be medalling at Canada Games, it’s participating, putting in the time and work, being a good role model is paramount. When you get to know these kids and see that at 10-years-old, eight-years-old, and all of a sudden they’re going to competitions… that’s the cool thing,” said Parnell.

“My dad was a beauty of a guy. He always said find something you love and give back to your community. That’s what I’m trying. Hopefully there are people that see this stuff and get interested and keep building the sport.”

The investment meant Ben Suurallik of Arena Snowparks working with local operators, imparting his wisdom and experience after a lifetime of riding terrain parks and now is his professional career with Arena.

Suurallik spent last Saturday morning fine tuning the Champagne Bowl terrain park features at Holiday Mountain, riding the groomer back and forth with a local operator, demonstrating how to be best build the features before park opened for the day.

See Saturday’s Brandon Sun for Part 3 in this series and learn how the B.C.-based company works to design and maintain parks while teaching local operators for the future.

» mpackwood@brandonsun.com