baitcompared to today when tons of the clips are released early or "leaked" and we are desensitized to insane skiing because we see 13-year-olds triple all day in our Instagram feeds.
When people talk about how the site used to be great, this is what it looked like. (look around 2007-2013) lucky to have caught the tail end of the good old days.
I feel super fortunate to have joined the movement early. The 3 phils build our first snow park in the province. From 1998 to 2003, the culture switched from moguls/aerials to park/big air. Copied tapes were the only way to keep up with the innovations; it was a lot like when skateboarding blew up in the 80's. It was such an underground thing, a lot of us would ditch training to go hit jumps. If you got caught, you were kicked off the team.
The scale of people practicing the aspect was a fraction it is today; skiing was still for pole jerkers. It was so dissorganized that innovation happened randomly and it never felt like the sport was being "held back". The times did feel more geniune; they did it because they loved it, even if the equipment sucked.
Im trying not to be too nostagic about this. I do remember having to fight teachers for attending contests, coaching was still behind the times and we were just trying stuff without really knowing what we were doing. People got hurt all the time and park skiers had the worst reputation. Oh yeah, punk rock was the prevaling music of the time; if you didnt like it, tough.
