This year, with the awards going fully virtual (shout out to Swany Gloves @ON3P & @Windells for making these awards possible), we are taking the opportunity to shed some clarity on what each award means, and the judging process. @Twig and @curt_ had LJ Strenio, Alex Hackel & Xavier Mayrand are ultimately behind the decisions, with the rest of the NS team involved in the preselection too.

Best Short was another tough one, and we had to make some difficult decisions about how to balance filmmaking against raw skiing. Our five nominees covered the whole spectrum and each featured some bangers too. Con Artist was a revelation, super high quality production and a well done storyline reminiscent of SuperProof back in the day. Wind For Whistles had some heavy bangers and was beautifully shot. Forre 2 brought the same stellar production of the last project and some crazy skiing, especially from Joona Sipola and breakthrough skier nominee, Aapo Myllärinen. It was tough to remove any of these projects from the running but it came down to two.

Keegan Kilbride went crazy this past season. His part earned him a spot on the Monster roster and with good reason, it's probably the heaviest individual street offering for some time. With that Stept-esque editing it was hard to beat, all of the judges loved it. But then there were the upstarts, Suede. Joel Magnusson might be one of the most naturally gifted skiers of this generation, hopefully he finds his name up there with Mango and others soon because he's got insane skills. Benjamin Carlund was on a mission too with some absolutely ridiculous shots and the rest of the crew weren't slacking either. It's 6 minutes of absolute insanity and ultimately, we had to give that much quality street skiing the nod, even if the production perhaps wasn't the same level as the others here. We can't wait to see what the crew cooks up this coming season, because it's going to be hard to beat this one. Congratulations to the Suede boys, Best Short of the Year.

https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/1084837/BEST-SHORT-WINNER-16X9-v2-mp4