Dew Tour 2023 - Men's Skiing Super Streetstyle

In a world where fire and water battle, could there be one avatar to unite the two kingdoms and create harmony throughout the land? Alright, maybe we just plagiarized from the Avatar (not the James Cameron movie), but in what feels like a world where comp and street skiers are pitted against each other in the world of social media, podcasts, and commentary, the Dew Tour Men's Skiing Super Streetstyle Competition was a breath of fresh air. To see some of the top street skiers like Tucker FitzSimons, Keegan Kilbride, Sam Zahner, Cal Carson, and others battle it out versus the likes of Edouard Therriault (Edjoy), Alex Hall, and Colby Stevenson was like a wet dream for all the 40 year old freeski fanatics. For the rest of us, it was just super dope seeing the best in the world descend onto Copper and perform their craft.

Streetstyle had an interesting format, and one that dramatically improved the understanding of what the hell was actually going on without needing to know the nuances of a front vs. back swap, identifying a 450 vs a 630 out, or knowing what a K-Fed is. Skiers were pitted against each other in three heats, with the top two from each heat then facing each other in the next round, and finally a heat of three to decide who would take home 1st. Papa John’s was also making a comeback with the best trick/flip award. 

When Alex Hall was asked about the famous quote of  “two runs, best run counts, pressure is always on, what was the best and worst part about this format,” he responded “it was cool to switch it up knowing the format…and the second round is definitely a pressure cooker because to land both runs, which is like super rare to land, and make them different was super tough”.

The first heat (the group of death) started off after a banger performance from Mix Master Mike: the crowd was loose and so were Keegan Kilbride, Sam Zahner, Alex Hall, and Daniel Bacher. Some of the highlights were Sam Zahner’s 360 surface swap on the electric box to the corrugated tube on his third hit along with A Hall’s transfer similar to what he did in Laax on the 2nd hit. Alex and Sam ended up advancing from this stacked heat to the semi-finals.
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The second heat consisted of some of the best street skiers (old and young) in the game right now with Andrew Egan, Tucker FitzSimons, Mat Duf, and Pete Koukov. Andrew Egan in practice was the only person going up on top of Red’s Barn and then transferring on to the down rail. Appears though that the heels and feet took a beating from the 10 foot drop and that it simply wasn’t meant to happen. That didn’t stop Andrew from lacing up a crazy backslide 270 out on the flat-down rail at the bottom section to advance. Tucker FitzSimons, taking from TWall while filming for Good Company, whipped out a pretz 450 out on the top section and then did a huge 450 on disaster on the flat-down to end his run. Pete Koukov was the king of the wallride, but that wasn’t enough as Tucker and Mat ended up advancing.

Finally, the third heat featured Cal Carson, Colby Stevenson, Edjoy, and Calvin Barrett. Cal Carson was a dark horse to win, as in practice he was skiing with so much confidence. He even sprayed and scared the media every run by hockey stopping with one ski with inches before he would hit the end barrier. Cal threw a 630 out on one of the first two features, but that wasn’t enough to stop the technicality of Colby and Edjoy, who ended up advancing.

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In the semi-finals, the with the biggest bag of tricks ended up advancing but shout out to Edjoy who did a Rod 450 off the wallride. We can’t even do a backflip off a trampoline so to be able to generate enough speed to do that was wild. The bird and the break dancing was a sight to see too. 

In the finals, Colby Stevenson hit the waterfall rail feature (similar to the one at Woodward PC) that no one else was hitting to take home first place. He did a pretz 450 out of that too and had no regard for safety after he did a 450 on to the safety barrier. Tucker ended up second and A Hall couldn’t lace up the run he wanted to land to place in third. 

Tucker FitzSimons’ strategy throughout the competition was to “add little variations within my run to like step it up and make a little higher”. It was an awesome strategy and super great to see Tucker take home second place after being one of the top street skiers in the game right now.

Finally, when Colby Stevenson was asked about the waterfall rail and his run, something that we hadn’t seen all night, he responded that he took a little bit of inspiration from X Games, but also about the waterfall rail, “it's kind of jarring, just kind of like jars your brain, but I knew that if I could do it like a good trick on it would be like score high for that”. 

Colby has been on fire lately, winning X Games, Kings and Queens of Corbet’s, and now Dew Tour Street Superstyle, so it’s great to see him expanding his skiing outside the competition realm and really showing his all around talent and that he is one of the best in the game right now. Thanks to Tucker, Colby, and Alex for the interviews!

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