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Entry Two: Corporate America Meets
Snowboarding |
Entry One: Winter X - A Slave To The Games (1-27-96) Back To The Winter X Games Index |
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In the center of the compound is a large white tent where catered meals are served to all the workers, including me. Bart Conner said the tent looked like the ones they use at the Academy Awards. Not that Bart would know first hand. Though he starred in the BMX movie "Rad," he wasn't nominated for an Oscar for his performance. Sometimes the Academy just has it's head way up it's butt. Up on the hill workers have erected a monstrous labyrinth of scaffolding, banners, and nylon webbing for spectators, cameras, and influential people from Disney (rumor is that Michael Eisner could be on the prowl sometime this weekend.) Behind the scaffolding workers have erected an icy Tower of Babel where climbers will axe their way to the top for fabulous cash and prizes. Directly in front of that other ESPN drones put the finishing touches on the vert ramp, while snow cats groomed the lanes for the Super Modified Shovel racers. This is not the snowboarding as we know it. In fact, it's not snowboarding as anyone has ever seen it. It's a genetically altered, steroid-boosted, advertising driven, hyperspace version of a snowboarding event. It's corporate American's fantasy of snowboarding and a lot of people will be scared. It scares me. The Winter X Games are everything snowboarding is not supposed to be. It is organized, smooth running, large, and packaged live and direct for mainstream comsumption. But having lived through one day of it, it's not that bad, really. For instance, when I arrived at the hotel last night a bag was waiting for me in my room. It contained a light jacket, a heavy jacket, and three long-sleeve shirts all emblazoned with the X Games logo. I'm still too worried to wear it. On the table next to the goodies was a 144 page "ESPN 1997 Production and Operations Manual" for the Winter X Games. In it are lists of the hundreds of people who are working the games along with their titles and phone numbers as well as programming scheduling, edit schedules, instructions on how video tape is to be prepared to air, and just how much you should tip the local cab driver. You know, stuff you need to know. This morning we had a meeting at 10:30 AM with our producer Conrad Piccarillo. At the meeting I was handed a three-ring binder packed with everything I would need for the week. It included bios on all the competitors, along with interesting facts and trivia. For instance, the tallest and heaviest snowboarder in the Winter X Games is Rocket Reeves. He's 6'4" and weighs 195 pounds. Rocket isn't the heaviest competition however. There is a super modified shovel racer named Kermit Brown who weighs 260. He'll probably go real fast. The binder also included a lot of information on snowboarding that was lifted (without permission or attribution) from SOL including a dictionary of terms and the Snowboard Historical Time Line. They really have thought of everything. The rest of the day was a blur of meeting people, shaking hands and trying to look like I knew what was going on. I just smiled and nodded a lot and people seemed okay with that. Now I just have to get through the practice session tomorrow. Tomorrow we spend two hours practicing with everything rolling. Don Bostick, the event organizer for the big air, has talked some riders into jumping for us so we can practice calling the action as well as dealing with the replays and something they call a telestrator. Apparently, it's the thing John Madden uses to draw on the TV screen during Fox football games. If it doesn't show up on the actual X Games Big Air coverage it will be because I couldn't figure out how to use it. See ya tomorrow. Lee
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