Terje Haakonsen boosting a McTwist on the first hit. Photo: Lee Crane

ESPN2 will air all the halfpipe action from the 1997 US Open Snowboarding Championships at Stratton Mountain Monday April 21 at 11 PM Pacific Standard Time (that's 2 AM on the East Coast, so set your VCRs).

Watch as Todd Richards, Terje Haakonsen, and Sebu Kuhlberg battle for the 1997 crown. See the unreal aerial antics of Daniel Franck, Jimi Scott, and Jamil Khan. Gasp as Barrett Christy, Michele Taggart, and Tricia Byrnes terrorize the u-jump. And laugh uncontrollably as Snowboarding Online editor Lee Crane and contributing writer Todd Harris call all the action from ringside. Laughing isn't required, but some people say it makes watching the show a lot more fun.

If you can't stay up that late and you don't have a VCR worry not. Both the halfpipe and alpine segments of the US Open (each is a whole 24 minutes long) will air again in November. Talk about making us all wait. Damn, those ESPN programmers. Don't they know we live for this stuff?