Champagne [read pikey Prosecco] for breakfast, the bird in the oven, kids crashing about fired up on sugar, and relatives smelling of public toilets about to descend… It’s December 25th. Happy Christmas! An all-day bender is no excuse to slack off from This Year in Snowboarding, though,  so without further ado here’s…

JUNE

The Homies crew drop their cut of the funtimes that were had at Superpark, while over in The People’s Republic of Teaserstan there’s several more hitting the pipes on the first few days of the month, with The Saturday Night Ride, KBR’s Homework, and Isenseven’s Don’t Panic being the pick of the bunch. We even stumble upon a neat interview with Brain Farm duo Travis Rice and Curt Morgan where they rap on filming, tech stuff and their new project, Flight, so everything seems to be ticking along nicely in a ‘Oh, it’s June so let’s wrack our brains for something fresh that doesn’t involve glaciers as they ain’t opened yet’ kinda manner. Then we get a mail from Torstein Horgmo, titled simply ‘The Triple Cork’ and prepare ourselves for some funny-assed spoof. Oh no, he’s serious. WTF?!

Seriously, where do you go from there? Luckily the Helgasons have the answer and quickly pull together a triple cork spoofer while we sit down with Isenseven head honcho Alex Schiller to get the 411 on what we could expect from Don’t Panic, and if he was a big Douglas Adams fan. The improbably-named Moose With Hat teaser has us pumped and Nitro’s slams teaser for their team movie has us scared. Happily the glaciers are opening their parks so we can bring it with real, current riding rather than a teaser avvie and chit-chatting till we’re blue in the face, and Peter König and co’s one from Hintertux touches our special place. Mmmm, summer. Let the good times roll…

Keegan Valaika uses the down days of summer to go all bidnezz and launches Gnarly Clothes, things kick off in the Southern Hemi and Diaries Downunder decide to document the season, we get our first look at the Forum/Foursquare/Special Blend team flick with the F’ It teaser and begin in our quest to bring you the finest spots to ride in summer with our series of Summer Shred Guides. It’s game on on the US glaciers too as the first edit from Windells shows, another Diaries Downunder pops up to let us know how things are progressing in Kiwiland, and the Pirates release a Day in the Life with Teo Konttinen, which you can watch here as not only is he good at snowboarding, he’s a cool kid. Who said nice guys finish last?

Mid-June is when Seb Toutant won the first of what we’re claiming will be many TTR titles this season, as he double cork 12s his ass to win the Billabong Ante Up on home soil, while the Euro/Canuk alliance that is YES Snowboards wins their first award and release an amusing acceptance speech. The latest glacier shredit to come in is from Les Deux Alpes, and it’s action stations in Teaserland as the avalanche continues – Bon Voyage is good ‘n’ grimy, FODT is good ‘n’ gangsta, and 9191 is good ‘n’ about Gigi. The first session of HCSC edit makes us wanna bail to the US until we see what’s going on down the road in the Zillerwalley, when Steve Gruber and Mone Monsberger have us über-jealous as they nab themselves the elusive summer freshies up in Hintertux.

Right, that’s your lot. There’s several bottles of booze with our name on demanding serious attention, so once more Merry Christmas and we’ll be back from our 2-day bender tomorrow to recap July…