Wednesday, December 20

Freeskiing Revitalized

By Micah Abrams

We call it jibbing. Mogul skiers prefer to call it New Freestyle. Glen Plake thinks we're all full of sh*t and that it is simply hot-dogging. However you refer to the skiing that is taking place in terrain parks and on backcountry hits around the globe, there is no question that J.P. Auclair is one of the very elite of the movement. In two short years, Auclair has helped to revitalize an entire sport by pushing the envelope in directions few even considered just three seasons ago. His English has gotten pretty good, too.

FREEZE: What was your home mountain like, growing up? J.P.: It was Le Relais, a very small mountain about 15 minutes from downtown Quebec. Actually, I started skiing at a place in downtown Sainte-Foy. It's a hill downtown in the city. It's called Miran. There's a road that goes up a hill and right beside it there's a place you can ski at with two T-bars. It's 40 meters long and takes about 10 seconds to go down. I started there when I was five. I spent a season there and then I went to Le Relais. I skied there until I was 11. From 12 to 16 I was a racer.

Why did you quit racing? I was always getting in trouble because I was missing training to ski bumps or hit jumps. My friend told me that when you do freestyle, you're allowed to jump and I was like, "No Way! I'm going to do that for sure!" But I liked racing, and I'm glad I did it because that's why I have such an incredibly strong ski background.

Was there a concentrated effort between you J.F., Vincent, Mike, and Shane, to create a new type of skiing, or were you just playing around in the Terrain Park? We never tried to create anything. That's why I think it works pretty good. It's a natural new sport that looks natural. We never tried to create it. We started playing around back on the Quebec team. That's when the first grabs started going. It just happened really slowly. Then, one summer, Mike kind of woke up and said, "Whoa, lets get organized."

What did you think about the first U.S. Freeskiing Open? Here's the story about the Open. I'm just finishing the Blackcomb World Cup, and Shane came to me and said, "Hey, Ken Auchenbach, from The Camp of Champions came to me and wants us to coach at his camp next summer." I said, cool, we're going to coach people how to jump and grab and stuff. And Shane's like, "No man, not cool at all. I've got a way better idea. I'm going to start my own camp." I'm like, hey, that would be pretty cool. He was like, "All right. Now we have to go to the US. Open and win so that people will want to get coached by us." J.F. won the slopestyle and I won the big air.

Who's your biggest influence? Plake, for sure. The Mack Dawg crew. Michael Michalchuk influenced me tons. He gives me balls. That guy doesn't give a damn. But put Plake first, in big letters. P-L-A-K-E.

Where's the sport going? The lines in Alaska, I love watching that stuff. That's why I want to get into it so bad. I love watching skiers and snowboarders ripping down Alaska. That's the scariest stuff I've been doing, scarier than the jumps for sure. The jumps you have perfect control of. When I jump, I have control of all the elements, almost. There's not much to be thinking about besides your tricks and the way you're actually skiing. But when you ski on the big mountain, its such a headache. It's crazy. The smallest mistake can screw you up so bad. When I was watching ski movies, I was always like, "Oh, shut up." It's such a cheesy line, "Dude, you make one wrong turn and you die!" But it's so true; there's so much to think about.

Where did you learn to speak English? Seinfeld.