New York, NY || The 2nd annual Union Square Street Sessions rail jam hit the streets of New York once again. There was a heavy set of riders, a heavy set of jibs, a heavy set of cash to be won and a heavy crowd watching the action.
Union Square Street Sessions Rail Jam photos: Andrew Miller
video: Mark Dangler
New York, NY || The 2nd annual Union Square Street Sessions rail jam hit the streets of New York once again on February 7th. There was a heavy set of riders, a heavy set of jibs, a heavy set of cash to be won and a heavy crowd watching the action.
Who was riding: Lucas Magoon, Jed Anderson, Yale Cousino, Chris Rotax, Mike Casanova, Brandon Reese, Aaron Bittner, Jeremy Cloutier, Jason Dubois, Tom Weis, Zak Hale, Doobie, Ian Keay and a ton of new East coast faces.
The Dingo rocked the mic and got the crowd super hyped on the entire show. Something about his voice always brings an added energy to any event. I think it’s an Aussie thing.
This contest held in the center of Union Square in Manhattan is one of the best rail jams of the year. There were awesome snowboarding, tons of people flowing between subway station to subway station and live music from artist and pro snowboarder “Trouble”. The crowd was huge, people watching from the streets, climbing on trees, on planters, on cars, in windows throughout Union Square. Everyone was shocked that there was snow in Union Square.
What were the riders riding on?
The set up for the contest was very sick. On the left there was a wall ride with a double barrel rail on top that dropped out 10 feet at the end, and Lucas Magoon ollied from one end to over top to flat. After that was a 5 foot high barrel on a three foot quarter pipe. In the middle there was an 18-stair handrail. On the right was a three-foot gap to drop in run into a flat down rail over a brand new Jeep. The Jeep began to take a beating right away by the riders. Aaron Bittner even did a 50-50 across the roof, windshield, hood and front bumper. What a great obstacle.
What were the riders doing?
Yale Cousino was throwing down early in the event but was removed from the competition due to a minor knee injury. Brandon Reese did not advance to the final rounds but rode solid throughout the day. Ian Keay was another stand out that did not advance through. All of these riders had potential to win but only few could move on.
The chosen few for the finals were Jed Anderson, Lucas Magoon, Chris Rotax, Mike Casanova and a bunch of new faces. The biggest stand out for me was Jed Anderson. He was doing tricks I can name, tricks I can’t name and tricks you would lose your mind if you would see him do. To sum it up, Jed Anderson’s performance was “Mind Boggling”. Jed unfortunately placed 8th of 8 based off the judge’s decision, but I made sure to watch from the judge’s booth and wanted to make my own personal judgment. Although I should not publish my results against the official results when I asked Jed Anderson what he would say if I told him he should have won, he modestly said, “It’s a difference of perspective”. He should have at least been in the top three if you ask the eyes of a snowboarder.
Lets move on to the guys who did win, respectively. Mike Casanova, first place, was always smiling and looked like he was enjoying himself throwing crazy switch ups and hard way 270s on the middle rail. Casanova did a back tail to 270 to 50-50, as clean as can be. He tore this contest back. Second place finisher all the way from Quebec City was Jason Dubois. Jason is a super nice kid and deserved his spot because he killed it. Jason landed some solid spin on revert off tricks and definitely stood strong amongst the others. Chris Rotax was spinning for the win, 270 on 270 off. Rotax was definitely stoked on the results.
To say the least, the second annual New York City Union Square Street Sessions event was very good for the urban rail scene. I think that a lot of New Yorkers are going to head out and get themselves a snowboard and head over to Mountain Creek this weekend. It’s all about the proper inspiration.
Judges End Results:
1st Place: Mike Casanova $9,000
2nd Place: Jason Dubois $7,500
3rd Place: Chris Rotax $3,500
The event sponsors include: Jeep, Burton, Oakley, Red Bull, Mountain Creek Resort and Sunday River Resort. For more information, go to www.StreetSessionsNYC.com.
CLICK BELOW TO WATCH UNION SQUARE STREET SESSION VIDEO:
- Union Square in Manhattan
- The mountain creek park staff crew priming the set up for finals
- Gooner was killing the wall ride all night
- Jed Anderson was tearing this down bar a new one with tons of insane combos... seriously killing it and some how ended up 8th (last place in the finals) The judges must have been bilnking for the insane amount of trick this kid was throwing down..
- Aaron Bittner made it over from Utah. Here solid front board all the way across the Jeep rail.
- Second place winner Jason Dubois 360 off the wall ride.
- 3rd place finisher Chris Rotax 270
- Yale Cousino made it to finals but hurt his knee and opted out for the night.
- More Jed destroying all these features....
- Snowrev was there hold it down
- More Bittner Jeep action
- Alot of people were trippin on what was going down. Not everyday do you see snowboarding in downtown New York City.
- The little gap speed jump for the jeep rail
- Casanova
- This wall ride feature was a lot bigger than it looks. Huge 5050 back three to flat by Jason Dubois
- This place was an all out frenzy of people, media and cars. The arena fill up fast and the over flow of crowds were lining the sidewalks, standing on the planters, trees and watching from the windows of Barnes and Noble across the street.
- DC's Aaron Bittner rode super solid all night and ended up 6th or 7th.. Another questionable judge decision. Here nose slide pretzel the wall ride.
- Nova combo on the Jeep rail
- Trevor Andrew aka TROUBLE made in fresh from preforming at Travis Rice's contest the Natural Selection in Jackson Hole three days prior.
- Gooner finishing off the wall ride with a backtail 450 off. Lucas for sure killed also and didn't even break top five which was very surprising.
- Lucas in action
- Mike Casanovas signature combos and solid riding pushed him above the pack taking home the top spot for the night.
- Chris Rotax 3rd place: $3,500
2nd place: 7,500
- Mike Casanova 1st place: $9,000
UNION SQUARE STREET SESSIONS VIDEO
Friday, February 08th 2008 @ 10:16 AM.
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