New media outlets are so great because they provide timely, relevant content. So it’s a little awkward for me to be writing a blog post about SIA more than a week after it happened.  But the beauty of BroBomb is that you don’t stop by to find out what trick Bobby Brown did two minutes ago; you stop by because we find some funny way to hate on Bobby for being sponsored by Under Armour.

Photo courtesy of Yobeat

This year SIA moved from its traditional home in Las Vegas to the more pedestrian locale of Denver, Colorado. Burton made a mis-directed effort to maintain the Vegas motif with a series of table games and slots. All lame because after winning in slots I had to give all my coins back to the woman standing attentively by the machine, without even a shitty Burton hat to show for my performance. Despite the lack of distractions, SIA was a pretty intense experience thanks to the six hundred meetings and after parties I attended on behalf of South America Snow Sessions. The founders of SASS spent years and years building the brand. I got to show up two months into working there, and attend meetings in which top-level ski and snowboard companies and media would shower praise and money on SASS. It was pretty overwhelming and really cool to be a part of, or more accurately- ride the coattails of. Not to mention that having a business card & a media pass let me fuck around with numerous unsuspecting industry personnel.  I just hope that chick from Bitch Boards doesn’t call me asking about the SASS/Bitch Boards signature session that I promised her.

While the vast portion of SIA was taken up with SASS-related business, I did find a little bit of time to bask in BroBomb’s growing celebrity and get led around by Mike Rogge to meet several industry big-wigs (read: BroBomb readers).  Eric Iberg, feeling rosy after a few frosty brain grenades from the Orage booth, proceeded to bow to us.  I don’t really know how to finish that comment in a way that would make it remotely believable, but Iberg was pretty stoked when I gave him a BroBomb sticker at the X Games. For what it’s worth, he was sober then.

While the ski industry has its share of incompetent bums making poor decisions, it was clear that most companies had locked their morons in the office back home and brought out only their sharpest minds to entice retailers to stock their skis, clothes, or helmet-camera charging stations in their shop.  A few companies, however, seemed just as determined as ever not to get any work done. Volcom had a row of bleachers facing the wrong way with all their reps on it watching some surf competition while shop owners and potential partners wandered by in the background.

Others went the opposite route, such as RMU, who had no booth but could be seen running around with a few pairs of skis, showing them off to as many people as possible.  There was also a clear division in the venue between the old ski nerds such as Swix & Fera Intl Corporation, whose aging reps were outfitted in clean khakis and loafers, and the obnoxious pile of freeski & snowboard brands. A solid highlight was Smokin’ Snowboards’ “girls bathroom”-themed booth, replete with a glory-hole raw hot-dog eating contest.  Lots of meetings and other things happened, but I missed Pamela Anderson’s visit, and I can’t remember any specifics from the rest of SIA.

Outside the Convention Center, we found the best and worst cabbies in Denver in a 24 hour period. The first one, charged with driving us to a place called Beta for the DJ Z-Trip show, failed to inform us that he had never heard of Beta, a critical misstep that led to a 20-minute cab tour around Denver’s forgotten streets that eventually ended at the club, which was four blocks from the loft we were staying at.  The second one saw that we were hungry and took us to a McDonald’s drive-thru with Ludacris blaring through the speakers.  Obliging his request not to dirty his cab with french fries, I had to wait until we got to the parking lot of Mile High Station to inhale my #6 before popping inside for the RZA concert, but that guy was still the man.

After a few Saturday morning meetings we spent a lot of time waiting for a rental car and then I drove Chris Benchetler and snowboarders Sean Ryan and Rhonda something to Winter X with a detour at the Powder Awards.  We had one of the new Outbacks, which suck!  They’re really heavy and drive like shit; the heads at Subaru should be slain for bastardizing one of action sport’s &  the lesbian community’s favorite vehicles.

After parking illegally behind a bank I used to work at, we crossed the street to the Hotel Jerome for the Power Awards.  The Powder Awards were fun, although when Ingrid Backstrom smiled at me I blew my second opportunity to hit on her.  The first one, at the MSP premier in New York City last year, proved a struggle to move her out of the venue, but nonetheless, she was really cool, and possibly down with it.  Guess I’ll have to wait till next year’s Powder Awards, or spend a couple thousands to go heli-skiing at the same place as her in April.  Whichever is easiest.

BroBomb is all about controversy, so I can’t leave out the latest Tanner Hall drama that I suspect most of you missed.  Uncle E announced a Shane McConkey lifetime achievement award to be given to someone embodying his spirit. From what I gather, Uncle E mentioned to Tanner, who was waiting in the wings, that he would never get this award. Tanner was later seen in the hallway chewing out Luke Van Valin.  Uncle E made an obvious faux pas in suggesting that Tanner Hall didn’t deserve this, because he certainly does now and undoubtedly will by the end of his career, and triply so if “Like A Lion” ends up as a serious study of Tanner’s many strengths and weaknesses and not the bro-fest that Jon warned us about.  At any rate, I really don’t know enough of the details of the Powder Awards mishap, so if any of our industry readers who were there would care to fill in the blanks, please do.

The next night was ski halfpipe, which I was very excited to see because my little cousin, Tucker Perkins aka Tucoperk, was skiing in it and was not injured this time.  He had a sick run that the judges rewarded with an unbelievably unremarkable score.  ESPN made themselves further irrelevant by leaving him out of the halfpipe high air contest even though he had the highest air of the night in the superpipe comp.  Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the ball dropping.

More half-assed writing to come as I cover my quick jaunt up to Telluride for the Freeski World Tour and the infamous “Garrett Russell experience” at the Alta Lakes Observatory.  In the meantime, enjoy this somewhat entertaining videoblog I made for SASS from SIA with the dumb flip video my mom bought me for my birthday.