Jesse Talks About His "Thuggie" In Caley's Awesome Mountain Dew Event Diary
March 6th 2012
Mountain Dew® brought the mountain to the city this weekend for a huge rail jam comp, and #DoAwesome’s Caley was there to take it all in. We dare you to TRY and keep up with this girl!
FRIDAY, MARCH 2ND
11:25AM I am discombobulated in a big hotel room by myself. I am in Toronto.
11:45AM My boarder gear is on. According to Google maps, Yonge-Dundas Square is about a 12 minute walk from my hotel room, so I set out with my boots on my back and my snowboard in hand. Everyone in the hotel lobby thinks I’m a weirdo.
12:00PM Meeting time at the mall across the street from the event. Evan looks like a comedian today.
1:00PM Media Passes and Dews are being tossed around as everyone hustles to get organized for a big day. Friend overload - announcing the event is MTV News’ Tom Dolezel and Matt Houghton. Andrew Singleton of event producer EventSing is running around with a headset connected to his main girl Nat Lodge. And Whistler homie Johnny Lyall is the guest Pro Snowboarder for the event. Sweet.
1:01PM MUCH VJ Jesse Giddings rolls up, with a huge tea in hand. We shake hands and he forgets who I am- little does he know we’ve met on SEVERAL occasions. I’m talking Liz Trinear’s birthday dinner, party times in Whistler throughout the Olympics, and through his better looking brother that lives in Vancouver.
Evan and I strap our boards on and get a chance to hit this urban mountain for ourselves...
3:00PM Time to shoot our first TV “hit” for MuchMusic. This is the moment when I discover that Jesse rocks a thuggie – I’ve never seen one of these in real life (only on google under “Daryl Pajamas” and “Overweight Moo Moo Rugs”). I proceed to make fun of him.
4:00PM Practice and Public Snowboarding – Burton snowboards and Women’s Snowboard Federation were on location getting everybody set up to hit the slopes.
Everyone from bankers on their lunch break to foreign exchange students took advantage of a mountain in the center of the city.
6:00PM Qualifiers – 40 riders head-to-head, call your trick and land it or you’re not making it to Finals.
8:00PM It’s time for the part of the night that everyone’s been stoked for- Finals! You could feel it getting more intense out there; people were dropping faster and trying harder tricks. Money hungry and hyped up on Mountain Dew, it was time to get at it. Alex Beebe was super consistent all night, although contest king Craig Beaulieu came through FTW. As for the girls, it was all Genny Ross with a hard way 180. Damn girl.
11:00PM “After party after after partyyyy”. After hours of riding and partying outside, we take it inside to the club. EventSing’s endless Mountain Dew bottle service at Brant House. Genny Ross was celebrating hard, I was right there with her.
SATURDAY, MARCH 2ND
4:00AM Cabs don’t take credit cards in Toronto? Are you kidding me?
5:49AM I return to my hotel. There are people checking out and they’re frowning at me. I assume they’re skiers. Or bankers.
11:45AM Cabs STILL don’t take credit cards in Toronto? Are you kidding me!?!?!
12:00PM It’s time to get back to work! Evan and I spend some time filming for the web video that you’ll be able to watch on the site soon. We took a casual walk through Chinatown and traveled by streetcar to the event. We got some seriously funny looks for having a snowboard in the city. Little do they know that we’re on our way to a ‘mountain’ in the middle of downtown at Yonge-Dundas Square!
2:00PM Boardin’ - Evan and I hit the rail setup. He got a bit caught up...
3:00PM Now we’re watching Saturday’s Best Trick contest. Did the snowboarding just get better from last night? Yup. The boys brought some creativity today with transfers from the down rails to the Jersey barrier.
5:00PM Saturday Burrito Break. Chicken or Steak!? Decisions, decisions
7:30PM Day Two of the Rail Jam kicks off. The weather is much nicer and the boarding is even better. They must be warmed up from yesterday’s event = REBATE NIGHT.
9:00PM The Podium is much different tonight, as the underdogs of last night get their chance at some cash. Mark Goodall’s 50-50 Jersey barrier gap to front board on the down rail was impressive. Austin Karker was my favourite of the skiers. I don’t know ski tricks but he looked the best doing the skiing. My judgment must be on point because he ended up winning.
10:00PM Saturday night pub food – Johnny Lyall says when in doubt go with chicken fingers. I trust him.
1:00AM It’s Sunday now, and as I walk by Yonge-Dundas Square, I see that the EventSing crew is quickly tearing down TONS of steel and fake mountain. Back to real life!
4:00PM Johnny Lyall and I realize that we’re on the same flight back to Vancouver. We celebrate with Caesars.
6:00PM Sunday flight back to the real mountains, made of nature.
Overall, the weekend was awesome. Lots of snowboarding, good friends and great times. Mountain Dew needs to “Dew” this more often! So happy the weather held out and everyone got a chance to snowboard downtown Toronto.
Very 2012 of me I brought a film camera to the event and took some super sexy portraits of people I ran into at the event... You get to see that once the film is developed, so keep following the blog for more photos of what went down this weekend!
XO CV
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
WERE YOU AT THE EVENT OVER THE WEEKEND? DID YOU WISH YOU WERE AT THE EVENT THIS WEEKEND?
Oh, and don’t forget to enter the contest for a Mountain Dew® Blogger kit – a backpack filled with a DSLR camera, Galaxy Nexus, and Mountain Dew® to fuel your party. Then maybe Jake and Max will be friends with you.