Steamboat breeds Olympians. Aspen rears Xers.
The high-flying Winter X Games circus roars into Aspen this weekend for its fifth stand in Glitter Gulch and the locals will be well-represented. The event features 230 athletes in 13 events. Twenty-one of those hard-charging snow champions hail from Colorado. Ten call the Roaring Fork Valley home.
Aspen’s ancestry is rife with rippers. Maybe it’s the water in the Roaring Fork River or the four-mountain mojo, but local athletes around Aspen have an “A” game that dominates the X Games.
Veterans like skiercross tough-guy Casey Puckett and jib soldier Steele Spence – both Snowmassers – bring lots of battle scars and weathered virtuosity to the starting gates. Newcomers like Aspen’s Farrah Keanaaina and Russ Trulove are eager to shine in their debut under the bright lights on the snowboarder X course.
So root, root, root for the home team this weekend at the sauciest spectacle on snow, but don’t go thinking X is all about jibbing and weird slang. That’s only half of it. Bob Marley’s youngest scion Damian Jr. Gong Marley and the Latin-spiced Flipsyde will shake up every preconceived notion of Aspen with a free downtown concert Saturday night. So grab a Red Bull and flop into Aspen with your furriest boots for a hip-hopping, high-flying hullabaloo that reveals the new school as really just the oldest school in baggier clothes. The mountain stoke that fuels the X Games is the same vibe that propelled the state’s first skiers to create a snowy spirit of play 60 years ago that now defines the state’s most vibrant mountain towns.
– Jason Blevins
Colorado’s X Gamers
Eric Archer, Vail, Skier X
Clair Bidez, Minturn, Snowboard Superpipe
Gretchen Bleiler, Snowmass Village, Snowboard Superpipe
Brett Buckles, Steamboat Springs, Skier X
Suzan Dole, Meeker, Skier X
Justin Glick, Steamboat Springs, Skier X
Asia Jenkins, Aspen, Skier X
Jordan Karlinski, Snowmass Village, Snowboarder X
Farrah Keanaaina, Aspen, Snowboarder X
Ryan McCullough, Aspen, Skier X
Marc Frank Montoya, Denver, Snowboard Slopestyle
Christian Mosiman, Snowmass Village, Snowboarder X
Peter Olenick, Carbondale, Skiing Slopestyle, Superpipe
Chad Otterstrom, Breckenridge, Snowboard Slopestyle, Superpipe
Casey Puckett, Aspen, Skier X
Todd Richards, Breckenridge, Snowboard Slopestyle
Tyler Shepherd, Boulder, Skier X
Jason Smith, Basalt, Snowboarder X
Steele Spence, Snowmass Village, Skier Slopestyle
JJ Thomas, Golden, Snowboard Superpipe
Ross Trulove, Carbondale, Snowboarder X
WEAK IN REVIEW
Former University of Colorado wide receiver Jeremy Bloom, who will compete for the U.S. in freestyle skiing at the Turin Olympics, told NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday his mom gets upset when people refer to him as a male model. Like Jeremy’s mom, we’re wondering if there’s more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good-looking, such as break-dance fighting and rappelling down Mount Vesuvius. And watching the “Zoolander” DVD on repeat.
WHAT WE’D LIKE TO SEE
More baseball players join Coco Crisp, Milton Bradley and Boof Bonser on the all-name team. For starters, the Chicago Cubs purchased minor-league outfielder Angel Pagan’s contract from the New York Mets on Wednesday. Sports Weekend sources reveal Pagan, a switch-hitter, is absolutely unsure whether the move will be terribly good or a sure bet for his future history. When asked about the move, sources claimed Pagan was cheerfully pessimistic, saying: “This is an awfully good opportunity. I’m almost totally surprised.” In a related note, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays are interested in Detroit Tigers catcher Max St. Pierre.
THE COUCH
ON: We apologize for not using this space last week to alert you of ESPN’s multiday coverage of Senior Bowl practice sessions. We can only guess how many people Tivo’ed ESPN’s airing of light drills and wind sprints from Mobile, Ala., as a leadup to Saturday’s big game, also on ESPN. The Senior Bowl is a pre-NFL draft showcase event, with two teams made up of departing collegiate football players from across the country, including four from Colorado and one from Wyoming. The South team is directed by the coaches of the San Francisco 49ers, the North team by the Tennessee Titans’ coaches. The game will be played at Ladd-Peebles Stadium, which is sold out, and the sports network’s coverage begins at 2 p.m. After growing so attached to the players from seeing them all week at practice, why would anyone want to miss this epic game?
OFF: For those who like their running races with plenty of hyperbole, check out the “Best Cross Country Race on the Planet,” a 4-miler Saturday for men, women and children. The men’s and women’s races are for 15-year-olds and older, and follow a three-loop course of grass and hard surfaces. But for the younger set, a 2K race should suffice. For the wee tykes, ages 4 and younger, a 200-meter dash race will be offered. The races kick off at 10 a.m. at Harlow Platt Park near the South Boulder Rec Center in Boulder. Check www.bestxcrace.com for more information. But don’t be disappointed if it’s the second-best race, because as motivational speaker Stephen Covey once said, if your expectations are ever too high, you’re just in for disappointment. Or maybe he didn’t.
AROUND TOWN
For the Arena Football League public relations department, last season’s American Conference championship game – dubbed the “Confetti Game” – between the Colorado Crush and the Chicago Rush must have been problematic.
It’s a wonder fans were able to talk to each other without sounding like an Abbott and Costello routine: “If the Crush can brush back the Rush rush, and Clay Rush can kick like flushed slush, the trophy should be theirs!” Regardless, the teams open their 2006 seasons with a rematch of the championship game, won last season by Colorado 49-43 in sudden-death overtime. The Crush went on to win the AFL title, beating the Georgia Force on kicker Clay Rush’s field goal in the waning seconds. Saturday’s game against the Rush kicks off at 1 p.m. at the Pepsi Center.
