Winter Park – Remember this name: Reed Courdin.
The Front Range 9-year-old plans to be famous. He’s thinking it’ll take four years. As he lines up to gather gear for his first snowboard lesson, the skier explains his strategy for stardom.
“It looks like such a fun sport, and since I’ve been skateboarding and doing gymnastics, I thought I could be really good. I already have the balance,” he says.
During the Olympics, Courdin and his two sisters watched young Americans on snowboards dominate their sport. The winking metal around the necks of Shaun White, Danny Kass, Hannah Teter, Gretchen Bleiler, Seth Wescott and Lindsey Jacobellis has inspired the skiing Courdin clan to take up snowboarding.
“Going fast seems like fun,” says 11-year-old Ashlynn Courdin.
“I think knocking people over seems fun,” says 12-year-old Cubrina, who watched girls not much older than her dominate Olympic snowboardcross events.
Thanks to America’s golden Olympic snowboarders, the sport got a big dose of amplitude this month. Several resorts are reporting spikes in demand for snowboarding lessons, due in part to Olympic hype and resort marketing ploys designed to play on the boarder buzz. At Monarch, lessons are up 15 percent, with 95 percent of those first-timers. Winter Park’s kids snowboarding lessons were up 5 percent in February, thanks in part to the Olympics and the resort’s $79 Get Your Ride On first-time program.
“We thought it was a perfect time to get more people excited about the sport and get more kids involved and take advantage of the great conditions and the hype around the Olympics,” said Bob Barnes, director of the ski and snowboard school at Winter Park.
Copper expects to see a spike, thanks to its upcoming Learn To Ride camps for women.
The Olympics tend to have a more long-term effect, said Copper spokesman Carlos Garcia.
“It’s kind of like a seed that starts with the Olympics, and then the enthusiasm spreads,” Garcia said. “It can take a while though. Rather than a big impact immediately, I think it will be more of a slow-growing impact over time.”
Snowboarding surged in the 1990s, with growth rates reaching as high as 25 percent a year. That rate has decreased the last several seasons, indicating snowboarding has matured. The number of snowboarders on America’s ski hills has remained at roughly one-third of all schussing visitors in the last few seasons. The Olympic shred show will fuel single-plank riding anew, says Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association.
For several years, lesson-taking first-timers were the fastest-growing segment of visitors to American ski areas, according to NSAA research. More than 60 percent of first-time lesson-takers across the nation are strapped on snowboards, Berry said.
That percentage is going to increase, Berry said.
“It’s not often that I attribute specific trends to the Olympics,” he said, noting most of the resort industry’s benefit from Olympic exposure is long term and difficult to track. “I expect the spike in snowboarding we are seeing right now will continue for several years.”
Staff writer Jason Blevins can be reached at 303-820-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com.
