2006 Montreal Classic: Review

By Aggressive Skate Forum member Seth Tillinghast.

The fifth Montreal Classic was held at South Parc, in Brossard, Quebec, on August 19th and 20th. I made the trip on Sunday, the 20th for the pro competition. I live in northern New York, so it takes about an hour to get there.

This was only the second time I’ve been to the competition. Last year it was a stop on the RFCC all star tour, and it was amazing, as I imagine all of the RFCC events were. There weren’t as many top pros this year, but it was still a great event.

Any American who doesn’t speak French and has driven in Quebec knows that it isn’t easy. And anyone who has ever used Mapquest for directions knows that doesn’t always help much. I got to the park a little after 2:30, thinking I would be late. Of course I was wrong. The competition didn’t get started until a little after 3.

I knew the lineup wouldn’t be as good as last year, but I was excited when Zeek announced that Shima would be there. I already knew some of the Empire guys would be there, and I was excited about them too. Basically, the names that people might know were Jon Julio, Eric Schrijn, Erik Bailey, Brian Shima, Brent Hicks, and Anthony Soto. Charles Nantel is a name everyone should know. He’s 27 and lives in Quebec City. He’s on the D-Structure team, and he put on an awesome performance. He pulled off plenty of big spins and tech-tricks. I’m not sure I would have placed him in a tie for second with Shima, but he was skating well.

Jimmy Hake was also competing. He’s a guy who I wouldn’t know if I hadn’t been to last year’s Montreal Classic where he was showing half of the well-known pros up. He skated pretty well again this year.

Jon Bergeron is a name a lot of younger skaters probably aren’t familiar with. He’s in his mid 20’s now, and won the X-Games gold in street in 1998. He also apparently won a best trick contest worth $10,000 back when corporate sponsors were throwing money at skaters. He was on the 1999 kill team with Feinberg, Loewe, Kevin Gillan, Blake Dennis, and Santiago Azpurua. If you still don’t understand how old school he is, check out this page. Not only does it still say he is 17 even though he was born in 1981, but the song is “Bling Bling.” I think that was the Cash Money Millionaires. But anyway, Bergeron is still sponsored by D-Structure, and can still destroy the park. Last year he pulled a lot of nasty flips and would always try to one-up other skaters, eventually winning second place behind Haffey. This year he didn’t make it out of the qualifiers.

Quite a few of the people I was hoping would make it at least to the semi-finals didn’t. Schrijn had a good run, and I was a little surprised he didn’t make it. He didn’t really do anything to put him above the unknowns. Julio, despite pulling a sweet fish to switch fish and soul to switch soul, also didn’t make it to the semis. When the crazy announcer tried to get him to keep trying a trick he couldn’t hit at the end of his run, he chose not to. He seemed content just to film the other guys, which is cool. I really don’t know a whole lot about Soto, but he also didn’t make it out of the qualifying round.

I basically guessed a fair amount of the top 5 skaters before the competition started. I knew Bailey would absolutely destroy the park, and he did. I think he was the obvious choice for first place. He pulled off a good mix of hammers, like disaster kind grinds onto a hand rail and a 360 top acid on a little bit of pipe that was about 8 feet above the coping of a ramp, and good use of the entire park.

Shima pulled off what I thought was the best trick of the day. He stalled on top of some sort of metal box way above the coping (not really meant to skate on), and then did a little ninja run (think the fence in Leading The Blind, only on a wall) up to a very small square, which I believe was one of those boxes where there are four spots for electrical chords, and he stalled on that too. It is impossible to explain in words, so just watch the edits of the competition. The problem with Shima is that he was hitting the same two things the entire day. Yes, the first five times he did it people went nuts. He nailed them a few times, and then other people started nailing them. By the time the finals came he could do the same trick he did during the qualifying round and not even get applause. Don’t get me wrong, I loved watching him, but I think it’s because he kept hitting the same things over and over again that he tied with Nantel for second. There was no best trick contest, so I would think judges were looking for use of the whole park.

When Zeek was announcing the results he stated that the kid who came in third place, Julien De Champs, was the best overall park skater that day. That may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but he was sick. He pulled an alleyoop mizou on the pipe thing that all of the other guys were hitting, and a lot of other sweet tricks all day. The black bandit media edit shows one of his “leap frog” type jumps that annoyed me, but at least he has an original style. Every time he got air, he would throw his chest out, and put his hands and legs back. It was extremely goofy looking, but like I said, he was sick. I don’t know anything about him, except that I’m pretty sure he’s Canadian, maybe from Montreal, and I think he skates South Parc a lot.

Hicks came in fourth. He wasn’t really pulling enough hammers to draw attention to himself, but he’s obviously an awesome skater and used the park pretty well. He had some amazing tech grinds. Jerry Butler came in fifth, and is being left off all of the websites because he was sort of the sixth man, but he was awesome. He’s another unknown that made a great impression on me. He had a really smooth style and pulled off some nice spins and switch ups. He’s the guy in the basketball jersey in the edits.

Worth mentioning is a guy named Guillame, who was pulling off sick negative tricks. He even pulled a negative fishbrain on a down ledge. It’s not everyday you see a clean topside negative trick on a ledge. In fact, it’s probably the first time I’ve seen it. Empire’s edit also shows a guy pulling off a fakie back flip going up a ramp and landing flat. It was crazy, and it took him about 10 tries to land, but unfortunately I have no idea what the guys name is. You have to be pretty confident or completely insane to try that repeatedly.

Overall it was a great day of skating, but just wasn’t as fun as last year’s competition. I feel like a lack of energy from the crowd had a lot to do with that, and that was probably due to its small size. I won’t bother try to estimate the amount of people there, but I would have to say it was less than last year. I would expect a crowd like that for an amateur competition, but not for the pros. And since there were really only about 5 big-name pros, it sort of makes sense.

The talent from the local guys showed that Montreal’s skate scene is doing fine. There are plenty of kids rolling there, and a lot of them showed that they had the skills to compete with the pros. Hopefully the event picks up next year and has more support from both the industry with skaters and sponsorship, and locals, whether they show up to roll or just watch.

Check out the Black Bandit Media edit or Empire’s edit. They each look a whole lot better than the clips I got.