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The Show delivers the spectacle

Event takes over from Danny Kass's Grenade Games
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The Show: A Snowboard Event presented by Monster Energy had some big shoes to fill this year, taking over the spot in the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival lineup that was occupied by Danny Kass's Grenade Games the past two years - and fill them it did, with four solid days of events.

The weather didn't quite cooperate. The slushy slopestyle course turned to concrete for the finals on Saturday night as the temperatures dropped. There was new snow for Sunday's dual moguls and not the soft slushy bumps organizers were hoping for. Conditions were sunny and cold for the Boarderstyle on Monday but the snow and the wind came back for Dustin Craven's FUN Pipe Jam on Tuesday.

The Monster Energy Slopestyle kicked off the competition under the lights on Saturday night, with thousands of spectators watching athletes pursue the $10,000 first prize.

The course itself consisted of a gap jump or a box to a gap, followed by a choice of rails that led to another rail to the Monster van, or a massive channel gap onto a hip landing. The final touch was an Oakley "O" shaped box at the bottom.

The athletes struggled with the speed and course conditions in the one-hour jam session as temperatures dropped and the snow froze beneath them. The athletes who controlled their speed best managed to fit in more tricks and ultimately moved into the final. There was little room for errors in the last round, with each athlete getting three runs on the course and each one of those runs counting.

Craig Beaulieu, who is no stranger to the podium at the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival, hit every trick on the course, spun off of everything and even landed a big backflip on the hip to take the title and $10,000.

"It was incredible," he said. "We were training in a foot of slush and then the finals it was like a sheet of ice. I just tried to be consistent at first and just focus on landing everything clean."

He wasn't sure he was going to do the backflip on the hip, a big Michalchuk, but after watching a lot of younger riders he stepped up on his last run - even though a fall might have cost him the contest.

"All the younger guys were doing it, and I knew I had to get at least one in by the end of the night. I'm glad I did."

Beaulieu was one of the only riders that hit every feature in the park in his three runs, and his rail skills really set him apart. He managed a rare 270 spin onto the bottom "O" then another 450 spin off. Other tricks that came out of the bag include a frontside 720, a backside rodeo and a switch backside on the van.

Matt Kulisek was second, earning $5,000. He was launching huge methods over the hip all day and managed a huge 900 off the first gap. He also mixed it up with every run although he didn't use the whole park like Beaulieu.

"That was so amazing," he said. "I just tried to enjoy myself and I didn't try to plan too much. That hip jump was sick and the whole course was just so fun to ride. I really wanted that 900 and I followed it up with a frontside (360) on the hip, and I guess it paid off."

Third place and $2,500 went to Mikey Pederson, who had the biggest, slowest Michalchuk flip in the contest and landed it on all three final runs.

"I just tried to be really consistent. You kind of had to play it safe a little bit in the finals because every run counted, but I didn't really think about that and just let the course come to me," he said. "It was hard because if you had too much speed it was pretty hard to slow down."

Another $2,000 in prizes was handed out for the best tricks. Logan Haubrich won two $500 awards, one for his frontside 540 on the hip and another for his switch backside 900 on the top gap. Darcy Sharpe won $500 for Best Jib and Pederson added to his total for his Michalchuk.

Next up was the Mogul Mash, a dual slalom holdout from the Grenade. The organizers built the course up on Davies Dervish, a steep run that was already set for moguls after hosting the B.C. freestyle championships two weeks before.

The Mogul Mash was a head-to-head race down the course, with a jump to make things interesting. Speed was mandatory, but style was strongly encouraged.

Travis Williams had the fastest time in the qualifier and went on to win the day with a four-tenths of a second gap on Myrosha Daley. Will Jackways was third, edging out Zach Wade by nine one-hundredths of a second.

On the women's side, Olympic halfpipe rider Mercedes Nicoll and Molly Milligan were neck and neck through two runs, but Nicoll was slightly faster to the line.

Next up was the Boarderstyle on Monday, a new event that combined slopestyle and snowboardcross, with the Oakley O from the slopestyle on the course and a 50-foot table at the bottom. Some 200 riders signed up, going through the qualifiers to determine who would move on to the final brackets.

Nobody knew what would happen if all four finalists reached the final table at the same time, but it happened a few times and everything worked just fine.

Williams made a memorable comment on the race at Canada Snowboard: "We have some of the best riders in the world here right now and these guys are used to hucking themselves on icy booters all the time," he said. "When we got to the top of this Boarderstyle course and these guys are hyperventilating and saying they're going to shit their pants... I've never been in a snowboard event, not even the X-Games where I was that nervous."

After two rounds in the finals there were four men left standing - Olympian Justin Lamoureux, Travis Williams, Yan Devo and Jon Versteeg. Versteeg got the hole shot from the top and held onto it through the bottom as other riders chased him down.

That was good for the $5,000 first prize, but all of the riders agreed to split the money before the last race.

That left just one event, the Dustin Craven FUN Pipe Jam where riders were gradually eliminated over the course of a snowy Tuesday afternoon. Guillaume Morrissette showed that he's still got the chops by topping national team riders Justin Lamoureux and Brad Martin in the finals judging. They walked away with $5,000, $2,000 and $1,000 respectively, with another $1,500 going out to riders for the biggest air, best 360, best ring of the bell suspended over the course, and best jib on the log.