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Snowboarder Melvin McNutt reaches out for Yukon support

Whitehorse snowboarder Max Melvin-McNutt has some big plans and big goals for this season, and he hopes Yukoners will help him out on the financial side of things.

Whitehorse snowboarder Max Melvin-McNutt has some big plans and big goals for this season, and he hopes Yukoners will help him out on the financial side of things.

The 20-year-old member of the national development team has launched a crowd-funding webpage to raise money so he can compete at some major international events this season.

“To help out with the cost of travel, accommodation, lift tickets, food and everything involved with traveling,” said Melvin-McNutt.

“I want to do well in these three contests, as well as two more when I get back to Whistler (including the national championships),” he added. “I’d like to make the national team next season and I want to progress with a bunch of new tricks, just get better at snowboarding.”

Melvin-McNutt is currently ranked 13th in Canada for slopestyle. He hopes to compete at the Stoneham World Cup near Quebec City and Utah’s Park City World Cup next month. He then hopes to jump the pond to compete at a major international event outside Toulouse, France.

He’ll finish the season with the national championships and a showcase event in Whistler, B.C., where he currently resides, at the end of March.

Through his GoFundMe web page, Melvin-McNutt hopes to raise $8,000 to cover travel expenses. By press time on Thursday, just three days after launching the page, he already raised more than half his goal. As an elite athlete, he also receives funding from the Yukon government.

Melvin-McNutt almost decided to take this season off. He told the News last month he was going to take a year off from competing, but then realized how much he would miss it while on vacation.

“It was a confusing part of my life, I felt like I just needed a break from it,” said Melvin-McNutt. “I just needed to find some answers and I found them as soon as I left.

“I just realized how much I missed snowboarding and had to come back. I refound that passion just from being away from it.”

Melvin-McNutt rode to a fifth-place finish at the Canadian Freestyle Snowboard Championships at the Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, Alta., last March. He took fifth in men’s slopestyle out of 27 of Canada’s best, including members of Canada’s national team.

Four seasons ago Melvin-McNutt became the first Yukoner to make the B.C. Freestyle Snowboard Team. In his first two seasons with the team he racked up some fantastic results before a broken collarbone took him out of action two seasons in a row, causing him to miss the nationals.

To help Melvin-McNutt reach his goals, donate at

www.gofundme.com/maxswcjourney.

Contact Tom Patrick at

tomp@yukon-news.com