Whitehorse’s Max Melvin-McNutt is an accomplished snowboarder, but he’s does all right on skateboards too.
The 17-year-old used his board skills to win the advanced division of Whitehorse’s Canada Day Skate Competition at the Second Heaven skate park in Riverdale.
“This is the only skateboard competition I’ve ever done,” said Melvin-McNutt, who has won the event numerous times. “I’m not very competitive about skateboarding, but I am about snowboarding.
“There’s a lot more snowboard competitions to go to, and it’s easier to get organized if you’re on a team, to go to those competitions. With skateboarding, it’s just you.”
Putting Melvin-McNutt over second-place finisher Cody Ball from Lower Post were an array of tricks, including a frontside lipslide on the handrail, a smith grinded on the pyramid, a 360 flip fakie, a switch kickflip over the hip, a big-spin out of the bowl, followed by an ollie flip before a R.I.P. flip over the pyramid.
“Those are just tricks I’ve unlocked and know that I can do every time,” said Melvin-McNutt. “So I just put it all together in a run because I knew I could land it.”
Melvin-McNutt also ended the competition by winning Best Trick with a hardflip over the handrail, then a front bone to the handrail.
At the start of last month, Melvin-McNutt became the first Yukoner to make a provincial snowboard team, getting invited onto the BC Provincial Freestyle Team.
“I know the coach because I went to his summer snowboard camp last summer,” said Melvin-McNutt. “I planned to move to Vancouver to live there, so I could snowboard and get better with the better facilities.
“I didn’t have to tryout or anything because he’s seen me snowboard.”
At the Canada Winter Games earlier this year, Melvin-McNutt took in the best results for the Yukon snowboard team, including eighth in the halfpipe.
At last year’s Arctic Winter Games in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Melvin-McNutt was awarded the overall silver in the juvenile boys division, winning gold in the half-pipe, bronze in the snowboardcross, fourth in the slopestyle and fifth in the banked slalom.
Second-place Ball, 21, who won the Discovery Days Skate Competition in Watson Lake last summer, was competing in his fourth Canada Day competition in Whitehorse.
“I usually come fourth or third,” said Ball. “I’ve just gotten used to competitions. I get jello legs.”
Sixteen boarders took part in the competition, which effectively doubles as the Yukon championships. The event was put on by B.Y.T.E and the Boys and Girls Club of Whitehorse.
“I wish more people got involved,” said Melvin-McNutt. “There’s always people, ‘Should I do it? Should I not?’ But it’s just fun if everyone is in it.”
RESULTS
Advanced
1st Max Melvin-McNutt
2nd Cody Ball
Intermediate
1st Jerry Miller
2nd Jerry Harrison
Beginner
1st Brady Ford
2nd PJ Murphy
Female
1st Jessica Harrison
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com