Super Bowl Party! Part III

Okay, so first off, two-time Pool Party champ Bucky Lasek is out of the contest on account of a broken ankle, and TONY HAWK IS IN! so that happened.

Have your heads finished exploding?

Awesome.

On to business.

So, aside from the obvious Tony Hawk is finally skating a proper contest again, why does skateboarding need the Pool Party? What makes it different from the throng of contests put on every year?

Sorry, Tony, awesome as the All 80s contests are, they're pretty much a costume party...

1) The Pool Party is one of the only exclusively vertical contests left. The only other one I can think of is the Rumble in Ramona, and let's face it, that's more of a weekend-long ramp party. When you consider all the major contests right now, there are really two kinds: those with both street and vert, with the vert contest playing second fiddle (re: Maloof, Tampa, X-Games...... pretty much all of them), and contests that are only street contests (re: Street League, Manny Mania, Thrasher's occasional "let's throw a carcass-toss for cash at a famous street spot"). Accentuated by the fact that the pool party is held in a multi-faceted bowl, the contest not only helps legitimize vert riding itself, but also helps break the stereotype that a vert contest is relegated to sixteen tricks done back and forth on a basic vert ramp.

There's a reason the old Gameboy Colour port of THPS didn't do well...

2) The Pool Party has an inherent lack of (non-skateboarding-centric) corporate sponsorship. Let's be honest, all three or four of you reading this blog, along with myself, skate. That being said, we all know that skaters are weary of big corporate America getting its chocolate chequebooks into our peanut-butter professional endorsement. (Apparently when the owners of an NBA team want to throw money at us, that's okay, but I'll save that for another time). Skaters have learned time and again that if we want something done right, we need to do it ourselves. It's the reason why the Gravity Games failed, and the X-Games are on the way.

Well, not to mention lumping skateboarding in with Rally Racing.... nice, ESPN....

It's the reason why Tampa Pro is considered the most legitimate pro street (and vert) contest in North America. The Pool Party is run by Vans, Pro-Tec, and Rockstar (Okay, I know, an energy drink sponsor, but skaters drink 'em, and your new Almost deck was manufactured using money taken from collar-popping jocks who bought Globe flip-flops, so don't get me started). The lack of corporate sponsors at the Pool Party makes it feel like it's of skaters and for skaters, and for a discipline where the pros are maligned on message boards throughout the interwebs for everything from padding up to being sponsored by beef jerky, something that adds a plash of hardcore back into the fray can't hurt. Vertical riding is awesome, and this contest affords people the opportunity to watch a well-run, organized vertical contest that isn't bogged down with Taco Bell and Verizon Wireless banners, making the whole thing seem like a corporate publicity stunt. The Pool Party is about skateboarding, the way it should be.

Stay tuned for Monday, when I'll wrap up the winners, losers, makes, slams, and Jeff Grosso's epic pool gut.

And hopefully equally epic andrechts.