With so much discourse about what’s the “matter” with skateboarding after an unprecedented boom cycle, it cannot be ignored that skateboarding’s fortunes of just a decade past have so closely mirrored those of another institution dear to us: Canada.
While we enjoyed the windfalls from the Nike SB Janoski, EA Skate, Olympic entry and fashion world acceptance throughout the 2010s, Canada experienced a bonanza of good fortune as Drake and Bieber blasted across our speakers, Herschel bags adorned the backs of billions, the Raptors won the title, The Bunt podcasts soundtracked Americans’ morning commutes, and The Dime Glory Challenge supplanted the Super Bowl as our nation’s most-watched event.
And today? A reclusive Drake, a Bieber hounded by divorce rumors, the Oilers missed out on the Cup two years in a row, and a lot of Canadians angry with the U.S. All this while our skate shops sit overstocked, our pants are confusing, and everyone’s wondering why the skatepark feels emptier than just a few summers ago.
As people offer up the hottest of takes on how to get back to those roaring ’10s, we have the hottest one yet: nothing.
Things go in cycles, waves come, waves go. The only plan of action is to ride it out. The whole “Man plans, God laughs” thing.
Why are we so confident in things taking their course? Idk, for one, watch Jordan Moss’ Toronto scene video, iTAL, presented by The Bunt in a rare non-interview/non-basketball-tournament piece of content.
Here you have a crew of young Ontarians scarcely older than ~23, who just turned in a 17-minute banger of a video project filmed all across Toronto — without even a single visit to what’s gotta be the city’s most famous skate spot. There’s a palpable energy to the project where you can feel that everyone in it knows they’re turning in their best shit to-date.
And if a bunch of early-20-somethings can come out of nowhere (in as far as the skate media attention economy in 2025 goes), and film a fire video across a bunch of largely unrecognizable spots in the largest city in their country, then I’m not really worried about skateboarding’s health down the line. (Or Canada’s, for that matter.) I’m just hanging tight for their next one.
Video by Jordan Moss.
Features: Dwayne Anderson Jr., Stafhon Boca, Terrence Fante, Jalen Baisden, Will Filion, Daniel Spriel, Ben St-Aubin, Cole Kubbinga, Cyrus Thompson, Justin Fabus, Kong.