Throughout most of our lifetimes, the four-peat has been elusive in professional sports. (The last one was the New York Islanders’ dynastic run of Stanley Cup wins from 1980 until 1983.) This weekend, however, we approach the real possibility of the first four-peat of the new millennium: Wade Desarmo could become the World Champion of Skateboarding for the fourth time in a row.
Only one obstacle stands in his way: winner of Thrasher’s 2013 “Skater of the Year” Award and recurring recipient of Quartersnacks’ more encompassing “Best Skater” award, Ishod Wair.
Your local shop, bar, and T.F. bench has no doubt been abuzz with predictions about this weekend’s game, but predictions seem split down the middle. Sure, Ishod is the Best Skater™ — except who really wants to play devil’s advocate by doubting a three-time repeating champion? Since none of us have ever played a World Champion in S.K.A.T.E. before, our opinions are reduced to amateur guesswork. To get some real insight, we contacted Wade’s past three Glory Challenge opponents and Dennis Busenitz, who once famously swept him in an obscure exhibition series called “Battle at the Berrics,” for their predictions.
“The Process” refers to the Philadelphia 76ers’ management philosophy under former General Manager and President of Basketball Operations, Sam Hinkie. In a nutshell, The Process contains three guiding principles:
A. Minimize competitiveness in order to obtain high draft picks. B. Stockpile those draft picks in order to maximize trade values. C. Delay “trying to win” until the team drafts a transformational, once-in-a-generation player. Based on the history of the NBA, this is mainly how teams have set themselves up to win championships.
This strategy requires a shit-ton of patience. Nevertheless, over the years “Trust the Process” has become a mantra, a philosophy, and a rallying cry for 76ers fans.
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Back in the essay on the Philadelphia sports mythos, I focused on #toughness as Philadelphia sports’ guiding principle. Nothing exemplified this in 2017 more than Sabotage 5, in which Brian Panebianco and his usual suspects — plus some new additions — skated Love Park until every last slab of marble had been extracted and nothing remained but a few dirt banks into which to ollie.
On the other side of town, perhaps as a form of karmic balancing of the universe or some shit, something happened to the 76ers basketball club: They became sick-ass fun to watch.
So here we are, at a crossroad in which the Sixers are displaying flashes of basketball genius, Process believers looked ahead to a promising future, and the Sabotage crew released their final video chapter. As an homage to both #theprocess and the extensive Sabotage legacy, let’s take a deep dive into how the two crews match up.
This past year, nobody else incited as many smilesand remindersof the gloriousescapism that skateboarding provides. Thank you Jamal Smith, 2017’s Q.S.S.O.T.Y., for inspiring us to enjoy the world on a skateboard. Sadly, we can’t fly you to Canary Islands like Thrasher can (…not yet), but just wanted to say thanks :)
Even as an institution that often gets chastised for Rihanna songs in skate clips and bad filming, we gotta chime in here: wtf is with the choppy frame-rate, wtf is up with the darkass clips, and wtf is up with that Morrissey song in Antonio’s new Berrics part? The skating though…is absolutely F U C K E D.
Oddly enjoyed this way more than expected, probably because they skate a bunch of weird shit that nobody bothers with, e.g. they got two clips at the Gristedes on 96th Street — a Weed Maps “Summer Trip to New York” clip with Jaws, Tommy Sandoval and Boo Johnson. I think we ran into Jaws at a rave when he was filming this.
…aaannndddd Village Psychic made a “Best of 2017” mix of the year’s ACTUAL S.O.T.Y., regardless of what the yellow t-shirts may have told you.
“Belgrade is the best city I’ve ever been to in my life.” The Rios Crew continues to inspire skateboard travel dreams far outside the conventional Euro destinations with each new clip. “Dunja,” their latest, hits Serbia’s capital, Montenegro and Croatia.
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: It’ll never not be funny that Kyrie was just like “nah, I don’t wanna play with this dude anymore.” He lost yesterday, but this was sick.
Quote of the Week: “You should just make Q.S.S.O.T.Y. ‘The Max Palmer Award.'” — John Choi
Copies of Matt Velez’s new video, Calzone, are on sale. Another teaser here.
“This urgent, shouty Mannie Fresh anthem, a sort of primal materialistic scream from within a sumptuously appointed mansion, stands as the best song in any Ty Evans-helmed Film to date; paired off Lucas Puig’s luxury-brand tech, it makes a strong argument for the greatest song in any video ever.” Boil the Ocean offers up eight of Ty Evans’ best #musicsupervision victories, the man who introduced skaters to electro.
^^^2017 Best of Dustin Henry, reigning titleholder for QS’ “Skater You’d Be Most O.K. With Your Daughter Dating” Award. Edited by Tyler Warren.
This one was pretty heartwarming: Monster Children has a mini doc on Josh Kalis’ relationship and history with the city of Chicago. I’ve seen that street gap kickflip a hundred times before and still said “oh my God” on this go-around. (Maybe Ride will finally stop asking us why Chicago isn’t a bigger deal in skateboarding with this one?)
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: 76ers-OKC was game of the year so far, yes? Gonna give it to Embiid’s block on Russy in OT1, but only because Russy ended up winning anyway :)
Quote of the Week: “I fucking hate getting phone calls.” — Andrew Wilson
“Chewy threw an ironing board at Lucien over this shit. The skate house, the skate house, the skate house—we’ve all been there.” TWSput their Palace in New York article online, which includes an interview with Jamal Smith, who doesn’t have any photos in it, but is the star of a pretty sick faux 411 “Wheels of Fortune” section.
“I think the reason nobody wanted to show us around was he fact we might have been a bit of an embarassment. Actually, that’s certainly the reason.” And even though it’s from last year, The Skateboarder’s Journal posted their Passport in New York article, with words from Callum Paul.
It’s amazing that people need to point out that they dislike front feeble laser flip outs in 2017 like it’s a kickflip backside tailslide or some shit. The Bunt’s new season kicked off last week, with what’s probably the most Canadian episode they’ve ever had.
F.A. uploaded a 46-minute compilation of B-sides and raw footage — some of which is unseen, some of which you’ll definitely recognize from past edits. Someone also turned all the episodes of “Atlantic Drift” into one single-stream 34-minute reel.
“We’re utilitarian people. That’s what the fuck we do.” Village Psychic has an interview with Jake Phelps about the cost of living in the only place with higher rent than New York: San Francisco. (Free idea: You guys should do a story about skateboarders living with random Chinese families in New York.)
Boil the Ocean with an early weigh-in on 2017’s S.O.T.Y. race, but is there 1) a single person who follows skating that doesn’t think it should unequivocally be Tiago, and 2) if not, what possible reason could you have?
