Snowboarding

Shaun White #12 on ESPN’s List

by The Editors on June 13, 2007

The fans are helping ESPN.com and Sportcenter pick the top 32 athletes in the world and currently Carlsbad’s Shaun White is ranked number 12 between Dale Earnhardt Jr and Danica Patrick.

Shaun White. He doesn’t play a real sport? Well, there is more to life than football, baseball and basketball. The snowboarding/skateboarding whiz kid is a commercial success, an Olympic gold medalist and owner of the coolest nickname in sports, “The Flying Tomato.”

We thought he changed his nickname to “The Animal.” Hmmm.

[Link: ESPN]

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Buffalo Bros Go Around The Outside

by The Editors on June 1, 2007

Buffalo Bros.0.SmHidden away at 4901 El Camino Real in an old egg factory and next to Bobby’s Hideaway is Buffalo Brothers Guitars. Many would argue that it is the best guitar store in the world. Or what General Manager Kevin Kinnear calls: “Guitar players heaven.” The store and it’s General Manager were recently featured on San Diego’s News 8 (video link). The place is huge. Kinnear says:

We’ve got more guitars in the open than you can actually play and enjoy. This is completely friendly and hospitable and we want you to experience the guitars.

And he’s right, but what the story failed to mention is that while Buffalo Brothers is a great store and Kinnear is wellspring of guitar knowledge his roots in action sports go deeper still. As the founding editor of TransWorld Snowboarding Magazine Kevin helped shape snowboarding culture and then delivered it to the world. Kinnear was recently featured in an award-winning documentary film on the life of snowboarding great Craig Kelly titled Let It Ride. But don’t think that after talking to Kevin about snowboarding that you’ll find it any easier to leave the store without a new six-string in your hands. . . ’cause that just won’t happen.

[Link: KFMB San Diego]

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White and Hawk: The New All-Americans

by The Editors on May 29, 2007

With more and more sports heros falling in the doping scandals of baseball and cycling, The Huffinton Post’s David Browne (author of the extreme sports book Amped) uses Carlsbad locals Tony Hawk and Shaun White to illustrate the point that those wacky extreme sports guys are currently the more “upright sports community” right now:

At last year’s Olympics, the all-American, apple-pie star was not the skier (Bode Miller, who wound up being an embarrassment on the slopes) but the snowboarder (mop-topped Shaun White, who’s so wholesome that he’s a Target spokesman). It’s hard to imagine a theme-park ride named after Jose Canseco. But there is now one in honor of skateboarding icon Tony Hawk: In March, a Great Adventure in Texas became of the first of that chain to feature a Hawk rollercoaster ride.

[Link: Huffington Post]

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