Blaine Radford was a 15-year-old from Fort St. John when he moved to Prince George with his family.
He didn't know anybody when he arrived and the best friend he had with him was his skateboard.
It didn't take him long to expand his circle of friends. Once he discovered the Rotary Skatepark on Massey Drive he met up with the regulars on the skatepark scene, the older guys, who showed him some of the tricks of the trade. Radford watched them pull off railslides, fakies, kickflips and crooked grinds and started to develop a style of his own.
Like most skaters, he donated plenty of skin to the concrete jungle gym and his hands, knees and ankles bore the brunt of those wipeouts. But the satisfaction of getting better at riding his board was enough for Radford to keep him coming back for more.
On Saturday, the 22-year-old joined a crowd of about 40 mostly teenaged kids at the park for Go Skateboarding Day, a nationwide barbecue/prize promotion sponsored by clothing retailer, Chris and Brad Apparel (CBA) and ONE Boardshop.
Radford, who works full time as a drywaller, didn't win it the advanced trick competition he entered but the chance to show off his best moves against the likes of Justin Welygan, Brandon Tran, Gavin Calliou, William Parke, and Jesse Randall convinced him to take a few calculated risks which put his body in peril.
"This is a thing to get everybody involved in skating and give everybody a turn to show us what they've got," he said. "I've been doing this sport for so long now, it gives you a good sense of accomplishment when you land a trick. It's good for your self-esteem.
"I played hockey until I was 13 and started riding a bike around the skateparks in Fort St. John and saw a couple of the really cool guys who were sponsored by Ruins Board Shop. I just wanted to hang with those guys and be like them, so I picked up a skateboard.
"It made the city life way easier to handle after I moved here. I had somewhere to come and it was always a meet-up spot. We're all good friends and we hang out here and just have fun and skateboard.
Welygan, the unofficial "king of the skatepark" kept his seat on the local throne intact. He wowed the crowd with his routine, popping outrageous vertical leaps and drops over rails, ripping 360-flips, and nosegrinding one-truck landings.
"Justin was always my role model growing up," said Radford, "man he's cool. He's so good at skateboarding and now we're real good buddies."
Like most of the riders at the park Saturday, Welygan, a fifth-place finisher in the DC nationals in 2010, doesn't wear a helmet, unless he's competing in a sanctioned event. Welygan, 24, works as a fabricator for Del-Tech Manufacturing, and he knows if he gets injured skateboarding and can't work, he doesn't get a paycheque.
"It's definitely a factor in there, that brings the fear up a bit nowadays," he said. If you can't get out of bed in the morning you're not making money and I've got bills to pay now. I've rolled my ankle numerous times and have been off my feet for a few weeks and off the skateboard for months at a time.
Welygan says the trick to preventing injuries is to learn how to roll on rough landings and use your limbs to slap the concrete and absorb the impact.
"You can't really teach skateboarding, you kind of just learn your own way," he said. "You watch people do it and just get out there and that's how you learn. It's a lot easier when you're young. I've had lots of falls."
Unless you're a pro, skateboarding is definitely a young man's game. Maybe it's the Jackass daredevil mentality at work but there are very few female skaters at the Prince George park and only a few girls show up to watch at the Prince George park. Silvia Simoes, Welygan's fiancee, is one of them. While it's hard to watch her future husband have a rough landing, it happens occasionally. She's continually amazed at when he can do on a board.
"He's in his element and it's something he's been doing since he was 10 years old, it's his thing and it's really nice to watch somebody so passionate about something like he is," Simoes said.
The 17,000-square foot skatepark opened in September 2002, a $250,000 project built by the Prince George Rotary Clubs. The city's skate scene is often misunderstood. Skaters are sometimes the target of prejudice by people who see them as misfits and troublemakers. Simoes works as a counsellor at Intersect Youth and Family Services Society and she says the skatepark and the crowd it attracts serves a valuable function that helps breaks down those stereotypes.
"It gives everybody a sense of belonging and I think we've lost a bit of that in the community but the skatepark has always been a place where everybody's accepted," said Simoes. "Here, it doesn't matter, everybody is their own individual and that's one of the reasons I love coming here. Some people think the skaters are bad kids, gangsters, but if you really get to know these kids that's not it at all. They've got big hearts, they all really enjoy the sport, and that's what they're here for."
Teigan Svederus won the intermediate trick competition, while Ryan Hunter was best in the beginner category.
