Evan Bichon grew up surfing through waist-deep waves of white on the snowy slopes of Powder King Mountain Resort.
So when the course turned sloppy with ankle-deep slush on a warm sunny Tuesday afternoon at Nakiska, site of the Canadian snowboard speed national championships, the 13-year-old from Prince George took it in stride, and rode it all the way to the medal podium.
In his first-ever nationals appearance, Bichon finished third in Canada out of 20 competitors in the 13-14-year-old boys category, a mere half-snowboard length away from catching Matthew Gillard of Ontario for second place. Will Molisch of Ontario won gold.
"It was a ton of fun -- that guy in first was fast, he was pretty far ahead," said Bichon.
"The conditions were awesome. The slush was just like powder, I'm used to riding it and I think that gave me a bit of an advantage. I did pretty well I guess."
Bichon finished second in his four heat races to qualify for the finals. Considering it was only his third snowboarding race ever and the fact he was racing 14 year olds in the final, he far exceeded expectations. He also conquered his own fear factor. The Nakiska course west of Calgary included a massive jump near the end, which launched Bichon into a hair-raising flight equal in height and length to a tractor-trailer unit.
"Our goal was just to qualify and have him handle the track one feature at a time, and it just kept coming together" said Bill Laing, Bichon's coach from Mackenzie. "The track has bigger features and it was crazy-steep. It took him until the second practice run just before qualifications to for him to finally go off the big jump at the end. You come into it so fast."
Bichon was seventh in the province last year in his first-ever boardercross event and won his age category this year at the provincials at Big White, near Kelowna. His success at nationals has him thinking about a bigger event three years from now -- the 2015 Canada Winter Games.
"That's my goal to get there," said Bichon, a Grade 8 student at D.P. Todd secondary school.
Bichon started the sport when he was five and living in Mackenzie, but has had relatively few races in that time. But momentum is building in the Northwood Edge Snowboard Club under the leadership of Laing and the club now has six girls and eight boys on the team.
"I've got a group of guys who are showing potential and Evan's just the start of this," said Laing, once ranked 37th in Canada as a senior snowboarder.
"That environment up there just leads to success because you've got all the trees and the bumps and they're going fast."
Snow conditions have been great at Powder King since it opened for the season in mid-November and near-record levels of snow have fallen since. The secret is out on Powder King and the national snowboarding team has made it its annual early-season training base.
The club is trying to bring a sanctioned event to Powder King, and that will be possible once funding is in place to build a start gate for snowboard races. Bichon's trip to nationals was made possible with local help from his sponsors, Canadian Tire, Ruins Board Shop, Powder King and Mackenzie Hose and Fittings.
Bichon has been living in Prince George with his mom for the past three years but makes the trip north to Powder King most weekends and plans to continue to do so until the resort closes at the end of the month.
