I had a chance encounter with a customer at our Point Leo store this summer who turned out to be the father of one of our snowboarding team riders from the 2010’s, Chris De Campo. Paul De Campo sent through a couple of great photos of Chris taken in 2012 while in the USA.

This had me thinking about our own history and relationship with this amazing sport.

Snowboarding has come such a long way in just a very short time relative to other sports. Its impact on the traditional sport of downhill skiing was dramatic. Technically skis evolved deeper side cuts and twin tips that mimicked snowboards and riders took to halfpipes and parks as the influence of skateboarding was felt in both sports.

My first attempt to ride was about 1989 with Peter Baker in hard boot bindings, ski boots and an Avalanche Board that resembled an ironing board with no flex and no sidecut. No good did we go.

Above: Some early Sims Snowboards when sidecuts were barely visible.

For Trigger Bros it was around 1990 when Liam McCafferty asked me if we could get in 2 Sims Switchblades for Frankston skaters Paul and Enzo. Skaters could see the potential of this new sport and snowboarding was the benefactor in this.

Not long afterwards Liam suggested we start having a crack at selling snowboards from the Chelsea store.

With the positive energy of Liam and Shane Carter in those early 90’s, we quickly grew this side of our business with the importation of Look Snowboards and in 1994 the distribution of one of the original brands of snowboards coming out of Utah in Winterstick. Other brands followed included Reality and Crap. We further branched out with the development of our own outerwear and apparel label T-Bird with the help of designer Liza Bruce.

In those pre internet days, and long before anyone had enough internet bandwidth to watch a Youtube clip, team riders were an important part of marketing brands like Look and Winterstick. If you had the right team riders, getting pictures in magazines was a possibility and your brand would grow.

Neil Hardwick had many features published in the Aussie snow magazines riding for Look Snowboards. Magazines such as  Snowboarder, Crank, Snowboard World and this image below from Transworld Snow.

Above: Neil Hardwick 1994. Remember when riding with a cap, sunnies and a flannel shirt was the bomb?

With Winterstick we had Dave Kelly and Adam Dawes at Mt.Buller and Tony “Ox” Graham and Jemima Brain at Mt.Hotham

A competition format surfaced at virtually every single snow resort in Australia with the likes of companies such as Garnier, Sprite, Play Station, Quiksilver Surf and Snow and Billabong sponsoring the Snow jam at Hotham just to name a few of the companies to get behind some big events. Kids comps were on almost every week and before long there was a Victorian and Australian interschools event.

Over the years Trigger Bros built a team that not only included great competitive riders but also well respected Snowboarders within all the Aussie snow communities.

Here’s a list of the crew (not just team riders) that helped make our journey into snowboarding so much fun.

Dave Pavelich, Dave Kelly, Neil Hardwick, Liam McCafferty, Danny Williamson, Shane Carter, Brenner Adams, Peter Lucas, Stuart Matthews, Jemima Brain, Luke Fitcher, Tony Ox Graham, Ricci Hawkins, Luke Trembath, Chris Boadle, Marcus Boadle, Rick, Drew and Marc Baker, Nick Stilwell, Tom Nick and Adrian Pelly, Robbie Walker, Bear Agushi, Rhyss Haig, Todd Haig, Mikey Williams, Jarryd Williams, The Staveleys Lauren, Cam and Luke, Alex Scott, Alex Kutaysov,Max Cookes, Garry Taylor, Chunk, Hannah Trigger, Oscar Sayers, Rory “Dr.Jumps” Tonkin, Matt Trigger, James Kennedy, Chris Ecott, Adam Dawes, Jan Snarski, Jackson Allen and the Canadian Jon Poole.