WITS Montreal Official Recap

Everyone likes official statements. Here's the official recap out of Montreal. Also, the official WITS Montreal video is up, so peep that as well.

Montreal was one of the lucky cities to be on the official Wild in the Streets stops. This year’s edition was the 5th one to happen in the province of Quebec and it was the first time the vent was going global in multi locations. Beside Montreal, Tampa, Madrid and London were also under the radar of this amazing skateboard event.

With the support from the Emerica crew and global team riders Heath Kirchart, Brandon Westgate, Justin “Figgy” Figueroa and Canadian riders Mike McKinlay, Dave Nolan, Justin Allain and Brad Sheppard, it was by far the best one ever with double the crowd of the previous years gathering over 600 skateboarders from everywhere in Quebec, some from the Maritimes provinces, Ontario. B.C., and the USA.

Emerica decided to come down in Montreal to support a new cause in the Quebec Skate Plaza Foundation launched by Montreal’s living legend Éric Mercier. The skate parks situation in Quebec is really poor and way behind the other provinces. This is where the foundation wants to act; to bring resources and expertise in the future projects development and assure a healthy scene in the province.

After launching the website earlier this year, it was a first public event for the foundation and what a way to bring awareness toward it and the skateboard scene of Quebec in general. The rain might have scared few skateboarders since it was pouring hard only two hours before the peaceful rolling manifestation. Skaters started to show up right after the rain and within the time to gather everyone in front of the monument at Tam-Tams (the bottom of Mont Royal) the pavement was all dried up and ready to receive thousands of wheels.

Lead by Oliviero Fontana, a well known and respected skateboarder in Quebec, we all went down in front of the meeting point to turn on Mont Royal Street where people were amazed by the sound and camaraderie of all skaters being pictured and filmed by hundreds of mobile devices. People were literally applauding the commotion; even 70 years old ladies and politicians were spotted giving props to the event. When the police saw and heard this rolling crowd, they immediately followed the skaters and escorted the parade to make sure no one was getting injured or in trouble with surrounding cars. We taught they may ask to stop the gathering and make sure we were not going to skate private location, but it was the complete opposite. They asked us where we were going so they can protect all of us by escorting the whole route and even blocking streets where we were skating spots. They were a huge part in the success of the event and we’re proud they were as much cooperative and making sure this day would count no accidents.

We skated the gap to ledge at Lafontaine Park, then destroyed the rail at Camillien-Houde arena to roll after to the Old Montreal cegep near a crazy gap over the fence to downhill, like really downhill. From there we got to our final spot; the Peace Park, a park where a plaza should be instead of drunks and junkies. They get to be there all the time with no problems, but if you’re on your board, you better watch yourself because it’s an automatic ticket. At least this time was a symbolic stop since the cops were there to make sure we can skate it with no hustles. They then modified our course to let us pass in bigger streets blocking the traffic so we can easily make our way at Underworld skate shop downtown Montreal where a BBQ organized by the shop and royal agency was waiting for the crowd.

It was also the first time the event received this amount of coverage, many links have pop up on the Internet, CTV did a special report on the event and already 3500 readers have seen the push.ca article. For sure this day will be reminded and hopefully more skaters will joined this great event in the future.

It was a perfect day, Wild in the Streets has allowed the foundation to raise around 2000$ during the day by the sales of an Emerica limited edition t-shirt, Olymel / Lafleur hot dogs, Red Bull beverages and water from royal agency and Timebomb Trading. But it is not done; t-shirts will still be available to buy in local shops in the Montreal area as well as on the foundation’s blog.

Thank you, to everyone who came out to support the event and the cause and if you still have never experienced the Wild in the Streets event, make yourself a favour and try it next year, or even better, plan yours with your friends and the skateboard community in your region.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=121462447893184
http://www.push.ca/blogs/guest/archive/2010/06/21/montreal-gets-wild.aspx http://pegshot.com/event/1cce81de/eb7ia93e8/

Mathieu Boutin
LeBon Marketing