Stay ConnectedThe Ski Monster Podcast — conversations about skiing, ski gear, the ski industry, and the people behind it.
We sit down with athletes, founders, product designers, industry veterans, and other people who have helped shape skiing and snowboarding.
From how iconic skis and ski boots came to be, to the stories behind brands like LINE, Full Tilt, J Skis and more, we get into product development, gear, skiing, business, marketing, and the stories you usually don’t hear.
Hosted by The Ski Monster.
Copyright: © The Ski Monster 2022
We are joined in studio by our good friend and Tecnica/Blizzard sales rep Adam Sink to draft the best product names we've seen in our many many years in the ski industry.
We are joined in studio by Jonah Williams, who was in Boston to premiere his newly released project "Who is Sim." Jonah’s a pro skier out of Utah who started gaining recognition after winning Level 1’s Superunkown contest back in 2015. Since then, he's become known as one of the dopest and most well-rounded skiers in the game. From major film segments, to edits that broke the internet, to clips that take over the ski social media algorithm, he's been absolutely crushing it in front of the camera and there's proof of that everywhere. We talked to Jonah about his impressive resume, and shooting his newest project this past winter.
Eric, Garrett, Tate, and Joe sit down to draft and discuss the best spots for Après sessions.
We sat down for a phone call with Joe Johnson, the Alpine and Nordic marketing manager at Salomon. Joe starts off by telling us how he got from "Alta University" to the position he's in today. Joe gives his perspective on the past, present, and future state of skis, boots, and bindings at Salomon. The brand is a major player in all 3 hardgoods categories, so Joe has a lot to juggle.
We sat down for a phone call with Andrew Couperthwait, VP of Head Skis to talk about some of the current ongoings at Head/Tyrolia, some exciting stuff each company has on the way, and Coup tells us about some key factors that have contributed to maintaining the brand’s success. He tells us about some innovations happening on both the ski and binding side, and specifically explains the function of the Tyrolia Protector binding in a super digestible way.
We are joined in studio by Hunter Henderson for a dope conversation with the U.S. Freeski Team member, Red Bull athlete, and 2026 Winter Olympic hopeful among many other things. Hunter's originally an east coast guy, so we spent a lot of time talking to Hunter about growing up in NH, coming up as an east coast skier, and specific factors and experiences that set him up for a career as a professional skier. Hunter is only 20 years old and is absolutely crushing it right now. He's definitely someone you're gonna wanna keep your eye on over the next few years.
We are joined in studio by none other than Dan Egan. If you're not familiar with Dan, he's a pioneer of extreme skiing, starred in 13 Warren Miller films, and worked closely with Warren Miller Entertainment spanning from the late 80s to the early 2010s. This was a perfect time to talk to Dan because of a recent announcement that for the first time in 74 years, Warren Miller Entertainment will not be shooting a new film, and instead will be repurposing archival footage for their annual release. We get Dan's opinion on the current state of WME and some of the things that lead to where the company is at today. We also have some awesome back-and-forth about Dan's Boston routes, his epic career, and some of the wild experiences that have come along with it!
We are joined in studio by Ben Fresco, the Product Manager at Elan USA, to discuss the all-new Elan Playmaker series. The Playmaker 91 and Playmaker 101 are a series of freeride twin-tip skis that will be part of the 2023/2024 Elan Skis lineup, and we here at TSM couldn’t be more stoked. Fresco takes us through the production process from start to finish: From the vision to prototyping to the finished product.
We sat down in studio to discuss our top-tested skis for the upcoming 23/24 season. Testing is our life here at TSM. It’s how we get familiar with product, curate our inventory, and ultimately guide the end consumer in figuring out what makes the most sense for them. This past season, our staff notched around 30 total test days at over 25 resorts and got on next year’s product from just about every ski brand you can think of. It only felt appropriate to keep it internal for this conversation. George, Matt, and Joe from the TSM crew joined us for this one. They all took part in ton of testing this year and share different perspectives on what’s coming next season. Even though there isn’t too much changing in terms of new skis and new constructions, there’s still so much to talk about when it comes to ski testing.
We are joined in studio by Jason Roe and Valarie Kechian from Atomic to talk Atomic boots. Jason grew up in Canada and moved to Austria 20 years ago to start at Atomic and is now the Business Director of the Alpine Boots side of the brand. Valarie has been in the industry for about a decade and is now a Commercial Product Specialist at Atomic. We talked a little bit about the history of ski boots, what Atomic has going on at the ski boot development level, and of course, BOA (so hot right now).
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