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 Christian Avery, the North American Product manager at Blizzard-Tenica to discuss the all-new 23/24 Blizzard Rustler and Sheeva collection. The bulk of our conversation revolves around the new skis; Christian tells us about the development process from start to finish and the decision-making that goes into changing an established product. We also chopped it up about BOA ski boots if that's something you're into.
We are joined in studio by Tanner McCarty, the former team manager at Ride Snowboards. Tanner has been one of the most important behind-the-scenes guys in snowboarding for the better part of a decade, spending the majority of those years at Ride. We talk about how he went from working at Eastern Boarder when he might have been too young to work at Eastern Boarder, to playing a huge role at one of the biggest brands in snowboarding.
We headed up to the Marker/Dalbello/Volkl US headquarters to check out their DOPE new showroom space, get a sneak peek of their 2024 line-up, and record this pod. We sat down with Ivar Dahl, the National Sales Manager at MDV. We hear a bit about the Ivar origin story, some of the exciting stuff they have going on at MDV, and we discuss the current demands of the ski-buying market and what Volkl is doing to keep up with them.
For all podcast updates check out @theskimonster on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.
We sat down with Cyrus Schenck, founder of Renoun, a (mostly) ski brand based out of Burlington, VT. We chopped it up with Cyrus about his window-washing career, how that led to him launching Renoun, and what went into the revolutionary technology that goes into his skis. On top of all that the episode also features some interaction between the crew and an AI bot that might know more about skis than humans.
We are joined by Tom Monterosso a.k.a. T Bird. T Bird spent 13 years at Snowboarder Magazine where he made a name for himself covering some of snowboarding's most iconic stories for the publication. In recent years, T Bird has taken on different types of media-related projects than he had typically done for Snowboarder. He's announced some of the biggest events in snowboarding, and most recently was tasked with writing and directing a documentary called “Rough Around the Edges: 30 years of Ride Snowboards," which will be available on Youtube in the coming months.
We are joined by Jim Ryan, who dropped by the studio during his trip to Boston for the premiere of the new Teton Gravity Research movie, Magic Hour. After Jim blows our minds with a story about a recent ski trip he took in which he found himself bushwhacking through the Chilean jungle with cowboys and horses, we talk to Jim about his massive 2022 season. He spent the year crafting an epic segment for the new TGR movie in which he scoped out, hiked, and ripped on some of Grand Teton National Park's highest peaks.
We are joined in studio by Madison Rose Ostergren who was in Boston with Warren Miller Entertainment premiering their 2022 movie, Daymaker. Madison is a pro skier out of Jackson Hole and has spent the last few seasons emerging onto the scene taking part in a number of badass film projects. Madison gives us some background on how being a ski racer from the midwest turned into landing a two page spread in a ski magazine and ultimately launched her professional ski career to where it’s at today.
We traveled up to Burlington, Vermont, and sat down with Jason Levinthal in his new Intergalactic Headquarters. We get into his early days starting the first company to bring twin tip skis to market, some of the groundbreaking products he introduced with Line Skis, to being bought by K2 Sports and handed the responsibility of creating the Full Tilt boot brand on top of continuing Line, and how that all lead to where he’s at today with J Skis.
We sat down with Kyle Smaine on a video call from the house that he sort of owns in Lake Tahoe. We talk to the former halfpipe world champ about what he's been up to since leaving the competition scene roughly 5 years ago. Kyle talks about how his relationship with his long-time sponsor, Fischer Skis has progressed from just an athlete-brand relationship into a much more involved role on the product development side of things.
We sat down with Neil Soucy, the snowboard buyer here at TSM, to discuss some of the differences that we’re seeing between the ski industry and the snowboard industry right now. We talk about some of the things we see on both sides of the business and compare how they’re done in skiing vs. how they’re done in snowboarding. As a snowboard buyer, Neil provides a strong perspective on what he thinks the snowboard side of the business is doing well and where he thinks things could be done better.
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
