QUEEN'S CUP: DARING AND SCHWAG
The Queens Cup Open was such a big deal that snow-packed Park City, Utah, closed down part of Main Street to allow the Cup to hold a rail jam. The two-day contest, in its third year at Park City Mountain Resort, allowed female skiers and snowboarder to compete together in slopestyle and halfpipe.
It showed two things: there's a lot of support for women's freeriding; and, Anna Demasi knows how to get things done.
Demasi, 24, is one of very few---perhaps the only---non-corporate female organizer of a sports event. But corporations piled on. Every participant left with armfuls of schwag; from helmets to moonboots and more; winners got gear and checks for $1,000. She started the contest when she was out riding with some friends, and they all thought how great it would be "to get the community together and have everyone all in one place at one time. And it turned into the Queens Cup."
"It's so much work, year round. About six months straight, I spend all my spare time sending emails and making phone calls. It's so much work, but so, so much fun," says Anna, who is a photographer, and well on her way to turning the Queens Cup Open into a big time contest.
Boxes of goodies lined one end of the room, as competitors moved along as if it were a schwag cafeteria. Girls were taking off their new knit hats to try on their new Bern helmets. Everyone got some kind of Skull Candy earphones, a DaKine ski or snowboard bag, a package of Paul Mitchell hair and body products, a cool tee-shirt and various other kinds of prizes. Some asked for the boxes so they could carry out their armfuls of goodies.
Kim Sharp, 18, won skier's halfpipe for the second year in a row. After the awards, she stood with her new moon boots in one hand and a check for $1,000 in the other, saying "I'm going to use the money to pay for my ski season."
Becca Babbitz won the same bucks for the best trick of the day, a back flip. She also got a car audio system from Kicker, a Skull Candy watch, and a pair of Roxy Broomstick skis. She said, "A lot of girls who wanted to be here went to Japan (the Nippon Open) or the North American Open (at Breckinridge). I wanted to come here because I had such an awesome time last year. This is such a cool event, it's really good for women's skiing."
Paula Mitchell won the snowboard halfpipe for an unbelievable reason: she was the only one who showed up to compete. "This is probably the best contest I've ever been in," said Mitchell, who is a snowboard instructor at PCMR. Even though, as the only competitor, she was not given the thou, she said of her new board and other prizes, "I've cleaned up!
One other thing for others who, like Anna Demasi, may wish to organize a contest to have their community gather together for a fun comp. "They can get in touch with me," she said. "If someone wants to get an event off the ground and needs help or had questions, I'd be glad to help."