The Boston Ski Party

Garrett and Joe are in studio to recap some big business (ski testing) they've done over the past few weeks. This conversation focuses mainly on specialized frontside skis along with narrow all-mountain skis. These skis can be difficult to place and rank just by reading about them, so we hope this conversation can clarify some things!

Garrett and Joe sit down to go over some new or updated thoughts on product they have tested for next season!

After a quick hiatus, Garrett is back with a solo episode folks! He talks about skiing in Vermont this past weekend, products he's tested, and goes through some industry news. He also mentions the Ski Monster Fest Demo Day, which you can find more info on at the link below: https://bssc.com/events/ski-snowboard-demo-day/?mc_cid=d40f0b9486&mc_eid=bc18436a6c

Joe takes us through his big weekend at Killington! He spent a couple of days skiing on next year's product so we dive into his thoughts on how each one skied. What could be better?

Joe and Garrett do a not-so-deep dive into some more gear we've seen for the 2025/2026 season. Double BOA, other new boots, new skis - plenty to be hyped on.

Garrett sat down with George to discuss the new Armada AR One ski boot and some other new ski boots we have on the way.

We were unable to record a new podcast this week so here is a bonus episode...One of the most popular lineup of skis of the last decade gets rebuilt from the ground up. The 2025 Nordica Enforcers and Santa Ana just got even better! We sat down with Product Mangers, Florian Seer and Ethan Korpi to discuss what changed and why with the new collection of Nordica Enforcers and Santa Anas for 2025.Video: https://youtu.be/m_ID2yVPOF0?si=nvDvx13JIsTycFHz@thebostonskiparty on Instagram

Colter Hinchliffe stopped by to chat about developing the next generation of the Volkl Revolt series, his 10+ year run skiing in TGR movies, and more.

We welcome Hunter back to the studio this time with his sister Grace, another rising star on the U.S. Freeski team. Grace and Hunter were back east visiting family and getting some training days at their home mountain of Waterville Valley, which currently has one of the most impressive early-season parks we've ever seen.

Caite Zeliff grew up in New Hampshire's White Mountains, where she fell in love with skiing through racing. Eventually, she moved to Jackson, Wyoming, to chase the big mountain skiing dream—and she achieved it. With back-to-back Queen of Corbet's titles and segments with top-tier ski production companies, her career has been filled with huge milestones.This past spring while filming in Alaska, Caite took two hard falls that changed her life. What seemed like a “normal concussion” turned out to be much more serious. As her symptoms persisted and intensified, Caite sought medical help, uncovering the extent of the damage to her brain and nervous system. Now, she's focused on a full recovery, diving deep into understanding her body and mind.

Garrett sits down with George and Joe to discuss some of the buyers' guides and reviews we've seen this fall. We shout out a couple of outlets we think are doing great jobs with their gear reviews and dissect some flaws we see far too consistently across the rest. The goal of this episode isn't to go scorched earth on these media outlets, it's to address the problems with most of the ski industry's approach to reviewing ski gear and to present our case as to why there needs to be more effort put toward improving these reviews.

Drew Petersen is a ripping skier who has spent the past few years of his life defining himself beyond the sport. He's used films, public speaking, and social media to shine a light on important conversations regarding mental health and our approach to the issue within our winter sports community, and as a society as a whole. Drew's recent project, "Feel it All" expands on these ideas and gives insight to his perspective and experience dealing with his personal mental health challenges and how they are intertwined with his two biggest passions, skiing and ultrarunning. Drew stopped by The Ski Monster when he was in town for the Salomon QST Film Tour to chat with Garrett, mainly about the film and what drives him to do projects like this.

Introducing our first bonus episode to the feed... The Ski Monster's George and Matt sat down with product manager Ben Fresco and president/CEO Jeff Mechura to make a video discussing the reconstructed Elan Ripstick series. Here is the audio from that conversation for those who prefer listening!

Marcus Goguen is one of the fastest rising stars in big mountain skiing. At 20 years old he's already shot multiple major film segments and collected a gold medal on the freeride world tour. His resume is already impressive and he's just getting started. Follow The Boston Ski Party: www.instagram.com/thebostonskipartyVisit The Ski Monster: https://theskimonster.com/

Peter "Peru" Chrzanowski is a renowned extreme skier and filmmaker who has been pushing the boundaries of skiing since the 1970s. In his recent memoir, "I Survived Myself" Peter details his life from the beginning, telling stories of wild adventures, mishaps, milestones, and formative events that turned him into the person he is today.Buy Peter's book: https://a.co/d/34YE57pFollow The Boston Ski Party: www.instagram.com/thebostonskipartyVisit The Ski Monster: https://theskimonster.com/

Ski season is just around the corner, ski reviews are dropping, buyer's guides are hitting the shelves, and the mountains out west are already seeing their first snowfalls—we're STOKED! Garrett and Joe sit down to chat about all the hype in the skiing world over the past few weeks and what's coming up in the months ahead. Fall is an exciting time for skiers. Winter's not quite here yet, but we can feel it!

Garrett and Joe dive into the questions you've been asking on our YouTube channel and social media pages! We hope this new format can help clear up some misconceptions or confusion about skis and boots that might be out there.Keep an eye out for consistent episodes through this winter and beyond! Give us a follow on our new Instagram page @thebostonskiparty to stay in the loop.

The Boston Ski Party is back! In our first episode for the 24/25 season, we dive into the collection of new ski models coming at us for the upcoming winter. This could be the most exciting year for new skis of all time, so we had plenty to discuss. Listen now for an overview of what's coming in hot! Keep an eye out for consistent episodes through this winter and beyond! Give us a follow on our new Instagram page @thebostonskiparty to stay in the loop.

We're joined in studio by Tom Ritsch during his stop in Boston with the TGR team to premiere their 2023 film. Tom is an Austrian-born freeskier who unexpectedly got the call to shoot with TGR last March. This was Tom's first time shooting with TGR and he took full advantage of the opportunity and ended up playing a huge role in a banger heli-skiing segment in the new movie. Support the show by using promo code bostonskiparty for 15% off store-wide at https://theskimonster.com/Follow our socials at: https://www.instagram.com/theskimonster/https://x.com/TheSkiMonster?s=20

We are joined in studio by Jonathan Ellsworth, founder of Blister Review. Blister is one of the most popular and well-respected outlets for gear reviews in the world of winter sports. Since Jonathan is the man behind the vision it only makes sense that most of our conversation was centered in gear review talk.https://theskimonster.com/https://www.instagram.com/theskimonster/https://x.com/TheSkiMonster?s=20

We are joined in studio by Salomon athletes Stan Rey, Alexi Godbout, and Josh Daiek on their stop in Boston for the QST Film Tour. We covered a wide range of topics from how these three became pro skiers, pivotal moments in their careers, to what it was like working on their recent projects last winter. https://theskimonster.com/https://www.instagram.com/theskimonster/https://x.com/TheSkiMonster?s=20

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 gained recognition 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).

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.

We sat down with Ben Fresco, the Marketing and Product Manager at Elan Skis USA. We get into Ben's ski industry background, starting off with stories of selling gear to Geraldo Rivera and MLB umpires in Lake Tahoe, to eventually moving back east to get started at Elan. We talk about the rampant success the Elan brand has seen in recent years, specifically in the free ride category with the Ripstick Series. Eric and George recently joined Ben and some members of the Elan team on a trip to their factory right outside Bled, Slovenia, so they were really stoked to be able to recap the trip. The boys discussed their round of golf, Slovenian cowboy parties, and most importantly, the biggest takeaways from seeing Elan's production process.

For the 10th episode of the Boston Ski Party, we have a very special episode for you. The Ski Monster cofounders George and Eric sit down to give you the full, unfiltered TSM origin story. Starting from their days as ambitious college kids with an idea to start a ski retail site, all the way through the insane twists and turns it's taken to get TSM to where it's at today. There has been no shortage of roadblocks and wild stories over the years, so sit back and enjoy the show.

We sat down with Justin Heanue, the National Sales Manager of Blizzard Tecnica USA. We started it off by catching up with Justin and discussing the last time he was in Boston, when he and the Tec/Bliz team joined the TSM crew for an afternoon at America's most beloved ballpark (Fenway). We then got into how Justin got started in the ski industry and he explained some of the steps he had to take before finding himself in the role he's in today. Heanue then discussed his current role at Tec/Bliz, while getting into some of the differences between his day-to-day on the ski side with Blizzard, and the boot side with Tecnica. We ended the episode with a massive revelation in regard to the pronunciation of our guest's last name.

We sat down again with Ethan Korpi, the North American Product Manager of Nordica. Korpi joined us again in studio as our first repeat guest here on the BSP. We picked up where we left off in our last conversation talking about our European adventure with Nordica, but this time focused more on the boots side of production. We get into all things ski boots and end up discussing the new 5th generation Doberman Boot, which you only know about if you listened to the last episode with Korpi, because Eric accidentally leaked it. We go into detail on Nordica's boot production and testing facility, and talk about some of the structural dynamics of the Tecnica Group's ownership. George also joined in on the conversation to pick Korpi's brain in regards to his extensive boot Knowledge.

We sat down with Josh Malczyk, Brand Director at Season Eqpt. Josh started in the industry with Line and Full Tilt back in 2007, and would eventually become the global brand director for the freeski giant. At Line and Full Tilt, he oversaw some of the sickest products, projects, and teams the sport's ever seen. In early 2020, Josh linked up with ski icon Eric Pollard and pro snowboarder Austin Smith to start a new ski and snowboard brand, Season Eqpt. Season is built from the idea that buying and owning skis and snowboards needs to be simplified, and the life of hardgoods should be longer, with the aim of making the sport more sustainable, and accessible. We talked with Josh about everything that's going on at Season, and how they plan to hold on to these core values but also run a successful business. We also got into what it's like doing something totally new in contrast to what he'd been doing for so long at Line and Full Tilt.

We sat down with Damian Quiqley, publisher of FREESKIER Magazine. Damian started at the magazine 10 years ago and over that time has cemented a key role at the iconic publication. Our conversation with Damian is centered around the strategies being used at Freeskier to adapt and stay ahead. Damian shares some insight on how vital it's been to build such a strong brand identity beyond just the magazine through avenues like digital content along with some of the best events in the business.

We sat down with Ethan Korpi, the North America Product Manager at Nordica. Korpi tells us a bit about his background in the industry and how he ended up working for the iconic Austrian ski brand. We discuss his rise through the company to eventually develop some of the badass products that make the Nordica brand what it is today. This past May Eric, George, and Matt were lucky enough to join Ethan on a trip to the Nordica motherland in Mittersill, Austria. The boys discuss their trip and the biggest takeaways from seeing the production process from start to finish.

We sat down with Devon and Tate from the soft goods team here at the store and talked about what it's like being on that side of the industry. Devon told us her story and how she went from being a brand rep to working with the dudes here at TSM on the retail side of things, and then to eventually bringing Tate on board to join forces with her. The Lady Monsters™ give us some insight into outerwear and accessories world, and how they manage to keep their finger on the pulse with what's hot and what's not. They also touched on their most recent trip to NYC, where they were wined and dined by the "boujee brands."

We sat down and had an awesome talk with Sierra Shafer, former editor-in-chief at Powder Magazine, and current editor-in-chief at Ski Magazine. Eric, George, and Sierra looked back on some epic Powder Weeks weeks, and dive into Sierra's transition going from the end of Powder to almost immediately taking on the editor role at Ski Magazine, another major pillar in the ski media landscape. We get into some of the changes going on at Ski Magazine as well.

We sat down to chop it up with industry legend Matt Sterbenz. We get into his mindset behind launching 4FRNT and the journey that the company would take over the next 15 years. Sterbenz tells some awesome stories about the days of being both an athlete and a young entrepreneur at the same time. In 2017, 4FRNT sold to Jay Levinthal and Sterbenz started WNDR Alpine. We wrapped up the episode by getting into all the cool stuff that he's got going on at WNDR and beyond.