Top 10 Collegiate Nationals Moments

The CRB is happy to announce a new member to the CRB staff, please welcome LifeJacket. LifeJacket, like fellow garmet named Blanket, will provide waterski insight, humor, and flotation. Grab a paddle you son of a bitch and get paddling!

You read the title and think to yourself, “Why the hell is a nationals blog post coming out a week after the thing went down? This is the internet age damnit, a spoiler should have been out last Wednesday!” I’ll tell you the reason, and it begins with this: calling collegiate nationals a three day tournament is a gross injustice. Not only do you have a day of travel on either end, but more importantly, the three day measure doesn’t take into account the post-nationals hangover. After about ninety hours of continuous partying, cheering, and skiing your brains out, it’s a brutal trip back to reality. And so, now that I’ve come out of my own five day coma, I bring you my Top 10 Kick Ass Moments of this year’s Big Show.

10. No Rain

If you’re wondering why the weather made it on my Top 10, you’re not from the west and have never seen the mud hole Ironwood becomes with the help of an inch of rain and 300 spectators. Besides, warm weather = hot girls showing skin. You win California, you win.

True Life: He's a collegiate water skier NOT a professional driver.

9. Free Sunglasses

Sponsors are always a good thing, but this year Hobie Sunglasses got a little excessive in their support of collegiate water skiing. Anyone planning on buying sunglasses at the lake quickly realized they should actually just wait around until they won the model of their choosing. These shades are, however, extremely sick, and deals are available online through next August for any skiers who didn’t snag a pair.

8. Webcast and Announcers

I would have gotten a better idea how the tournament actually went if I had watched the webcast. Instead, I kept myself busy by checking out good looking girls who are better skiers than I’ll ever be. I’m happy with my decision, but nonetheless it was pretty cool having Tadd and Jon Bice on site to keep us entertained between sets.

7. McFlippy Spins

Whoever said trick skiing is dead hasn’t seen guys like Adam Sedlmajer or Storm Selsor on the water. These guys go upside down like it’s their job. Who needs a tower to go big? Or a wake for that matter…

6. ULM’s Sunday Funday Practice

Direct quote from Cal Poly Ski Team President Greg Olsen: “The best thing that ever happened to Cal Poly’s team boat? ULM.” Since training behind ’05 Perfect Pass is only so helpful to the crew headed to worlds this weekend, they decided to play it safe and trick. Take Bad Ass Moment # 7 and add a jump ramp. Enough said.

5. Official’s Dinner

Not only did the officials at Nationals run the tournament like a dialed in promo boat, but this crew knew how to party. This particular gathering took place at Lamont’s own El Pueblo, a near-mandatory stop for local skiers in the area. I haven’t developed pictures just yet from the sangria waterfalls, but I’ll tell you that the Western appointed judges just managed to edge out the East for the record times of the night.

4. Club Odyssey

Sketchy club in a nice hotel in Bako? Check. I don’t recommend this place on your average Friday night, but next time Collegiate Nationals comes to town? Be there.

This guys had such a good time at Club Odyssey, he didn't need a hotel room.

3. Stinne v. Clem

Although the NCWSA doesn’t technically require (or recognize the outcome of) a jump off in the event of a tie, no one really wants to see a shared podium. And so, the guys in charge made the excellent call to see the girls fly again, giving them a two-jump chance to win the crown. Clementine Lucine managed to take it in the end, dropping a huge 151 footer to Stinne Soendergaard’s already impressive 135 foot jump (Stinne and Clem tied in the official event with 146 feet).

2. University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Call On Me Rendition

There’s no doubt Chico State deserved the spirit award, but Madison came damn close to swooping in when they jogged in unison to the far side of the jump lake in matching speedos and bikinis to give the crowd a show. Whether or not everyone in the audience had seen Eric Prydz’ music video to the song “Call On Me,” no one was bored.

1. D1 Men’s Jump Goes Off

What was the difference between the finals of the men’s and women’s jumping events? Anticipation. Although the women’s showdown was exciting, Clem’s victory on her first jump was a bit of a let down. After ULL’s Claudio Kostenberger booted a huge 178 ft leap to push him into the lead, the crowd was electric as only one more skier stood on the dock poised to take away the title. His initial jump of 181 was enough to do the job, but a hot boat time voided the score for freshman Zack Worden. The next two jumps left ULM’s top seed looking mortal and fallible as the boat crew swung him into the dock, forgetting his mandatory re-ride. With scores of 172 and 161, Worden had moved into second place but was still six feet short of Kostenberger. Finally coming back down the lake, Worden’s way-past-late cut into the ramp told the story. When a distance of 184 feet came over the radio, the crowd blew up, and ULM’s whole team tackled their skier into the water. There were plenty of great moments throughout the tournament, but only this one could cap off such an epic weekend.

And now, back to Halloween and mid-afternoon drinking...

Its Halloween Weekend

I don't like Halloween. Even though its an excuse to dress silly / slutty and go get bombed, the novelty of Halloween went away a number of years ago and we don't seem to enjoy the process so much anymore.

"Oh, what are you going to be for Halloween this year? I am going to be a cute nurse!"

ugh. Pretty sure at this years CRB Halloween bash-a-rama, being held at an irish pub down the street from our headquarters, we are all going to go dressed as jaded yuppie scum.

It will be something that no one has seen before. Oh, sure, there will be people in interesting outfits, even things that make us go, "well, i will be damned, that's cool, why didn't I think of putting on a wedge hair-cut wig and carrying around a bunch of kids and acting like a bitch all while dragging around a fat, smoking loser and be Jon and Kate plus 8?"

Because we aren't that creative.

Its not even that we are old, we are all perfectly in the gold mine target demographic that all advertisers shoot for, with disposable income (thanks google ad-sense!!), hip sensibilities (thanks internets) and raging alcoholism (thanks jack daniels!).

Its that its really hard to come up with a costume that you are happy with and not just something you threw together at the last minute because you want to go out and get your drink on but, also don't want to look foolish because you are the only person there not dressed at someone from Twilight.

That Robert Pattinson is so dreamy.

No, Halloween is a damn hassle, Look I wanna go out and have a good time and am not smart enough to think of a costume! QUIT PUTTING ROAD BLOCKS IN FRONT OF MY DRINKING!!

Nope, no more of that foolishness this year, besides, we dress up everyday and pretend to be people we're not, ODBF dresses up every single day and pretends to be a responsible member of society and we all know that isn't true!

The only way to combat this issue is to take it to its logical extreme and that is totally going all method actor on your ass. Like Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull or Sasha Grey in No Swallowing Allowed 13. She really nailed her part. tee hee.

So, this year we are going as waterskiers! Method waterski acting!

/barefoot jumps 200 feet, backwards

Slap on the rash guard and vest, and ski all day.

/runs 41 off in jorts

See, jokes on you guys! You are just playing a role, and we are actually living it out! Suckers!

/nails whirlybird

We just won the costume contest that you weren't even playing! SUCK ON THAT!

Have a great weekend.

/jumps in van
/hands out candy

Lake Trout Carry Out - early edition

Lake Trout Carry Out is what we are currently calling the random link heap/dump/thing/whatever.

Do NOT anger the Bearsharktopus!

• The biggest event of the NCWSA season was this past weekend. And John Horton from BOS sold all his pics to the boys at Water Ski Mag who posted them along with the scores.
  

• Speaking of Nationals, this wonderfully* written piece was posted by The News-Star about the cats from Monroe rocking the house once again.

*written by a 6 year old

• And speaking of Water Ski Mag's new site, which I must say is a huge improvement over their old one. However, it looks suspiciously similar to Alliance wakeboards site. If they grabbed the code and copied it completely they certainly did a better job then I did in 7th grade on that English test. (gotta remember not to copy the name as well!!)
  

• Its football season and so here is an amazing behind the back pass for a two point conversion. Whats that you say? Not waterski relevant? Whatever man. I'm high.
  

• SI.com has thrown some love a wakeboarders way. We would not mind throwing a little love a different wakeboarders way...

• Wake Skate company SlingShot Sports is getting some praise for their use of online social communities to help develop products. cool stuff.

• NBC Universal sports continues its coverage of the IWSF world cup. And here is the main page for skiing on NBC Universals site. It seems that alot of people give the IWSF guff for setting tournaments in crazy places around the world...well ok some of them are kinda odd...but its gotta be a great experience for the skiers to travel to exotic places and what not. Just remember not to drink the water...

• Nautique announced today that the 51st Masters will be held May 28th-30th in 2010. This year maybe the CRB crew will actually make it...we tried this year but got distracted by the Champagne of beers.

• Good reason not to add your parents as friends on facebook. and another.

• Well done website/blog for the US showski team that has just arrived in China for the "Sino-American Water-Ski Performances". The Chinese have been making a go at building show skiing in their country. So appereantly people show ski out side of the midwest. Ill be damned.

Have a kick ass Thursday? Screw it, its the weekend now anyways. Just go by college rules and go party. Here is a pic that Horton posted on the Twitterverse. You know, a little something for the dudes. Ladies? were on the lookout for some beefcake for you too!! Were good like that.

Feel good story of the day

Yep, that is pretty impressive.

Maybe it was just thirsty?

One of the cheap thrills in life is to hang out at a boat launch and watch people launch their boats. Actually, its more funny to watch people take them out. Not that we haven't made some of the same mistakes and got equally as frustrated and mad, so, we aren't tempting the karma gods by saying, "HAHAHAHA".

So, that got us cruising around the tubes looking at pictures and videos of boat launches, now, take our word for it, you will not find a better way to waste your employers bandwidth and get absolutly nothing done then by firing up your youtube box and searching for "boat launch", then just let youtube take you on a mystical journey.

Its something that should be experianced at least three or four times a day. Like your mom! ZING!

Here is a little primer.

1) Simple time lapse photography of a boat launch in California. Its a freaking Zoo. Makes us want to grab a 12 pack and just watch.



2) The thirsty Ford, now there are a number of videos of people dumping their trucks into the lake, but, this one is awesome, as it A. Went in truck first, not trailer first, and B. Its a truck that is property of a Yacht Club, you would think they knew what they were doing.



So Good. Could watch this stuff all day.

/looks around for boss
/puts hand down pants
/smiles

Its a great Tuesday

Why would we do a nationals recap when we have bad ass vids?

Someone should have explained to Alex Parides that College waterski tournaments are three event tournys not show skiing. But this is one hell of a big heli.

GO BIG OR GO HOME!



They say handle pass helis are tough...

And for your actually competitive jump sets here is the runoff for first place in the D-1 womens jump event.



I still have to say that Alex's jump would have been the coolest of the weekend.

***A real recap is on its way***

ULM and UWM Win

If you were one of the lames and didn't watch at least a bit of the NCWSA webcast this past weekend, the Nationals, well...then the this wouldn't make any sense, but, as it is, University of Louisiana of Monroe and the University of Wisconsin Madison won their respective divisions in the collegiate national championships.

/run on sentence

We will have more on this as the day goes on, but, be that as it may, congrats to both teams and to all those who made it there.

NCWSA nats webcast recap

If you watched the webcast yesterday you heard Tadd and the crew announcing some awsome skiing, you also saw the side of a boat house and then the worlds slowest slide show. This worked great for us at the CRB world headquarters as we dont really like having to look at things...it strains our eyes. This is certainly a step forward for the NCWSA and hopefully it will lead to a full webcast with a pro crew next year, but this year Tadd, Surdej, Kodiak and crew are doing us all a great service. It was kinda like listening to a radio broadcast, and Tadd did a good job of making sure we all knew what was going on. The broadcast along with the NCWSA Twitter page going crazy was a good way to keep up with all the action in Bakersfield.

On to the action

D-2 womens jump

The ladies of Western Washington University showed that you dont need huge scores just solid consistant skiing to take events in D-2. With 4 girls placing in the top ten and all 5 girls landing their jumps WWU took the early lead for the team title with Cal Poly, Texas State and UW Madison rounding out the top 4. The Vikings should be so proud.

D-2 mens jump

Tyler Lorenz was out to redem the Badgers of UW Madison and booted a big one at 152 feet, 25 feet further then second place. Led by Tyler the Badgers took the mens jump title followed by Cincinatti, Kansas and the vikings of Western Washington.

D-2 end of day one

Western Washington is in the lead at the end of day one with a 400 point lead over UW Madison. The Badgers, who were ranked 5th in the nation but missed out on D-1 nationals after a poor showing at their regionals were expected to run away with the D-2 crown, but better step it up as they have the solid skiers of Texas State right on their heels.

On to the big dogs

D-1 womens slalom

As expected the D-1 womens slalom competion was fierce with 16 girls getting into 32 off or better. ULM just slipped ahead of the resurgant Rollins college women, with the upstart Alabama team right on their heels. FSC put two girls in the top 5 but they are a good example of how a couple stars can not hold up a team on their own as the team placed a distant 7th.

D-1 mens slalom

Going into the mens slalom event ULM held a small lead on the competion...that is no longer small. The warhawks came with the quickness and thru 3 guys thru the 38 off pass (and one just a 1/2 buoy shy of running it) to grab the top 4 spots and a solid 1st place finish. ULL who many have written off this year came back strong to grab the second place spot with ASU and FSC rounding out the top 4.

D-1 end of day one

While Western Washington ran up a solid 400 point lead in D-2 that will take some solid skiing to top, ULM brought the thunder in D-1 and ran up a giant lead of 700 points. As we stated in a previous post if anyone else had a shot at winning this ULM was going to have to stumble badly in an event, well dont look for that stumble to be in slalom. As long as they show up for the rest of the events they should walk away with the win. This tournament has become a competion for the second spot on the podium.

And holding that second spot right now is ASU, who many did not give a chance against the solid skiing of Alabama. ULL will not be forgotten either currently sitting in fourth place. FSC, who in years past had been gunning for the top spots, currently sits in 5th with the solid overall skiing of Cal state chico and the stong womens team of Rollins college on their heals.

But stop reading this and get over to NCWSA.com to watch the second day unfold.

NCWSA Nationals live *update*

So starting in about 9 mins the NCWSA Nationals will go live on a webcast that can be seen here. This will be the second nationals that have been webcast this year. (showski was first)

Loyal CRB reader Cris Kodiak informed us that there will be a camara facing the announcers and one facing the lake. Does not sound like a high end professional job, but you know what? shut up and watch, this is a big step. And if it goes well maybe next year they will be able to get some ads and what not and get a full on webcast rolling for this. Freaking sweet if you ask me.

*update*

looks like they are having issues with the webcast but you can follow all the action on the NCWSA twitter account.

Twitter: twitter.com/ncwsa

On topic flipping *Update*

So a little while ago we mentioned that Geno Yauchler was going to make an attempt at the record for most consecutive flips on a hydrofoil, and he did it.

Bill Von Zabern set the unofficial record on Nov. 3rd 2008 with 711 flips (official record was 529 by Greg Gill). Geno smashed both the official and unofficial flip records with 826 flips in one hour on his hydrofoil.

Ok so that is one flip every 4.34 seconds for a full hour...ugh
/gets dizzy
/falls down

*Update*

Missed this the other day, but, waterski mag has a vid of it and some more pics. Good stuff. LINKY

*Sexy Update*

off topic flipping

Ok so this guy has crazy air awarness.



Just waiting for him to jack his head on one of those ledges. Or pick up freestyle jumping or wakeboarding. Guy with that kinda flipping skills? woot to that

You're Arm is Weird

The picture on the right is from some German arm-rassling dude,Matthas Schlitte, who has a freakeshly large right arm.

Its weird. Seriously, check out the article about him. Linky

We have like a million self-gratifying jokes about this, but, we won't use em...suffice to say...he can probably get to heaven in about two seconds.

This got us thinking about various other sports and the type of body that accompanies the specific athlete within that sport.

Take for instance a pro-tennis player, if you are right-handed, wouldn't you naturally have a much stronger right-hand / right-arm then your left? Your forehand is done exclusivly with your right hand and your back hand is only occasionally using your left arm?

Or, a baseball player. Think of someone like Albert Pujols, a right-handed hitter, wouldn't he use specific muscles to swing from the right side? I don't know 100% what each muscle is, but, think of a baseball swing, your left shoulder and right bicep/chest muscle do most of the work right?

Football is to complicated as there are a zillion different positions, so, its void in this case.

I suppose hockey, football and maybe track and field would require you to have an overall physique that didn't favor one or another muscle group. Does that sound about right?

A whole bunch of years ago I remember reading something about Sammy Duvall in which his chiropractor stated that he/she had never had someone with such a symmetrical body, meaning, the left and right side of his body were so similar. This reduced his chance for injury (probably because being a bad-ass is quite the aerobic work out).

I cant fit in a wetsuit :(

Maybe we are just blowing smoke because waterskiing rules, but, can you think of another sport that requires every muscle in your body to be more in tune with what you are doing then waterskiing?

You have to have strong legs, a strong core and strong arms. Not necessarily muscle builder dimensions because then you wouldn't have any flexibility, but, more like a decathlete type?

And its both guys and girls (duh) and that makes for the best looking athletes anyways right?

There is no discipline of waterskiing that allows you to slack on any aspect of your overall body conditioning is there? Wakeboard? no. Jump? no. Slalom? no. Kneeboard? maybe. Showski? no. Barefoot? no.

Nothing. This is a sport that requires you to be at the top of your REAL physical condition to be good. Its similar to why race cars look cool.

For those of you who don't subscribe to Adam Carrola's Car Cast, you should, he had a neat point the other day about how race trimmed cars are cooler then their street counterparts because all the shit that is on the car is functional and the function equals form which equals bad-ass.

Think of it this way, you know all the dorks who jam themselves into gyms so their arms are huge and wear Ed Hardy shit to the bar and think they are cool? me either. they suck.

But functional form is rad. Its the same as visual horsepower on a ricer car. its stupid. Crap stapled on a car to try and make it look cool when in reality it sucks.

Point being, everyone wants to look rad with their clothes off and thankfully waterskiing is a sport that does that for you by accident.

Its foolish to think that we aren't all at least a bit egotistical and work our ass off to get better on the water but don't appreciate what that work translates to off the water. no?


For the guys, think of someone like Gina Cerrano, she is sexy as hell but a MMA fighter, she is put together in a way that makes her good at what she does and the sexy translates to the various websites and magazines that we all know her from.

To wrap it up. You won't find a waterskier type winning any sort of body building thing, nor will you see them as a model in a magazine, but, at the end of the day, when at a tournament or ski event of some kind, have you been around a better looking group of people?

Nope.

and thats why waterskiing rules. Carry on.

Lake Trout Carry Out - Now With More Dug

Lake Trout Carry Out is what we are currently calling the random link heap/dump/thing/whatever.

Hey, its Dig Dug, ODBF is working or sleeping or drinking so I am going to handle this weekends LTCO.

• Who knew Jesus Waterskiied? Not me, but, thankfully the Sports Pickle is on the case. (Sports Pickle)
  

"For the 1989th consecutive year, Jesus H. Christ of Bethlehem dominated the field at the World Barefoot Waterskiing Championships, held annually in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Christ swept all eight events, earning gold medals in all racing and freestyle categories."

• Field Set for Collegiate Nationals. Michigan got in from a cool little wild-card play in thing. Hard to explain unless you saw it live or have better expository skills then I do. (USA Waterski) & (NCWSA)
  

• Speaking of USA Waterski, they threw the CRB some love and included our fatboy as a "Uncle Sam" poster, which was then followed up with an LL Cool Novakawski penned poster that blew our fatboy out of the water. :( (USA Waterski)
  
  
• Whitney McClintock, who was investigated righteously by our sub loving news team and Geraldo (IN YOUR FACE) got a nifty write up in her college newspaper. She attends UCF, which I can attest is a pretty nice place to be. (UCF)
  
  
• There was a little tournament held at the USA Waterski head quarters a few days ago, or a week ago, or whenever, whatever, it was a little single-wake jump competition and you will be amazed at who won it. Really, you will. No, not really. (Nightmare)
  
  
• That balloon boy shit was a ploy for attention. No way. My socks are completely off my feet, having been knocked that way by my surprise. (youtube)

Have a great weekend, its almost Halloween, which is almost the greatest holiday of all-time. Its an excuse to drink and for girls to dress slutty. Fantastic. Have a beer. Why not, its the freaking weekend baby gonna have me some fun. (*falls through table*)

Crash round 2

I normally keep my skis on while in the air. But of course that has something to do with the fact that I am normally thinking "god i suck as a jumper" as I fly a huge 43 feet thru the air.

GO BIG OR GO HOME!

Crash like you mean it

Brad and the Ski HD kids are at it again. This time with plenty of death and destruction...or maybe not...but plenty of hella wicked crashes. And who doesn't like a good out the front?

um...ME!



Thanks for the heads up Brad!

off topic awsomeness

Just another reason why almost every other country in the world has better TV shows and commercials then the U.S.



/goes to Nandos...

WTF is Nandos?

ODBF is dumb and ULM on a ESPN

ESPN did a short intro about the ULM ski team after a commercial break.



Damn it man, dont run into your own endzone with the ball!

170' on a single

Wow Freddy can really get on it. At the Fluid Sports Splash Eye Rocketman tournament on Lake Grew he booted a 170' single cut to take home the big check. Pretty cool sounding event, 4 jumps each round (3 for regular scoring and a 4th single cut jump) and tricks. Some solid scores put up, but if you want to see those then go here. Hope to see alot more events like this out of Scot and Kiwi.

21 teams in 1 to go

Oh how the excitment is building... only a few short weeks and then CRAZY ACTION HITS THE WATER...

The Cubs will make the playoffs...

wait...WTF? DIG DUG! Get off my 'Puter!! and seriously what does that pic have to do with waterskiing or event the fact that the cubs can throw a solid team out the window year after year like it was their plan from the begining?

Well the nationals field is almost complete, already have the top 5 from each region giving us 20 teams, plus the first wild card team is in as well. Now the last team will find out its fate! and this email from Cris Kodiak will explain it to you all.

Dig Dug, ODBF, Minion, Rowboat Abides, Nola, Geno Yauchler, and whoever else is
milling around the CRB office -

Wanted to give you guys a heads up that
the NCWSA is doing a live selection show tomorrow for the winner of the wildcard
pseudo tournament.

In case you aren't aware, it will pit the top three
teams from each region that did not qualify for Nationals at their Regionals. So
the 6th, 7th and 8th place teams in the East, South Central, and West, and then
7th, 8th, and 9th place finishers in the Midwest (since the Midwest won the
other wildcard already - Cincinnati).

All of the skiers from those teams
take their average score (average of top 2 scores from the fall season), pitted
against each other and scored just like a college tournament (5 scores in, 4
scores count).

We are going to release the scores event by event, like
it was actually being run (probably over 10-15 minutes total). Jeff Surdej and I
will be doing the commentary and break-down of each event live on camera. On top
of that, we are going to have webcams with a few teams from across the country,
that will be streaming live on the front page. So you will be able to see team's
reactions after each event is released, LIVE! (going for the format like the
NCAA Selection Show).

This will be our first go with this format, but we
are hoping it will be pretty cool. If you guys wouldn't mind hyping it up on the
CRB, we would love it.

Any questions let me know.

Dig Dug -
please edit whatever is needed on this email. I think I left some G's out of
collegiate.

--
Cris W. Kodiak

So everyone needs to check this out tonight. THE CRB COMMANDS IT

Collegegiate Watersking - A Future Retrospective

We here at CRB HQ seemed to have missed out on the first few weeks or so of the Collegiate waterski season, it happens, so, below is the ODBF thoughts on the season. Edited by Dig Dug (me) which gave me an enormous headache sifting through the ODBF’s sentence fragments, misspellings and ghetto speak. Enjoy. *eats three vicoden and drinks fifth of vodka (dare me to drive?)*

Is Saint Mary's College any good? NO HOPE COLLEGE DESTRUCTION CREW RULES

Is Saint Mary's College in the hunt for nationals? Not since the NCWSA board meet and decided that there was no need to invite other teams anymore since Hope was going to win it all anyways.

Ok well we all know who will dominate again this year but we might as well take a look at the rest and figure out how it might look if Hope had not made nationals a waste of time.

Lets do this damn thing with a list of some sort.

University of Louisiana - Monroe

ULM seems to have such an advantage that no one can get close to them they are first on every ranking list that has come out so far this season. With the addition, on the mens side, of the jumping phenom Zack Worden they have only beefed up their already top-notch team. On the women’s side they did lose the Belorussian wonder Natalia Berdnikava but are still putting up solid numbers with the rest of their girls.

Alabama

Alabama seems to have had quite the rebound, just a few years ago they were on the verge of disappearing and now look at this team, ranked second and ahead of the FSC machine that had been gaining strenght every year. And just look at the scores they threw out at the Eastern Regionals! Mens team is solid, centered by Borden and Danial Wilson and Aaron Curmi they are going big. The Womens side is just as stocked with Caroline Hensley and Olivia McDonald providing a solid backbone. If ULM slips at all Alabama will take the title no problem.


Arizona State

As the west has not had their regionals yet we have probably not seen the full might of ASU (ranked 3rd). But looking at their last tourney you can see they are well stocked on the mens side Storm "GBH award winner" Selsor is a skier that any team would die for, Kevin Melnuk, Skip Winter and the rest set ASU up for a solid place at nationals. ASU's Womens team is good but a little weak in tricks and jump, solid in slalom though. You will See ASU give the top to a run but will come up short, and will need to watch their back as the next two teams will have no mercy.

Florida Southern

FSC (ranked 4th) was the big new comer for the decade and took over as the power team from Florida when Rollins seeming fell off a cliff. As usual FSCs mens team is solid, anchored by Alex Paradis and Matteo D'Alberto, they will certainly be a contender but better bring their A game if they want to see their mens team place better then 4th. Their womens team will keep them from placing better then 5th or 6th overall though. team is build on the very solid scores from Clem Lucine and Keri McClure, but it looks like their other 3 girls are all new to 3 event and thus will bring the team down.

UW-Madison & Purdue

Now 5th and 6th on the NCWSA team rankings list are both midwest teams, UW Madison and Purdue University. Now look at all of this for a minute and think about it, you are probably saying to yourself "Man I really could go f0r pizza and a Miller Lite” (ed. Note: this makes no damn sense).

Furthermore, where is UL-L?

Well the CRB says "beer and pizza do sound like a good call", but really I seriously doubt you will see ULL anywhere below 5th this year. Now for ULL that is falling off a cliff, but I doubt we will see any of the non-scholarship schools knocking off ULL. They are not looking anything like they used to but they are still going to put up numbers that only a select few can touch. The men’s team is solid in slalom, but a big score shy in both tricks and jump from putting them in the top spot for men’s overall.

But Matteo Luzzeri will be up near the top in all three events and has a solid chance at a individual overall crown. Now I will have to say I am a bit confused by the fact they only fielded 3 girls on the women’s side, that never makes sense. There has to be a skier at Lafayette that can grab a few buoys, throw a trick or to and give a go at the ramp, just taking the zeros across the board makes no sense to me. But ODBF is not their coach so my opinion dont mean shit. Their 3 girls, led by Stinne Soendergaard, are solid and will put up scores strong enough to hold off the rest of the pack.

Conclusion

From looking at the rankings list it appears that the midwest should take spots 6 thru 8 million. But the #5 team in the country, UW Madison, highest rank from the ever growing Midwest Region, apparently screwed the pooch (or cow as they are from Wisconsin), and did not even qualify for DI this year. But the Badgers along with Kansas and Cincinnati have a very good chance of going 123 in DII. With Madison out, Purdue, Illinois and the surprising strong Iowa State will be going at it with Texas, Rollins and whomever the competitive west brings in with ASU.

**Weekend Note**
Have a kick ass weekend. Enjoy the fall colors, buy an autumn themed boat, or an autumn themed vest...screw it, have an autumn themed orgy.

Thats alot of flips

The following is from an email we received. Thinking that I would get dizzy and probably puke up my PBR...so that means there will not be a CRB attempt at breaking this record, like we did when The Minion broke the complete nonsense post record set by the ODBF. (Hey that's me!)

My name is Geno Yauchler, professional water skier and hydrofoil rider.

On October 20th, two weeks from today, I am setting out to break the current record for the most flips in an hour on a sky ski (hydrofoil water ski), which is 711, set last year. Bill VonZaburn is the current unofficial record holder. My goal is 800. If successful, this will be an official Guinness World record. I will have The Water Ski, and Water Skier magazines out for this attempt, as well as a few local publications, and I will have video from at least 3 cameras for a short DVD, you tube, and other media outlets, as well as a photographer separate from the mags for future usage.

Geno Yauchler

And for reference to his skills just watch this.

Yep, he looks pretty good.

Thrusday trick lessons

Ok the title is a little deceiving as in no way are we going to teach you anything about tricks right now.

Happy Trees

What does "Happy trees" Bob have to do with anything? Well this is a post about tricks and if you get all worked up when you fall tricking your never going to improve. Just remember ol' Bob's signiture line; "no mistakes, just happy accidents".

Oh hell, not a single member of the CRB world empire has learned a new trick (outside of the bedroom*) in about 17 years.

*sleeping in a different position. what did you think I meant?

Ok but speaking of good trick skeirs and learning tricks over 17 years ago, check out these vintage vids

Solid skier...and hot...good combo. She might have been a member of the Venezuallan CRB in 1981. I would look it up, but that is way deep in our files in the basement. Its scary down there and the minion is always turning off the lights.

Digging the 2 ski pass.

note: never ask dig dug for formatting help.

Here is Tawn Larson (Hahn..whatever) from whenever. Whats with changing the last names anyways?

It Takes A Month To See This?

So Parrish tied his own world record recently and finally the vid has come out...as an ad for Goode. Gotta say thats some shit. How is it that the first time a vid of a world record run comes out is thru the skiers sponsor weeks after the fact? Stuff like this should be available ASAP, this is not just random bitching but an issue with our sport. We are in the internet age when something only really matters if you can see it immediately. This is the age of 24 hour news shows and internet news sites. When news papers are failing because people can not wait until morning to get their news, the waterski world waits weeks to see a world record run by one of the biggest names in our sport.

Oh and I know that Goode is a company that wants to bank on big name skiers and their results on Goode equipment and all that, but a private company should not come before the good of the sport in general. How is it that their is "official" video shot from the boat that only Goode has? I forsee a conflict of interest here...

More Bitching...Oh wait...this is the CRB right? oh yea, what the hell am I thinking, thought this was the ski flies.

Freaking sweet skiing Chris.

Skip to the 2:20 mark to see the boat video.



Holy crap does he get close to the boat, how do you get a half buoy? jump in the boat? Thats kinda freaky, if he gets going any faster he could get run over...

DONT FALL!!

Two Things

Its (looks at clock) Monday night, about 1 or so AM, and the remaining CRB staff are still milling about our compound in a Natty Ice stupor after our Monday Night Football / Naked Twister* party.

You should try it. You spin and drink and remove an article of clothing after every idiotic thing an ESPN announcer says. Needless to say...we are pretty sure someone is pregnant and someone else it either divorced or has a really awesome life ahead of them. (it involves a waterski handle, a captain morgan handle, and a handle bar mustache...you do the math.)

On to our two things for your Tuesday.

1) Now look, we are the first to admit that we are not always the first on the scene for breaking waterski news. This is the case for a number of reasons for this. The first three we can't say on a family blog and the fourth being we are fuck ups.

However, certified bad-ass and doer of gods good work Cris noted that we totally slacked on our collegiate coverage of the recent regional events. In fact, he equated it to a burn while piss issue...lets go to the replay...

Cris said...

Its the monday after 3 collegiate regionals have wrapped up and NO LOVE?!?!?!

I am hurt. I am hurt bad.

Now, the fact that he got no love is really no fault of our own, as perpetrators of many love infused cocktails it is up to the consumer to actually consume said cocktail of love potion, HOWEVER, the point is raised that we need to get off our collective ass and provide you, the people, some in depth collegiate love.

We have contacted our collegiate reporter and in no uncertain terms have let it be known that we need the coverage on this site asap. So, please stay tuned as the results and commentary and dick jokes are coming soon.

2) There has been a seismic shift in CRB love in the last year or so, this is apparent to anyone who has no life and pays attention to the "CRB love" tag or reads this on a daily basis. MOM!!

Pic credit: John Mommer Photography. Linky. Awesome pictures, please click and look

A few years ago when Rowboat ran this damn thing he was all hot and bothered over Dallas Friday, and while she is a Hall of Famer here, its obvious our sights and sites have wandered elsewhere. Notably to Karina. Now, the reasons here are self-explanatory. or self-exploratory, or self-planetariumed.

None the less, Regina Jaquess (pronounced Jaquess) has not taken kindly to that sort of shabby treatment and came busting out like a mofo recently. You don't believe us? Observe exhibit A.



wow right? The CRB has a bulletin board where we put all our employees accomplishments up so everyone can see it and over congratulations and what-not.

Well, after watching this video we took a quick peek at the board and realized that our best run on the course was 28 off at 34 mph. Not to shabby right?

We didn't think so either, until we went back and looked at the video tape. take a peek at what we saw.

Yep, it was Dr. Jim. Thats what you get when the CRB LLC has "bring your cheater to work day"

Have a great Tuesday. and for gods sake, DO NOT LET THEM CONTROL US!



*careful when google image search for Naked Twister. The internet is all grown up.

Wake Up CRB - Its Monday!

Wake up everyone! Welcome to another week in an office or whatever the hell it is we all do every week! Woo Hoo!!

Its October now, which means that its getting pretty close to the time of year when a big section of the world hangs up their ski gear for the winter and retires to the couch, well, at least thats what half the CRB staff does. Then again, they do that during the summer too, so, what the hell do they know?

Here is a rad trick ski video to start your day. Non-Sequiters we do! We love watermelon.



Also, we were purusing around the Hurley website, linky, and they have a nifty zoom feature for their clothing and what not. Would have to imagine a girl would have to have a really strong self-image for this...because...

Mondays rule!

Luzhou - best jumping in the world... *Update*

OH WOW A NEW WORLD RECORD - 286 FEET!!!!!

oh whats that you say?

Freddy won with a jump of how far?

186 huh...And Natalia won womens jump with a 119? Huge distances all around it sounds like.

So apparently the conditions did not improve all that much from practice. IWSF apparently notice the issue as well.

As the Liu River site is downtown, which gave us access to 500,000
spectators at the Opening Ceremony, backwash from the river sides did pose a
test and all involved will see how to address this in the future.

Well people will complain and say this was a terrible location and IWSF is ruining waterskiing. But that quote says something else as well, 500,000 spectators, HOLY SHIT 500,000 people, that freaking rules! I have been to 3 pro events in the past couple years and the most I have seen at any of them was about 3,000 people at the LA Night Jam and that could be an over estimate.

China seems to be all about the skiing, look at the crowds they are pulling in. This stuff is solid. And if they can pull crowds like this maybe the Chinese people will use some of their $582 billion stimulus to buy some water ski stuff, I bet you the waterski industy would not complain one bit. Anything that helps the sport grow around the world, even if it is jumps that are 50 feet short of what we have come to expect, it wont hurt us at all. The more time on the water in front of crowds our pros get the better.

Oh yea and my prediction did not come true. Minion did not jump as he was arrested in a police sweep of illigal black market rolex manufacturers.

**Update**
Here are some links to the results.

USA Waterski - Limited Stuff, but a good start, or you can go to...
IWWFED - If you can handle your senses being bombarded with crap, or don't bother and just go to their results page, HERE, which reads more like what the rowboat used to do after collegiate tournaments.

**Update 2**
The hell with it, here are the results in handy list form. Are you taking notes IWWFED?

Womens Jump
1) Natalia Berdnikova - 36.2 Meters
2) Iryna Turets - 36 Meters
3) June Fladborg - 35.6 Meters

Mens Jump
1) Guess who? - 57.5 Meters
2) Jason Seels - 51.3 Meters
3) Igor Morozov - 50.7 Meters - In russia, 50.7 meters jumps you!!

Womens Wakeboarding
1) Raimi Merrit - 62.78 points
2) Dallas Friday - 60.69 points (teehee)
3) Amber Wing - Unknown

Mens Wakeboarding
1) Phillip Soven - 75.44 points
2) Harley Clifford - 72.67 points
3) Rusty Malinoski - unknown

Jesus Christ IWWFED, FIX YO WEBSITE! even if its the goddamn .pdf file that everyone seems to happy with, link to that so we can get a general idea of what the hell happened in list form. God thats frustrating.

**Update 3**
Because as American's we are nothing but pains in the collective ass of the rest of the world, here are the results in American form. USA USA USA!!

Womens Jump
1) Natalia Berdnikova - 36.2 Meters = 118.8 Feet
2) Iryna Turets - 36 Meters = 118.1 Feet
3) June Fladborg - 35.6 Meters = 116.8 Feet

Mens Jump
1) Guess who? - 57.5 Meters = 188.6 Feet
2) Jason Seels - 51.3 Meters = 168.3 Feet
3) Igor Morozov - 50.7 Meters = 166.3 Feet

Womens Wakeboarding
1) Raimi Merrit - 62.78 points
2) Dallas Friday - 60.69 points (teehee)
3) Amber Wing - Unknown

Mens Wakeboarding
1) Phillip Soven - 75.44 points
2) Harley Clifford - 72.67 points
3) Rusty Malinoski - unknown

Lake Trout Carry Out - TWINS edition

Lake Trout Carry Out is what we are currently calling the random link heap/dump/thing/whatever

• Chicago was knocked out of the running for the Olympics in the first round of voting. Which also will knock out any hope waterskiers had to make it into the games in the next decade. And what else does that mean? HOT BRAZILIANS!!!

yes yes! more of that!

• The IWSF world cup hit the water in China today. And the water looks glass calm....

• Malaysia is not to be out done in the highly competitive waterski world news and wants everyone that cares about waterskiing in Malaysia (7 people) to know they have the last world cup stop on Nov 6th

• An article in the Chicago Tribune about wakeboarding? I thought all they talked about was political coruption and how much all of their sports teams are way better then everyone elses. BEARS suck, cubs got killed 10-3 and well i dont care about it actually, if you do why don't you get your own blog and write about it!

• Okeeheepkee means disappearing waters and that is just what this lake has a habbit of doing. Apparently it has a sink hoke that likes to eat up the lake every once in awhile. I could see that being quite a hassle.... (pic of the lake when it was dry and another and another)

and TWINS

*dig dug note

I will write about the cubs on this site when I see fit you son of a bitch!!

*/dig dug note

**Update**
Hey Rykert! We fixed your banner pic!!

China World Cup Stop

Freddy was kind enough to video some of his awsome jumping from the site of this weekends world cup stop. He is flying right now, top form! I mean check out those gigantic...80 foot?!?...ride overs??? WTF?



Oh, thats a little rough. ODBFs prediction for this event? Jump event will be called off after the Minion dies hitting the ramp head first*

*heroin overdose in manilla.

Note: Here is a screen cap of our favorite part of the video, we have all been there, just toss your helmet in frustration.

See more fun Freddy at Freddy's Website (linky)