Flashback: Canadian Skis vs Snowboards War of 1985

It’s the great war that time forgot. 

Canadian skiers were not pleased about the new trend that was like “snow surfing,” and that originated in, as the reporter points out, “where else? California.” 

Although snowboarding had “been around for almost a decade in the United States,” in 1985, it was becoming a “trendy” thing to do on otherwise peaceful ski slopes of Canada, and skiers weren’t at all happy with the kids and their funky new fad. So unhappy that they banned them from taking the ski lifts. 

“They’re dangerous,” one kindly old skier in his thick Canadian accent tells the CBC in this report about the “skateboards or skiboards, whatever they’re called” in a way that really makes you miss the days when this was what people had to complain about. Snowboards, now an Olympic sport, really upset a lot of people once upon a time. 

But as the clip moves on, you start to get a sense it’s the rebellious snowboarders (“Some of them have had a little bit to drink. Smart alecks.”) going up against the cool preppy skiers with their great mustaches, and it sort of feels like the greatest 1980s teen comedy that was never written.