It
freaks me out sometimes. The rate of growth that takes place
in our modern day cities these days is phenomenal and Toronto,
Canada is no exception. Mini Van sales are increasing to an
alarming degree, the amount of skateboarding talent is skyrocketing,
and the number of skateparks popping up around here is now
higher than Beavis and Butthead can count. Gauging from my
many hours spent watching that show I think they can count
to about 9 or 10. Anyhow, I never thought we would get that
many. Every week there seems to be a new structure built to
skate whether it be a park or just some new building. Growth
my friends, really is inevitable. Especially when it comes
down to skateboarding in Toronto. I just wish Toronto would
grow out of winter. I can’t stand that shit. It sucks.
So what else can be said about this place? Well first off
- it’s the biggest city in Canada. It takes about an
hour to drive across the place and that’s not when you
go through the downtown core, that takes longer. There is
approximately 4.5 million people currently living in the Greater
Toronto Area, which consists of every nationality you can
think of.
This city is one huge melting pot of different ethnic groups.
Greektown, Little Italy, Little Portugal, Little Korea, and
a couple Chinatowns dot the cities north, south, east, and
westends. Everyone seems to get along here though so that’s
good. Most visitors would say that Toronto is ultra modern
and super clean, and the crime rate here is suprisingly low
for a big city. We still get some crazy fuckers kickin’
around though. We also have a very industrious filmaking scene.
Recent hits like Blues Brother 2000, Dirty Work, Detroit Rock
City, and Studio 54, to name just a few were filmed mostly
in Toronto. Not to mention the amount of T.V. series and independent
films that get made here too. Every day streets are blocked
off or parking spots are declared void to give all these movies
crews their much needed room. Toronto is also home to the
world’s tallest freestanding structure called the C.N.
Tower and huge skysrapers within the financial core have been
rising to pay homage to the one great twentieth century god
- the Almighty Dollar. Luckily they supply a large amount
of very skateable marble structures but that’s if security
doesn’t get there first. Security in Downtown Toronto
has always been a big problem ever since the first wooden
plank with wheels rolled it’s way into the vast marble
skateland. I don’t know why we don’t use smokebombs
or something like that for some kind of diversion. What security
guard wouldn’t love to have to take charge of a situation
concerning some explosion in the back alleyway while you and
your friends are sessioning out front? We all know they need
reasons to get off their ass. We should make some up for them.
Personally, I think that in order for skateboarders to totally
reclaim our spots we should all bite the bullet and become
security guards. Think about it - security guards would never
hassle us again cause it would be our friend Joey behind the
desk. We could all rotate shifts at every building or something.
That’s it! That’s the plan for skateboarding’s
future world domination! I’ve just figured it out! Remember
these words my friends and remember them well. We must all
become security guards before it’s too late! Okay, I
am now off topic but please realize that I am a Toronto native
and we’ve been forced to become pretty ingenius when
it comes to beating out the security here. We
have to. They’re very dedicated ledge protectors. But
despite the availability of stuff to skate in the cities core
which I’m sure you’ve all heard about or experienced
first hand, we can’t forget that Toronto and it’s
skate scene isn’t just composed of downtown. It also
consists of an outskirts of many other “mini-cities”
and suburbs which are known collectively as the “Golden
Horeshoe”. Pretty much all around the west end of Lake
Ontario it’s all just one big city. I guess if you could
see it from space it would actually look like a golden horseshoe,
hence the name, but to talk about Toronto without talking
about it’s neighborly influences would do the scene here
justice, nor the skateboarders within it. Back in the day,
I grew up skating the city with my friends Joey McJoey and
Dougie McDoogal, cruising the downtown core grinding and sliding
it;s many marble structures. We were from a city on the outskirts
called Oshawa and we’d heard all about the local Toronto
skate legends but we never ran into them or saw them skate.
Then one day we saw Franko McFuck. He performed his infamous
pogo to sweeper on the vert wall at the local mini-ramp and
we were blown away. He was on of Toronto’s earliest skateborarding
success stories but he didn’t get much coverage outside
of these parts. Here he was so famous, he was “in famous”.
Nowadays there’s dudes coming into Toronto from all over
the Golden Horseshoe area. There’s some good parks around
now too. To name a few there’s one in Oakville, Burlington,
Hamilton, Barrie, Pickering, Whitby and Bowmanville. All these
places are within a half an hour or so from downtown but in
the same way that we would migrate to the city to skate and
learn, now there’s tons of kids doing the same thing.
Learning and skateboarding and going home to their quiet suburb
to skate their home park only to come back again. And now,
Toronto area skaters and photographers are cruising to the
suburbs to check out all these parks and newfound fresh spots
that no one knew about and there you have it. Old and new,
an everchanging & evergrowing scene. It’s too bad
though cause these days it’s getting colder out and soon
it will be time for everybody to start hitting the indoor
parks. We’re pretty lucky here because we have two to
choose from. There’s Shred Central which is located smack
dab in the middle of downtown and the Blue Tilt Lounge which
is located twenty minutes north in a town called Aurora. Winter
here is only bad from the mid November to March but it still
sucks so it’s beat not to visit during those times. Not
unless you’re some kind of sick, crazy asshole. I don’t
know. I don’t like winter very much but that’s a
completely different article so I won’t get into it here.
Toronto has actually got quite a skate history too. It’s
been the breeding grounds for Pros like Justin Bokma, Thoms
Morgan, Bill Weiss, Tom Boyle, and Jason Corbett. And of course,
legendary Franko McFuck. No doubt it will continue to be the
breeding grounds for much more skateboarding talent the likes
of which will surely blow you away. Little shits like Andrew
Gordon and Mark Appleyard amongst others are giving people
stomach pains form how good they are. That’s okay though
cause most of us are bigger than them so we could kick their
ass if we wanted to. Other “shit killers” include
Ariel Stagni, Corey Sheppard, Scott Pommier, Dan Bohart, Paul
Otvos, Paul Flintoff, Wes Loates and a crapload of others
so if I didn’t mention you don’t worry cause we
all know who you are you stupid fucks. Basically what I’m
saying here is people in Toronto can kill shit but not too
many people know that because Toronto doesn’t get alot
of media exposure. Well I don’t know. I guess that’s
Toronto in a nutshell. Oh yeah, there’s also alot of
message parlors around that give “full release”
if you know what I mean and I also highly recommend eating
nachos at Sneaky DEE’s which is a mexican food resturant
located at the corner of Bathurst and College Streets. Those
nachos rule. You might want to check those out. If you’re
coming from California though it probably won’t phase
you cause you guys got rad mexican food. I love that shit.
Later!
It
freaks me out sometimes. The rate of growth that takes place
in our modern day cities these days is phenomenal and Toronto,
Canada is no exception. Mini Van sales are increasing to an
alarming degree, the amount of skateboarding talent is skyrocketing,
and the number of skateparks popping up around here is now
higher than Beavis and Butthead can count. Gauging from my
many hours spent watching that show I think they can count
to about 9 or 10. Anyhow, I never thought we would get that
many. Every week there seems to be a new structure built to
skate whether it be a park or just some new building. Growth
my friends, really is inevitable. Especially when it comes
down to skateboarding in Toronto. I just wish Toronto would
grow out of winter. I can’t stand that shit. It sucks.
So what else can be said about this place? Well first off
- it’s the biggest city in Canada. It takes about an
hour to drive across the place and that’s not when you
go through the downtown core, that takes longer. There is
approximately 4.5 million people currently living in the Greater
Toronto Area, which consists of every nationality you can
think of.
We
have to. They’re very dedicated ledge protectors. But
despite the availability of stuff to skate in the cities core
which I’m sure you’ve all heard about or experienced
first hand, we can’t forget that Toronto and it’s
skate scene isn’t just composed of downtown. It also
consists of an outskirts of many other “mini-cities”
and suburbs which are known collectively as the “Golden
Horeshoe”. Pretty much all around the west end of Lake
Ontario it’s all just one big city. I guess if you could
see it from space it would actually look like a golden horseshoe,
hence the name, but to talk about Toronto without talking
about it’s neighborly influences would do the scene here
justice, nor the skateboarders within it. Back in the day,
I grew up skating the city with my friends Joey McJoey and
Dougie McDoogal, cruising the downtown core grinding and sliding
it;s many marble structures. We were from a city on the outskirts
called Oshawa and we’d heard all about the local Toronto
skate legends but we never ran into them or saw them skate.
Then one day we saw Franko McFuck. He performed his infamous
pogo to sweeper on the vert wall at the local mini-ramp and
we were blown away. He was on of Toronto’s earliest skateborarding
success stories but he didn’t get much coverage outside
of these parts. Here he was so famous, he was “in famous”.
Nowadays there’s dudes coming into Toronto from all over
the Golden Horseshoe area. There’s some good parks around
now too. To name a few there’s one in Oakville, Burlington,
Hamilton, Barrie, Pickering, Whitby and Bowmanville. All these
places are within a half an hour or so from downtown but in
the same way that we would migrate to the city to skate and
learn, now there’s tons of kids doing the same thing.
Learning and skateboarding and going home to their quiet suburb
to skate their home park only to come back again. And now,
Toronto area skaters and photographers are cruising to the
suburbs to check out all these parks and newfound fresh spots
that no one knew about and there you have it. Old and new,
an everchanging & evergrowing scene. It’s too bad
though cause these days it’s getting colder out and soon
it will be time for everybody to start hitting the indoor
parks. We’re pretty lucky here because we have two to
choose from. There’s Shred Central which is located smack
dab in the middle of downtown and the Blue Tilt Lounge which
is located twenty minutes north in a town called Aurora. Winter
here is only bad from the mid November to March but it still
sucks so it’s beat not to visit during those times. Not
unless you’re some kind of sick, crazy asshole. I don’t
know. I don’t like winter very much but that’s a
completely different article so I won’t get into it here.
Toronto has actually got quite a skate history too. It’s
been the breeding grounds for Pros like Justin Bokma, Thoms
Morgan, Bill Weiss, Tom Boyle, and Jason Corbett. And of course,
legendary Franko McFuck. No doubt it will continue to be the
breeding grounds for much more skateboarding talent the likes
of which will surely blow you away. Little shits like Andrew
Gordon and Mark Appleyard amongst others are giving people
stomach pains form how good they are. That’s okay though
cause most of us are bigger than them so we could kick their
ass if we wanted to. Other “shit killers” include
Ariel Stagni, Corey Sheppard, Scott Pommier, Dan Bohart, Paul
Otvos, Paul Flintoff, Wes Loates and a crapload of others
so if I didn’t mention you don’t worry cause we
all know who you are you stupid fucks. Basically what I’m
saying here is people in Toronto can kill shit but not too
many people know that because Toronto doesn’t get alot
of media exposure. Well I don’t know. I guess that’s
Toronto in a nutshell. Oh yeah, there’s also alot of
message parlors around that give “full release”
if you know what I mean and I also highly recommend eating
nachos at Sneaky DEE’s which is a mexican food resturant
located at the corner of Bathurst and College Streets. Those
nachos rule. You might want to check those out. If you’re
coming from California though it probably won’t phase
you cause you guys got rad mexican food. I love that shit.
Later!