Commonwealth Stadium was transformed from a soccer field to a snowboard World Cup stop in Edmonton.
A massive amount of snow was driven from Rabbit Hill to the Commonwealth Stadium on Tuesday and will continue to make sure the snowboard jump is packed in time for The style experience, FIS Snowboard Big Air World Cup.
“Similar to our event in the summer when we had Monster Jam when we brought in all the truckloads of dirt, now we’re bringing in truckloads of snow,” Commonwealth Stadium Director Heather Seutter said. “This event is pretty unique to Edmonton, you’d have to travel to a ski hill, you’d have to travel to Jasper, Banff, Whistler to be able to get this kind of experience and it’s right in our own backyard.”
Some of the world’s top snowboarders will be in Edmonton the weekend of December 9-10.
This is the first time a snowboard jump has been built inside a stadium and in a grandstand in North America.
Construction of the jump, which is being done by Clark Builders, has been underway since November 7.
It took 8,000 feet of two-by-fours to build the 483-foot-long snowboard jump on the southeast side of the bowl.
Clark Builders project manager Scott Douglas said the job was certainly unique and challenging.
“It’s different for sure we work with the scaffolding system, so the scaffolding is typical, but it’s usually square straight that’s not normally built in curves like this and covered with plywood,” Douglas said.
WATCH: Snowboarding at the Commonwealth Stadium
To get to the top of the jump, snowboarders will walk across field level, take a lift, walk across the passage and climb stairs to the top.
“It’s really high, it’s about 146 feet from field level to the top launch platform,” Douglas said.
Richard Hegarty, with Snowboard Canada, said the wall at the bottom will be padded and fans can expect snowboarders to get some big air and perform some incredible tricks.
“You’ll probably see some quad stunts from some of the men, which is as far as it’s gone in big air competitions before and we’re really hoping we’ll see a triple from the girls,” Hegarty said. “There are quite a lot of knuckles in the jump. there is quite a lot of height on top of it. the riders will actually clear most of it, so they’ll land this landing third down the road and then they’ll be able to slow down before they hit the wall.”
Commonwealth Stadium expects at least 10,000 fans or more to take in the event.
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