#Alex schlopy

[angela-anaconda-was-a-lesbian]

tell us your favorite gay softball player(s)!

I am SO glad you asked. Please note that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

First of all is the woman I fell in love with in 2015 and made me keep watching softball, Haylie McCleney (R-Alabama) and her fiancee, Kylee Hanson (L-Florida State). Hanson has retired but McCleney is on the US National Team and plays in the Athletes Unlimited league.

Speaking of Athletes Unlimited, a league that started last year, there are TWO couples who met during the inaugural season! There's Taylor Edwards (L-Nebraska, also on the US National Team) and Gwen Svekis (R-Oregon).

As well as Jordan Roberts (L-Florida) and Lilli Piper (R-Ohio State).

You like older, butch lesbians? Let's talk about Kelly Kretschman (R-Alabama) and her girlfriend Ally Carda (L-UCLA, also on the US National Team). Some consider Kretschman to be the GOAT of the softball world.

What about lesbians who play for rival teams? Look no further than Amanda Chidester (L-Michigan) and her fiancé Anissa Urtez (R-Utah). As you can see, Chiddy plays for the United States National Team and Anissa plays for the Mexican National Team.

What about lesbians who play for the same team? Well, here's Alex Powers (L-Florida State) and Sierra Romero (R-Michigan, also plays for the Mexican National Team). They met while playing for the USSSA Pride, a professional team that was once in the National Pro Fastpitch league.

Okay, but are there any married lesbians with kids? Of course! Meet Alex Hugo (L-Georgia) and Taylor Schlopy-Hugo (R-Georgia), and their son Finn! Taylor has retired but Alex is on the US Women's Baseball Team!

There are SO many more but I don't want to make this post unbearably long.

[skistarmovies]

The Ordinary Skier (1242 Productions 2011)

SkiStar Movies rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Seth Morrison, JP Auclair, Kye Petersen, Dan Treadway, Pep Fujas, Nate Wallace, Tanner Hall, Jacob Wester, Alex Schlopy, Chris Davenport, Andreas Fransson, Lionel Hachemi, Dave Rosenbarger, Glen Plake, Sean Pettit

 You’ve seen him in ski films for years, so you know he’s a man of few words.  Even when he’s interviewed (like in parts of CP’s Tanner Hall Trilogy) he’s straight to the point, terse and can often be heard intoning with some dark wisdom about the magnitude of the danger in skiing steep mountain lines.  He’s stoic and mysterious to say the least.  So you’d have to be curious about a documentary on Seth Morrison because you’d expect it to provide answers, you know, shed some light on what makes the guy tick; a guy who takes huge chances on ski slopes year in and year out for nearly two decades as a pro; a guy who skis with such power and yet such grace; a guy who (seemingly) fearlessly hucks off cliffs taller than your average apartment building, stomps it and skis back to the helicopter for more.

 Well, if you’re hoping to find some easy answers in director Constantine Papanicolaou’s  (“CP”) The Ordinary Skier you’re going to be disappointed, kind of.  CP unravels the Seth Morrison story in a straight-shooting biographical manner: interviews with his mother, step-father and fellow skiers.  There are trips back to Des Plaines, Illinois where Morrison shows us the hill that got him hooked on riding twin planks.  But there’s barely one interview with Morrison where he opens up and let’s us see behind the stony, calm mask.  Morrison’s recollections of growing up are delivered in a matter-of-fact tone that while not completely devoid of emotion, still has him keeping his cards close to his chest.  Only towards the end of The Ordinary Skier do we get a glimpse of Morrison’s motivation to ski like he does and that it may be a defense mechanism against the feeling of abandonment after his biological father disappeared from his life.  Morrison comments how others might turn to drugs or drinking or another sport to provide solace from the demons that haunt them but it’s skiing that Morrison knows, “I wouldn’t know what else to do”, he says.  Or it could be the aftermath from surviving the helicopter crash in Portillo, Chile a few years back when two others in the bird did not.  The Ordinary Skier never tells us.  It’s a marked contrast to Tanner Hall’s demeanor in the best ski documentary of 2010, Like A Lion, where Hall wears his victories and his disasters unselfconsciously on his sleeve for all to see.  One has to wonder whether CP was able to get Morrison to feel comfortable enough on camera in an interview setting to get him going. 

 The revelations come in the interviews with the pivotal people in Morrison’s life.  When his parents divorced while he was six years old he took it hard.  “He said ‘I don’t care’, you learn from his step-father,  “He did but he would never admit it”.  Other illuminations come from fellow skier Dan Treadway who comments on the artistic side to freeskiing and from Sean Pettit, himself a product of broken home, who talks about the mountain as a surrogate father figure.  You are left to impute the same opinions to Morrison but there’s nothing really backing up whether you’re correct in that assumption.

 And then there are the photos of the teenage Morrison, laughing, goofing around, ripping it up as a ski racer during his high school years.  As the photos slide in and out in the Ken Burns style, it’s hard to believe that the hell-raiser pictured there is now a taciturn realist.  Seeing as there’s no insight or explanation into the transformation, pod people from outer space could have taken his personality for all you know.

 About 15 minutes into The Ordinary Skier we are introduced to the sub-plot: a trip to Chamonix with JP Auclair and Kye Petersen that is guided by the affable American ski-alpinist Nate Wallace.  The experience is a cross between a pilgrimage to the holy site of the birth of ski-mountaineering and a medieval ordeal where the pupil has to survive a series of grueling tests in order to succeed because the planning and preparation required to make even the basic Cham runs like the Passerelle Couloir make staggering demands on your skills.

 It’s an interesting first meeting with Wallace because he only knows Morrison from his rep as a madman and yet there’s Morrison dialing it back and sagely putting it out there that, “We’ll take it one step at a time and work our way into it.  You can’t just go to the biggest thing and drop right in – that’s just stupid.  You gotta learn and here I am learning.”

 Chamonix is a humbling experience for any hot-shot skier and as we already have learned, Morrison is now at the stage of his life where he’s past being a young gun and has become a wizened, Jedi Master athlete.  The Cham segments then simply underline or perhaps high-light this aspect of his mature persona.  He didn’t have to go to Cham, he could have loaded The Ordinary Skier with astounding cliff hucks, but he didn’t.  The scenes of the unsettlingly steep runs with the accompanying nerves (check the scenes done at the Col du Plan on the Aiguille du Midi’s north face) that go with them are a subtle reflection of the depth of the man’s character at this point in his career.

 So maybe, at the end of the day, we have to realize and accept that this is the essence of Seth Morrison.  The lazer-like focus of the mind needed to govern the cold-fusion firing of a skier’s synapses and the speed of light mental processing required to render to necessary physical reactions required to ski big mountains or deep pow through tight trees is not common amongst us mortals.  Morrison has it by the bucket full and so he lets his art speak for him.  Remember that next time you see him stomp a massive back-flip.   By Mark “The Attorney General” Quail

 Watch the Trailer for The Ordinary Skier

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5-8gtFfoqo

[pascalchristen]

The top of the mountain doesn't look as cool from the bottom.

Alex Schlopy, professinal Freeskier

[nadiasindi]

Accomplished slopestyle skier Alex Schlopy sat facing the crowd at Jim Santy auditorium and told a grim, intimate story. He calmly explained to the crowd of all ages how

[twoplanks]

wow this was definitely the news I needed today

[skistarmovies]

WE: A Collection Of Individuals (Poor Boyz Productions 2012)

SkiStar Movies Rating: 3.9/5 Stars

Sean Pettit, Pep Fujas, Bobby Brown, Dane Tudor, Leigh Powis, Clayton Vila, Sean Jordan, Banks Gilberti, Paddy Graham, Tobi Reindl, Thomas Hlawitschka, Bene Mayr, Charley Ager, Jossi Wells, Riley Leboe, Josh Stack, Joss Christensen, Alex Schlopy, Joe Schuster, Sammy Carlson, Mike Henitiuk, Ian Cosco, Beau Wells, Alexis Godbout, Max Morello, Karl Fostvedt

 Directed by Cody Carter, Peter Alport

Produced by Johnny Decesare

Edited by Tyler Hamlet and Cody Carter

 Despite having terrific big mountain sequences in their films in recent years, Poor Boyz still has a rep as a park and urban ski movie company.  It’s about time that conception was put to rest.  With WE: A Collection Of Individuals, Poor Boyz delivers their most well-rounded film to date.  Their big mountain segments with Pep Fujas, Dane Tudor and Mike Henitiuk mesh terrifically with the pounding urban and electrifying park segments featuring Bobby Brown, Jossi Wells and again, Poor Boyz regular Dane Tudor.  Opening with Brown throwing a switch 9 and joined by Joss Christensen, Banks Gilberti, Alex Schlopy, Sean Jordan and Karl Fostvedt, editors Tyler Hamlet and Cody Carter weave together footage from a half dozen sunny day park shoots and then underpin it with Macklemore’s “Can’t Hold Us”.  With the skiers throwing insane big air jumps and with the hiphop pushing the vibe into the red, the result is classic Poor Boyz ski porn. It’s here that you see how Hamlet and Carter have stepped up the editing with a style that cuts to extreme slow motion in the middle of the skier’s flight. It was a technique that was hinted at in Simon Dumont’s diced half-pipe sequence The Grand Bizarre, last year’s Poor Boyz offering.  It’s one of the advantages of using cameras with a very high frame rate: when it’s slowed down there’s still enough data to render absolutely beautiful images.  That editing style is perfect for the style of skiing here as the tricks are so intricate and fast, this technique ensures the viewer gets every drop of juice out of the scene.

 Next up is Pep Fujas attacking huge steeps in Alaska with a haunting underscore from Fever Ray and dizzying heli shots from the bird above him, trailing him down the mountain.  It’s a different vibe altogether from the park sequence but the skiing is astounding and it is clear evidence that Poor Boyz has got a deep enough bench of talent and the willingness the put together a movie that will be, in essence, all things to all people.

 And the scope of the skiing stays huge into Leigh Powis’ segment where he delivers some blistering, bruising urban.  He hits long rails, high walls and closes out with a beautiful inverted run underneath a Whistler overpass. Unfortunately, the pain Powis experiences is huge too, as he dings himself with a season-ending torn ACL while trying to land a trick after dropping off from 2 stories up. 

 In keeping with the idea that these ski movies also serve as sports broadcasts keeping the faithful up to date, there’s short segment showing Sammy Carlson working out on the road to recovery after he tore his MCL at the Winter X-Games in January 2012.  I hate seeing the segments where the dude gets badly hurt but watching the physio training for the come-back is inspiring least of all because it gives you the juice you need to kick up your own training for the season ahead.

 The segment on the The Kids which is the crew of Sean Pettit, Joe Schuster, Riley Leboe, Ian “Chug” Cosco and Mike Henitiuk among others, epitomizes the overarching theme of this movie which is that you can have your own style and push your own limits but it’s a whole lot more fun when you’re doing all that with your friends.   The Kids look like they’re having a good time horsing around on the mountain which is all cool for a minute but things get serious again as Henitiuk steps up to ski some back-country and big mountain lines.   As the flamenco guitar touches of Andrew Oye’s “Matador” provides the soundtrack, the vibes seems out of place for about two seconds until you realize that Henitiuk’s agility matches that of a bullfighter in the ring gracefully avoiding a violent goring or, worse, death.   By the end, with his last run down an ice-covered rock cliff with just enough snow on it to provide skiable pillows Henitiuk tempts fate –take a look to his right side as he’s about 100 feet into the run and tell me you didn’t lose your stomach - but his skills are supreme and he stomps it.  I could get all Hemingway and Death In The Afternoon on you and provide a dissertation on the big mountain skier’s life dealing with fear and facing it with courage – but that’s an essay for another day.  Suffice to say, that one run of Henitiuk’s is among the standouts of WE: A Collection Of Individuals.

 Perennial Poor Boyz favorites Josh Stack and Charley Ager deliver in their segments, as they always do, with balls-out backcountry skiing in the case of the former and his patented style switch landings in deep powder in the case of the latter. 

 Cam Riley, Sean Jordan and Clayton Vila’s segments bring the whole Stept Productions urban skiing vibe to this movie, which I can seriously appreciate. It gives editors Hamlet and Carter a chance to work their magic on that vibe and it adds nicely to the movie. 

 Bene Mayr, having been a Poor Boyz regular in Every Day Is A Saturday (2009), Revolver (2010) and The Grand Bizarre (2011), is now joined by his LOS film company partners Paddy Graham, Tobi Reindl and Thomas Hlawitschka.  Their segment is short, and fast and works like a good punch in the face.  However, under-pinned with Turbowolf’s screaming hard rock which is very similar to what you’d hear in any LOS film, you get the feeling this is more like an advertisement for an LOS film in the middle of WE: A Collection Of Individuals.  Honestly, you’re better off going to the source and seeing Nothing Else Matters or Hurt So Good where you can see the brilliance of LOS director Andre Nutini for yourself. 

 The new talent on display this year from Poor Boyz is Ketchum, Idaho’s Karl Fostvedt who’s been seen in the last two movies from Toy Soldier Productions.  He hits a radically shaped kicker that lifts him high vertically and then drops him onto a quarter pipe that redirects back the way he skied in.  This is exactly the type of adventurous new talent one expects to see from a top line film company and he’s a welcome addition here.  Having won “Rookie of the Year at the 2012 IF3, others are taking notice too. 

 Sean Pettit closes out WE: A Collection Of Individuals in a sequence that is normally expected in a Matchstick ski film – big lines, big talent and beautiful shots.  I’d expect nothing less from the two-plank wizard – he’s one of the best skiers on the planet.

  WE: A Collection Of Individuals has a great feel, sick footage and a well-chosen soundtrack.  It makes you anxious for snow and when that happens in the autumn, then you know the ski movie has done its job.   By Mark “The Attorney General” Quail

  Watch the Trailer for WE: A Collection Of Individuals 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqVdu8Kkyc8

[fuckyeahoysteinbraten]

[skistarmovies]

Attack of La Nina  (Matchstick Productions 2011)

SkiStar Movies Review: 4/5 Stars

Mark Abma, Sean Pettit, Eric Hjorleifson, Rory Bushfield, Henrik Windstedt, Cody Townsend, Jacob Wester, Ingrid Backstrom, Bobby Brown, Gus Kenworthy, Richard Permin, Colby West, James Heim, Callum Pettit, Alex Schlopy, Russ Henshaw, Torin Yater-Wallace.

 Directors: Steve Winter, Murray Wais, Scott Gaffney

 Matchstick’s ski movies are a big deal.  The have big budgets that allow them to do big things like rent loads of helicopters and fly to out of the way big mountain locations to film their crew of boss skiers as they race around like super heroes.  They can afford big things like Cineflex cameras which render mountain vistas so clearly that watching the BluRay on a big screen is like looking out a window.  It’s not a stretch to say that when autumn rolls around there’s a lot of us looking forward to what Matchstick will deliver.  Last year’s The Way I See It satisfied the cravings of all discerning ski movie heads and walked off with Powder’s 2011 Movie of the Year award as well as the Best Film and the People’s Choice Award at the 2010 IF3.  It was a movie that lived up to the hype and moved the whole genre ahead a step in its use of those wicked gyro-stabilized cameras.  Attack of La Nina arrives as a bit of mixed blessing then.  You get all the cool stuff you’d expect, as I have just described but here’s the downside: it comes in pretty much the exact same layout as last year.  “Haven’t we seen this before”, says Cody Townsend when he mockingly reprises his star turn from last year in the lead up to AOLN’s big final sequence.  Yes, Cody we did.  We saw the whole damn thing.

 In what is becoming a tradition, having been the opening slot for the past three movies is Sean Pettit tearing it up.  Then comes some big air with Bobby Brown and Gus Kenworthy popping off kickers in slow motion.  There are backcountry pillows with Hjorleifson and Abma.  There’s comedy with Cody West.  There’s more big air in Aleyska, AK.  There’s Ingrid Backstrom and crew exploring some relatively untouched British Columbian mountains: last year it was Bralorne, this year it’s the Meager Group, up past Pemberton.  And then, to wrap it all up and put a bow on it, Windstedt and Townsend do their two-man mountain slaying crew show. 

 But when you think about it, this complaint is superficial.  If you make this charge against AOLN, then what must you say about every Sunday afternoon NFL game or any mainstream pro sport broadcast for that matter.  It’s the same format because that’s what works to bring you the action.  And be honest, you’re not watching it for the format, though that plays it’s role in allowing the story of the game to unfold.  You are watching it for the action, the skill and the excitement.

 Freeskiing and the role ski movies play in freesking have a symbiosis unlike your everyday pro sports.  Action sports take place in far-flung locations.  There are no bleachers for which you can buy a ticket to watch James Heim shred 60 degree mountain faces.  You either fly the heli for him or you wait eight months for the movie to come out so you can see what level he’s skiing at.  Ski movies are the Sunday afternoon NFL game.  They might be produced by independent film crews but they serve the same role as NBC, ABC, CBS or cable sports do for the major leagues.  They are the crucial broadcasts that get the word out about the sport.   As I have argued elsewhere, at their best, these movies are art.  At a minimum, the athleticism alone makes a well-done ski movie a jaw-dropping thrill.

 So, with AOLN, I think it’s fitting that we look at some of the athletes instead of the “packaging” that surrounds their performance.  While I might not do that with every ski movie, it’s fitting with Matchstick’s crew because the skill achievements among the core group here is on par with the best of the best in any other sport.  Imagine not one Gretzky on your hockey team, but six of them. How about a half dozen Kobe Bryants?  AOLN’s roster of talent is simply awe-inspiring.

 19 year-old Sean Pettit’s audacious style continues to tighten to the point where he now resembles a Maserati whipping through mountain roads.  He has terrific control on the tightest of turns and the most vertical of pillow descents.  Whereas two years ago he’d execute a straight cliff huck, the same move this year usually comes with a 360.  He continually pushes his limits.  Factor in his class clown persona and it adds up to one thing:  Pettit’s a bona fide star.

 Richard Permin is the new guy.  After a solid intro in last year’s film he’s been given a higher profile in AOLN, skiing with Pettit.  A transplant from France he’s got boundless energy and a fearless approach to the steeps that makes him a contender for the Full Throttle Award at all times.  He also has the best line of the movie when after stomping a particularly massive hard huck, he groans “I can’t understand how Seth Morrison can do that shit everyday”.

 Mark Abma blows his knee again this year (not the same knee as last year) but not before getting a load of sequences in the can, so we’re fortunate to witness some of the most agile skiing possible.  Abma skiis powder like he’s on springs.  He’s got a little bounce that punctuates his already fluid style.   His corked spins off windblown, natural backcountry kickers in slow motion ought to be declared a national treasure by the Canadian Government.

 James Heim and Eric Hjorleifson come across like two of the easiest going guys on the planet.   Two very chill dudes.  Until you put them at the top of some gnarly big mountain line and then it’s all fireworks with balls-to-the-wall skiing. Both guys, with their helmet-cam sequences filmed at Meadow Lodge B.C., bring home some vertigo-inducing, adrenaline-spiked shots that are going to make most viewers scream “Whoa”.

 Bobby Brown’s spins and flips seem endless as he logs in a substantial amount of screen time here.  His triples now seem effortless, just pure grace in the air. 

 Lastly, Cody Townsend and Henrik Windstedt ski the bejeezus out of the mountains near Terrace, B.C.   The steep faces they go after and their cliff hucks are the highlight reel that you play for your buddies who might not watch a lot of ski movies, just to give them a taste of what’s going on in the genre.  Townsend takes a nasty hit; I’m not going to say “fall” or “spill” because he actually flies off the mountain into rocks.  Somehow he defied death.  Frankly, not the type of stuff I want to see all the time but definitely a reminder of the danger these athletes face when they walk into their “arenas”.

 Focus on the skiing and not the format this year with Matchstick.  These athletes are the shit.     By Mark “The Attorney General” Quail

  Watch the Trailer for Attack of La Nina

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNI0ZKPA48A

[mcmoco]

"15,000th like gets a free turtle!!! My sister and I getting ready for a morning sleigh ride to see Santa!!!! #what #whohasabetterheadband #?" -Alex Schlopy

[adventure-sports-weekly-blog]

ATHLETE OF THE MONTH: APRIL 2007

ALEX SCHLOPY, NEW STAR OF FREERIDE

A few months ago, Alex won the Vermont Open, a freeride palooza of slopestyle and pipe for skiers and snowboarders. He won on slopestyle alone, because he doesn't do pipe. Then he went to the Aspen Open, held on the gnarly X-Games course. Big names were there: Colby West, who was third in the X-Games, won the comp. Alexis GodBout was second. And Alex Schlopy, a new face and the youngest competitor at 14 years old, came in fifth.

"It shocked a lot of people when I came in fifth, but I was more shocked than anyone," he said.

That's when sponsors came calling. Now the Park City skier is decked out like the biggest stars on the U. S. ski team, with Spyder outerwear, Dynastar skis, Lange boots and Level gloves. To get an idea of where this new kid on the block is at careerwise, he's currently trying to decide which goggle offer he will accept; Scott or Spy.

For an idea of where he's at talentwise, how's this: Schlopy actually made the halfpipe semis at Aspen with his huge airs, but withdrew from the finals because he has not yet trained in the pipe, or even skied it much.

"But I'm going to work on halfpipe. I like slopestyle. What I do is trick skiing, also known as new school. I don't really have any 'best' tricks, I have favorite tricks," Schlopy said.

His best fave is a switch 720 with different grabs, but he also likes a forward 540 and nines. He's a total pro at bios, which is a forward set cork, and also likes big mountain work.

Blond, good looking and laid back in a likable way, he has the potential to be the athlete that brings his sport into the mainstream, like Nadia Comaneci did for gymnastics or Lance Armstrong did for cycling.

Alex started skiing when he was two years old, brought to the slopes by an Olympian---his mother, Holly Flanders. She was the first American to win a World Cup downhill. But she is not the only elite skier in the family; cousin Erik Schlopy is a three-time Olympian, currently on the U. S. ski team and training for the 2010 Games.

Freeride, however, is still a questionmark, though Alex thinks it will be on the U. S. ski team someday. "It's an exciting sport and people like to watch it," he says. It is also the fastest growing segment of skiing.

Meanwhile, Alex doesn't have the USSA benefit of getting on-snow training in summer. He crosstrains at skateparks, and works out at the Olympic Park in Park City, going off the kickers and landing in the pool.

The trampoline in his back yard is done for, however. Years of jumping from the upstairs deck onto the tramp 20 feet down and 20 feet away; plus jumping from the tramp up to the edge of the fence and balancing there, evidently put too much strain on it. The springs are snapping and breaking.

Alex laughs, "I landed and one snapped and hit my leg. Usually the springs shoot off into the neighbor's yard, but this one hit me and my leg was bleeding pretty good. I thought it was kind of funny."

But there won't be too much fun time now for training; these are school days for Alex. He is going to the Winter School, where serious athletes attend class in spring and summer so they have fall and winter free to compete.

You can check Alex out to see why buzz is building about the boy; his videos are on YouTube, Brightcove.com, and Newschoolers.com. "Everyone should go to Newschoolers, it's sick," he says.

So is Schlopy's short film, which Adventuresportsweekly.com will be posting onsite soon.