In the ski world there have been many different figures that have inspired many people for example the “The Crazy Canucks” in the 1980’s but they were known for their racing and won many world cups and being very successful and influential in their own way. I would like to talk about how the skiing phenomenon Shane McConkey changed the world and how he did it. Shane McConkey changed the world of skiing by taking skiing to the next extreme level and doing it in a way that really took all of the pressure out of all the way people skied and even now it still has an impact on how people not in the professional world but in the recreational world ski.

Shane McConkey was originally a freestyle ski racer and it was during this time that he set himself …show more content…
He along with many of his friends have been in many ski movies and they were known as being the biggest and most influential skiers in the California ski area more specifically Squaw Valley. Squaw Valley is known as the birth place of the book Squallywood. And this book is mainly about the nuances of every line that you can do there but more importantly and what I want to talk about is the game of GNAR. This is an acronym the stands for “Gaffney’s Numerical Assessment of Raddness”. Robb Gaffney was another very famous extreme skier and the author of this book but the idea of GNAR is mainly credited to McConkey. This game is known for how over the top self-centred it can make people appear but the real purpose of the game was to take the mickey out if you will of people that took the sport of extreme skiing to seriously. For example one thing you can do for bonus points is the Raddness Yell. The idea with this is to get everyone’s attention around you so they know your about to do something awesome or Rad, so just before you go down a crazy line you yell at any random stranger “Hey! Check me out! I’m about to rip the shit out of this”. The idea is to once again really take the pressure out of skiing and make the people around you laugh at how obnoxiously egotistical you are. This idea and quote can now be heard all across mountains in North America anyway as people are always counting points for what they have