Proud to be a Minnesotan - Skateboarder

By Mark Muller

 

Well it's been a long, hard, eventful and hot summer for all of us over here at the 3rd Lair.  Jam-packed with all of our usual events and contests, the skateboard camp program (we held over 25 weeklong camps with our 50-some instructors), our 'Summer Series' the Little League of Skateboarding for the State of Minnesota. Our Mobile Skatepark and Demonstration Team traveled all around the state and Wisconsin, North Dakota, and we even had two separate events in the State of Ohio!

This all culminated into our 8th Annual stint at the Minnesota State Fair, a 12 day fair in which we performed 6 demos a day - that's 72 demos in twelve days!  And the crowds were into the thousands! - Tons or people from around the State, most have never seen skateboarding live.  The great thing about the fair is getting our name out there into the public, promoting all our programs and especially our new location in Burnsville.

Our Burnsville location will be a year old this December already - can you believe it?!  It's already going through its first course re-design as you read this.  It's been a challenge to operate both businesses for us - but we get caught up a little more everyday and we are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

This winter we get to look forward to running our National Competition Series - The King of the Groms - 12 and Under Only Skateboard Contest.  This thing is just a blast and its been growing every year.  This season we get to go to the Woodard West Facility, back to the Skatelab of Simi Valley, and Progressive Skatepark out in Georgia!   It's just a treat for us to get out of the winter cold for a few weekends and management this awesome event for the Groms.

In addition to the King of the Groms being able to take us around the country skateboarding - it looks like our TOP SHOP - Team Skateboard Competition and Trade Show will also be coming to the State of California!  Details are on the verge of being confirmed and the winning California team will get an all expenses paid trip to compete at the TOP SHOP 'Championship' back here in the great State of Minnesota!

Good things are happening out of this State for our Skateboarders too.  3rd Lair Team Rider - Jack Olson made the cover of our Star Tribune Newspaper yesterday because he's going to compete in the Free Flow Tour Championships this weekend in Utah.

A great kid turned young man - Davis Torgerson (scroll to news 9/10) he has just been added full on to the Real Skateboards Team!  I remember about 5 years ago when Davis' mom rented our Party Room and park to have his Birthday Party here!  Now look at him!

This all got me reminiscing about all of the kids that have grew up here skateboarding in this great State and the went on to really make a name for themselves in this industry: Justin Lynch, Dave Leroux, Darren Navarette, John Muldoon, Ryan Fabry, Caz Helmstetter, Steve Nesser, Clint Peterson, Chad Benson, Emeric 'Olu' Pratt, Seth McCallum, Jeremy Reeves, B.J. Morrill, Cody Davis, - that is a lot of top names over the years and they all started it here!

So back to my original thought - man, am I proud to be a Skateboarder from Minnesota!  Everyday when I walk into the 3rd Lair and flick the lights on and glance at the street course - I just have such a great feeling come over me and I think to myself how lucky I am to be doing what I'm doing for the past 11 and a half years and I pretty much owe it all to skateboarding.

Well, that's the longest introduction I have ever wrote for our Upcoming Events Schedule:

(CLICK ON FLYERS TO ENLARGE)

P.S. - Please stay tuned to our website: www.3rdlair.com - we will be updating it alot in the next couple of weeks with coverage of all the stuff that we did this summer! Thanks for your patience and thanks to all the skateboarders of this great State!