The City of Calgary has awarded the construction for “skatepark sites 5 and 6” (Deer Run and Midnapore). The same team responsible for the construction of New Brighton skatepark will be working on these: Wilco Construction with Transition Construction and Radius Construction. These guys have a lot of experience building quality skateparks so this is good news! It’s likely these three parks will be the best-built to date.
Our City contacts have let us know that construction will start later this season; at least one of these new parks will be completed in 2016. New Brighton is on track to be done within the next few weeks. Calgary skateboarders will have more new concrete parks very soon!
We’ll be taking the summer off board meetings to– what else?– skate! We’ll still be updating the site with any info related to Calgary skateboarding. Feel free to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter too.
Have a great summer and feel free to join us at our regular monthly board meetings (second Wednesday of each month) when they start back up in September.
Unless you’ve been living/skating under a rock for the past two weeks, you’re probably aware of Calgary skater Kyle Conway‘s now-legendary appearance on CTV news. When asked by reporter Jamie Mauracher what he thought of the change to the bylaw that will now allow ramps on private property, he replied, “I’m so stoked, my dudes”, gave a quick dab and a “skurr” and skated out of the frame. All this after boardsliding the big rail at Southwood Skatepark!
The reporter has been a good sport about what has become the meme of the moment. We asked Jamie about it and she said, “I’m surprised it took off. I just made him promise to answer my question and not swear”.
We got in touch with Kyle to learn more about him, his skating, and what’s happened since the clip went viral:
What’s the deal with the video? It was live, so did you plan what you were going to do with the reporter?
So, pretty much the reporter told me to just do the trick and then stop and come up beside her and just say I’m stoked, but my friend Connor gave me the glasses to use and said it would be funny so I wore them.
Did you think it would get big?
No I didn’t think it would get big, but once Metro posted I was really surprised haha.
What area do you live in? Do you skate Southwood a lot?
I live in Cedarbrae in the Southwest, and yeah I’m pretty much at Southwood every day.
We’re happy to say that, on June 20th, city council passed updates to the bylaw which will allow ramps that are 6 meters long by 5 meters wide by 1.5 meters high (or smaller) on private property.
The bylaw isn’t finalized yet. City staff still need to do some consultation on the wording of the new bylaw. This will likely be completed this fall. We’ll keep you updated.
We’re extremely grateful for Councillor Woolley’s support on this. He’s one of the forward thinking politicians on council who has supported skateboarding since he got into office. Give him a high five or buy him a beer if you see him!
Watch local adidas rider Kevin Lowry and his fellow teammates in the new video “Away Days”, premiering Saturday, May 28th at The Plaza Theatre. This event is free and open to all ages.
