This weekend, Society Snow & Skate is hosting the fifth annual S-Games at Revelstoke Mountain Resort. The games were launched by Karl Jost, the owner of Society as a way of having a fun snowboarding competition at the resort.

Last year, pro riders Terje Hakonsen, Mark McMorris, Jake Blauvelt and Nicholas Muller stopped by during a down-day from filming around Revelstoke, giving the amateur competitors the chance of hitting the same jump right after their heroes.

Jost occupies one of the top spots in Revelstoke’s snowboarding scene — an elder statesman at age 37, you might say. 33mag.com called Jost “a hairy Bhudda who has come to see that all life is suffering and chosen to dedicate his suffering to the thing he loves, snowboarding.”

We stopped by Society to talk to Jost about getting into business in Revelstoke and how he plans on topping last year’s S-Games.

Times Review: How did you start Society Snow & Skate?

Karl Jost: I worked in a shop called Rude Boys in Banff for about eight years. I’d been snowboarding for more than 20 years. I just love the snowboard industry and I love snowboarding. I had some friends tell me about Revy and how they were going to upgrade the ski hill. I did a couple of years of research going back and forth, figuring it all out and I dove in and started the shop.

What year?

The spring before the ski hill opened — June 07 is when I opened the doors. I did the upgrades and got in.

Snow & skate: Are those your two passions?

Those are definitely two of my biggest passions. That’s why I came up with the name Society. The store is dedicated to the sub-cultures of snowboarding and skateboarding.

What’s it been like making the store work?

It’s a lot of work, that’s for sure. You make a lot of sacrifices. It’s funny — you get into the snowboard industry and then you get to snowboard less because you’re working so much. Definitely I’ve had to give up a lot. I think I’ve taken one real vacation in the past eight years. It’s like having a wife and a kid but the store is all in one thing. Maybe like five adopted children as well.

What were some of the challenges you faced getting Society going?

I’ve been in the industry for a long time and seen how it works. I had lots of contacts, so that was good. The biggest challenge was getting the money for it. I don’t come from a family with money so I had to work to get the money I have. I took out a big old business loan. I started it cheap compared to other shops. When I talk to some buddies who own shops and tell them how much I started the shop on, they say, “Jesus Christ! That’s nothing.”

That’s why  when this place first opened, it was pretty empty and I just re-invested all the money back into the inventory and grew it.

What’s it been like growing Society?

It’s been tough too. You want to make sure the space is full, and when it’s full you want to keep it full, so you’re sitting on a lot of inventory. At least now it’s full and I don’t have to grow the inventory anymore.

What’s it like doing business in Revelstoke?

It’s not easy. Our slow seasons are extremely slow. It’s pretty competitive. I have exclusives on the majority of my brands, and that’s nice, so they won’t sell to anyone else in town. We’re a small population. You have to stockpile.

If you’re making lots of money and you’re bringing lots in, stash it away like a squirrel because it’s going to be gone when the slow season comes around.

You’re president of the Columbia Valley Skateboard Association and you organize the S-Games. How important is it to you to be involved in those events and activities?

To me community involvement is really important. It’s a way to give back to the community that supports you all the time. I just like to do it for fun. Even when I was working at Rude Boys, I organized the Season Ender Bender, which was a snowboard comp we organized. I organized a skate comp almost every year. It’s fun. It’s good to get people out, to get people competing for fun. They were never super serious comps.

Snowboarding legend Terje Haakonsen leads Sochi Olympics gold medallist Mark McMorris off the hip jump during last year’s S-Games at Revelstoke Mountain Resort. Revelstoke Review file photo.

What’s the story of the S-Games?

This is the fifth anniversary. There wasn’t a good snowboard event here. They had a downtown rail jam, but I don’t think the city was too stoked on having events downtown. Those kinds of events are rad, but I wanted to involve the ski hill, because it’s a symbiotic relations — retail and the hill, we have to work together.

I really wanted to have the ski hill involved and bring something up there, because there was no snowboard events there at all.

I came up with the S-Games, making fun of the X-Games. The X-Games were started as the anti-Olympics. If you hear any of my rants, I hate the IOC — they’re corrupt and a bunch of idiots. I hate how in a lot of snowboard events across the world, FIS controls it. Terje Hakonsen boycotts the Olympics because it’s FIS run and controlled. Nothing against skiers, but imagine how they’d feel if the snowboarders had control of it?

I wanted to make a comp that’s 100 per cent true to snowboarding. No energy drink sponsors or stuff like that. Keep it all core and keep it all true to snowboarding — the anti X-Games, because the X-Games have sold out. It was supposed to be the anti Olympics, and it’s turned into the same thing — a marketing frenzy.

How big was it at the start?

About 35 registered. Mostly local. There was a few people from out of town — Banff, Nelson, Kamloops — who came out.

What was it like last year when some pros showed up? (Terje Hakonsen, Jake Blauvelt, Mark McMorris took part in a break from filming around Revelstoke.)

It was awesome. It was really rad to have all these people riding and competing in the comp, and then being able to ride next to their heroes in snowboarding. That was what I was most stoked on — how happy the people were they got to ride with them.

Of course, it’s all down hill from there.

That was my next question — where do you go from there?

What I decided to do now is every year we’re inviting a pro-team out. The ski hill is going to put them up, give them lift tickets. They’re going to help build, then ride in the comp with everybody. Not competing, but just riding for fun, getting the stoke level up and to have a good time and get people to ride with some snowboarders they look up to. This year we have Dinosaurs Will Die coming — a good core Canadian snowboard brand — and each year we’ll have a different team.

What’s in store for this year?

I had to re-design the whole jib course, and we’re going to have milk snow for the hip. We’ll make it happen — we’ll have that hip going again. The jib course — I’ve got some ideas, but people will see it when it’s ready.

What’s the future of snowboarding in Revelstoke?

I think it will keep growing. The resort will keep growing, the town will keep growing. Snowboarding and skiing are going to keep growing. I’d like to see a park go into the hill, that would be it. You can’t be a full service resort unless you have a park. I don’t want to see people who possibly have a career in snowboarding here have to leave because we don’t have the facilities. I want to see us keep people in town instead of everyone going to Whistler like they did in the past.

There’s a lot of film crews still coming through — not only just backcountry, but street riding and stuff. I think it’s going to keep going up and up and up.

Revelstoke Times Review