Ice cross downhill

Last updated
Ice cross downhill
Red Bull Crashed Ice - Edmonton 2015 (16196171083).jpg
Red Bull Crashed Ice - Edmonton 2015
First played2001;23 years ago (2001)
Characteristics
ContactIncidental
Type
Equipment
VenueDownhill ice cross track
Presence
Olympic No
Paralympic No
World Games No

Ice cross downhill is a winter extreme sporting event which involves direct competitive downhill skating on a walled track featuring sharp turns and high vertical drops. Ice cross downhill is similar to ski cross and boardercross, except with ice skates on an ice track, instead of using skis or snowboards on a snow track. [1]

Contents

Events were held under the name Red Bull Crashed Ice from 2001-2019, and have been sanctioned by the ATSX since 2019. [2]

Course configurations and equipment

Courses

Contestants race down the course's turns, berms, and jumps. After racing one after another in the time trials, typically there are four racers starting each race. [3]

Equipment

Some racers use ice hockey skates. Ice hockey skates on ice.jpg
Some racers use ice hockey skates.

Racers wear helmets, ice hockey equipment, bandy equipment, ringette equipment, or in some cases equipment from other sports. Ice hockey skates and bandy skates are used. Ice hockey skates have a design whose blade is cut to create two working edges giving downhill skaters control and the ability to make sharp turns and stops. Bandy skates have flatter, longer blades and typically do not have a tendon guard, however they do not have the same turning ability that ice hockey skates do.

In 2015, Sadie Lundquist discussed the ice cross downhill equipment racers were using during an interview:

Sadie uses her regular hockey equipment, and eschews the GoPro, but she says some of the guys will wear slightly sleeker lacrosse shoulder pads, briefs and shin pads, and some use longer, flatter bandy blades rather than curved [ice] hockey blades. "Bandy blades have twice the surface touching the ice," she explained. "More steel touching the ice is beneficial for stride. You get more push off and they should glide further." [4]

Sarah Barker, "Hey Boys And Girls: You, Too, Can Skate 40 MPH Downhill Over Jumps", DeadSpin.com

Contestants

Racers are typically ice hockey players, though ringette players, bandy players, speed skaters, and figure skaters have also competed.

America's seven-time single event winner Jasper Felder is particularly notable. Felder was a bandy player [5] [6] [7] who represented the USA for the United States national bandy team, and while in ice cross dowhill, represented Sweden. Finland's Salla Kyhälä has also competed, a ringette player from Finland's national ringette team [8] [9] who also played in Canada's National Ringette League.


See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hockey</span> Sports played with hockey sticks

Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers of players, apparel, and playing surface, they share broad characteristics of two opposing teams using a stick to propel a ball or disk into a goal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ice skating</span> Self-propulsion of a person over ice, wearing bladed skates

Ice skating is the self-propulsion and gliding of a person across an ice surface, using metal-bladed ice skates. People skate for various reasons, including recreation (fun), exercise, competitive sports, and commuting. Ice skating may be performed on naturally frozen bodies of water, such as ponds, lakes, canals, and rivers, and on human-made ice surfaces both indoors and outdoors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Speed skating</span> Competitive form of ice skating

Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long-track speed skating, short-track speed skating, and marathon speed skating. In the Olympic Games, long-track speed skating is usually referred to as just "speed skating", while short-track speed skating is known as "short track". The International Skating Union (ISU), the governing body of competitive ice sports, refers to long track as "speed skating" and short track as "short track skating".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winter sports</span> Sports or recreational activities which are played on snow or ice

Winter sports or winter activities are competitive sports or non-competitive recreational activities which are played on snow or ice. Most are variations of skiing, ice skating and sledding. Traditionally, such games were only played in cold areas during winter, but artificial snow and artificial ice allow more flexibility. Playing areas and fields consist of either snow or ice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ice skate</span> Boots with blades attached to the bottom for propelling the bearer across a sheet of ice

Ice skates are metal blades attached underfoot and used to propel the bearer across a sheet of ice while ice skating.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Street hockey</span> Variant of other hockey sports

Street hockey is a collection of team sport variants played outdoors either on foot or with wheeled skates, using either a ball or puck designed for play on flat, dry surfaces. The object of every game is to score more goals than the opposing team by shooting the ball or puck into the opposing team's net. All games are derivatives of either the sport of ice hockey, floor hockey, bandy, and/or field hockey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ice rink</span> Place for ice skating and sports

An ice rink is a frozen body of water and/or an artificial sheet of ice where people can ice skate or play winter sports. Ice rinks are also used for exhibitions, contests and ice shows. The growth and increasing popularity of ice skating during the 1800s marked a rise in the deliberate construction of ice rinks in numerous areas of the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Floor hockey</span> Group of sports

Floor hockey is a broad term for several indoor floor game codes which involve two teams using a stick and type of ball or disk. Disks are either open or closed but both designs are usually referred to as "pucks". These games are played either on foot or with wheeled skates. Variants typically reflect the style of ice hockey, field hockey, bandy or some other combination of sport. Games are commonly known by various names including cosom hockey, ball hockey, floorball, or simply floor hockey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tour skating</span> Recreational ice skating

Tour skating is recreational long distance ice skating on natural ice. It is particularly popular in the Netherlands and the Nordic countries. It is becoming more popular in areas of North America such as New England, Southcentral Alaska, and Nova Scotia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canada Olympic Park</span> Sports venue in Calgary, Canada

Canada Olympic Park (COP), formerly known as Paskapoo Ski Hill, is a ski hill and multi-purpose training and competition facility located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, owned and operated by WinSport. It is currently used both for high performance athletic training and for recreational purposes by the general public. Canada Olympic Park was one of the venues for the 1988 Winter Olympics, being the primary venue for ski jumping, bobsleigh, and luge.

Sport is considered a national pastime in Finland and many Finns visit different sporting events regularly. Pesäpallo is the national sport of Finland, although the most popular forms of sport in terms of television viewers and media coverage are ice hockey and Formula One. In spectator attendance, harness racing comes right after ice hockey in popularity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ringette</span> Team sport played on ice

Ringette is a non-contact winter team sport played on an ice rink using ice hockey skates, straight sticks with drag-tips, and a blue, rubber, pneumatic ring designed for use on ice surfaces. While the sport was originally created exclusively for female competitors, it has expanded to now include participants of all gender identities. Although ringette looks ice hockey-like and is played on ice hockey rinks, the sport has its own lines and markings, and its offensive and defensive play bear a closer resemblance to lacrosse or basketball.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crashed Ice</span> World tour in ice cross downhill

Red Bull Crashed Ice was a world tour in ice cross downhill, a winter extreme sporting event which involves downhill skating in an urban environment, on a track which includes steep turns and high vertical drops. Racers speed down the course's turns, berms, and jumps. Competitors, having advanced from one of the tryouts in the prior months, race in heats of four skaters, with the top two advancing from each heat. The events were held from 2001 to 2019; the ATSX now oversees ice cross downhill events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neck guard</span> Protective sports gear worn around the neck

A neck guard is a piece of protective equipment worn by players around the neck area, particularly by players in the ice skating team sports of ice hockey, bandy, ringette, and rinkball. The guard is designed to prevent injury to the neck by ice hockey pucks, ringette rings, bandy balls, the metal blades on ice skates, and various types of sticks, i.e. ice hockey sticks. This piece is especially critical to goaltenders, especially ice hockey goaltenders, who are more likely at risk to be injured in this area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rinkball</span> Team sport played on ice, using sticks, ice skates, and a ball

Rinkball is a winter team sport played on ice with ice skates and is most popular in Finland, where it is known as kaukalopallo. This ball sport originated in Sweden in the 1960s and from there landed in Finland in the 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kyle Croxall</span> Canadian Red Bull Crashed Ice racer

Kyle Croxall is a Canadian Red Bull Crashed Ice racer. In January 2014, he was ranked fourth in the world in the sport. Croxall is a former ice hockey player who played one season with the Mississauga Chargers of the Ontario Junior A Hockey League.

2016 World Championship may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amanda Trunzo</span> American ice hockey player

Amanda Trunzo is a former women's ice hockey player from Minnesota. In the NCAA, she competed for the Dartmouth Big Green and was also named to the USA U-22 National team in 2010. She competes in Red Bull Crashed Ice and was the first American to become the World Champion in 2017–18. She won the World Championship again in 2018-19.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salla Kyhälä</span> Former elite Finnish ringette player and downhill ice cross competitor

Salla Kyhälä,, is a retired elite Finnish ringette player and world champion in both ringette and ice cross downhill. She played semi-pro ringette as a centre for Espoon Kiekkoseura in the elite Finnish semi-professional league, SM Ringette and the Saskatoon Wild and BC Thunder in Canada's semi-pro National Ringette League. Kyhälä was also member of the Finland national ringette team several times.

References

  1. "Ice Cross - Downhill". Red Bull. Retrieved 2012-01-20.
  2. "ATSX - Organization - We Are ATSX". ATSX. 2015.
  3. Sarah Barker (25 January 2013). "In Ice Cross, Race to Top Is a Sprint to the Bottom". New York Times.
  4. Sarah Barker (24 January 2015). "Hey Boys And Girls: You, Too, Can Skate 40 MPH Downhill Over Jumps". deadspin.com. DeadSpin. Retrieved 8 August 2022.
  5. Jasper Felder
  6. Image of Jasper Felder playing bandy for USA
  7. "USA/Sweden International Bandy Camp - 2021 on Facebook". Facebook . Archived from the original on 2022-04-27.[ user-generated source ]
  8. "Interview with Salla Kyhala, winner of Red Bull Crashed Ice 2015, St. Paul,MN, USA". youtube.com. Runglobalmedia. 26 January 2015. Retrieved 11 May 2022.
  9. Brian Swane (14 March 2015). "Finland's Salla Kyhala dominates Canadian field at Edmonton Crashed Ice". edmontonsun.com. Edmonton Sun . Retrieved 11 May 2022.