We're Jamming

City breaks rock. They’re a great chance to check out new places,  shop til you keel over and fill your face with lots of lovely food and drink.

If you head to a city where there’s also a snowboarding contest being held, you can also add to the mix a chance to watch some of the world’s best snowboarders in action and some great party nights.

Beats a weekend at home doing the washing doesn’t it?

In the last couple of years there have been urban snowboard contests in San Francisco, London, Glasgow, Las Vegas and Zurich to name just a few. Even Paris is getting in on the act – hosting a World Cup Big Air contest at Euro Disney. And the ultimate city break in three years time has to be a trip to Vancover for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Stockholm is another city on the urban snowboarding map. In October it held a city rail jam and followed that up with the Winter Jam in November – a two-day event featuring a freestyle ski contest and the first World Cup Big Air of the season.

Myself and friend Fran had been trying to fix a date to visit Stockholm for a couple of months – and when we found out about the Winter Jam festival we knew exactly when our trip would be.

Our plan was to stay with some local girls – one of whom we met at a girl’s camp in Morzine in January. If you haven’t got the option of free digs, there are loads of offers on the internet for weekend breaks which incorporate travel and accommodation.

Keep your eye on snowboarding websites (including powderroom.net) to find out

what’s happening where and sign up for newsletters on the websites of events you’re interested in going to make sure you get all the latest news.

Where there are tickets to these events, they tend to be free or pretty cheap – you just need to make sure you find out when and how they’re available and make sure you pick some up in time.

Anyhoo back to our weekend.

We left plenty of time to get our flight to Stockholm from Heathrow – but current security regulations left us queuing for more than an hour to show security our liquids and get our shoes x-rayed.

It didn’t help that we (starving without breakfast) were within sniffing distance of a gorgeous-smelling bagel bar while we were queueing and were also stood in front of the most annoying man on earth.

“I work for a reputable American company,” he told his equally dweeby travel companion. “I should be fast tracked.” Luckily we got send off to a different line before we felt the need to stand on his toes.

Our queuing left little time for perfume and Touche Eclait shopping so it was off to Boots for a meal deal for the plane (you get nowt for free on SAS flights these days) and then straight to our departure gate.

At the Stockholm end, it was a totally different story. We breezed through the huge, airy modern airport and hopped onto the rainbow-coloured city airport bus.

Forty minutes later we were in the city centre and soon we were in our first Swedish bar – complete with Swedish pear cider and a pint of something called Carlsberg Hof beer. We imagined it was an ode to the great Hasselhoff himself but our Swedish hosts soon explained that it was something much duller. Bah.

After a quick change back at chez ladies, we headed to the stadium where the Winter Jam was being held. The Stadion – which hosted the 1912 winter Olympics – is just a couple of subway stops from the centre of the city and uber easy to reach thanks to Stockholm’s brilliant underground system.

The skiers were just finishing their competition in the stadium but the crowd hung around for a performance on the music stage by Snook.

At the back of the stadium was a tent housing displays from many of the main

snowboard brands where you could meet reps and riders and check out the gear available for 2006/7. Having been to many of these kinds of events in the UK, I must admit it was weird to see the stands for brands like Burton, K2 and Ride and not see any familiar faces! Still, the visitors were making the most of it, checking out the new goods and filling their pockets with free posters, mags and DVDs.

The afterparty for the skiers was being held at the Hotel Scandic Anglais in a seriously chi-chi part of Stockholm just one subway stop away from the stadium. Surrounded by boutiques selling Louis Vuitton and the like, we did wonder if we were in the right part of town but sure enough, there was a line of baggy boys in trainers hanging outside the hotel.

Well thinking about it, there were actually two groups of people outside. One group (snuggled in their winter woollies) was waiting to get into the party, the other (shivering in t-shirts) was a frozen gathering of smokers.

You can’t smoke in pubs and clubs in Sweden now. It doesn’t seem to cause most of the locals too much of a problem mind you. Rather than shiver outside in their boob tubes, they opt for the Scandie mouth tobacco favourite snus instead. 

"It does mean that the pubs smell of farts and sweaty people instead though," one of our friends told us.

We still jumped for joy at the thought of being able to end an evening not smelling like an ashtray.

Once inside we headed to the bar and club area and grabbed ourselves some bargain Coronas (only 35 kroner – half the price of everything else on sale) and had a wander around. The snowboarder count was low – probably saving themselves for Saturday night.

We did spot Hampus Mosesson at one point but familiar snowboarding faces were thin on the ground. But as we expected, pretty much everyone in the place was gorgeous and very very young.

“Hey! You want some skier boys!” shouted a very tall, very drunk boy who could have been 16 or 26. Before we got a chance to reply, his similarly tall and young friend – wearing a burgundy satin dressing gown – joined him.

“Did we get you out of bed?” we asked.

“Ah no,” he replies. “This outfit displays my inner truth.”

Err right. We scarpered soon afterwards – our new skier friends insisting they were very much looking forward to seeing us again on the Saturday night. Great!

Even though it was 2am we were still able to get the subway home (just being careful to dodge the puddles of sick on the platforms). We kept ourselves fuelled up with chocolate and crisps from our new favourite things - the well-stocked vending machines which seemed to be on all the station platforms.

On Saturday morning, after some Swedish yummy bread and cheese, we headed out for a wander through the gorgeous old town.

It was also a soggy, wintery old town – it was pouring with rain and stupidly cold. We checked out the little cobbled streets and government buildings and walked on into the city centre for a tour of the snowboard shops.

First we went to a store called Active which stocked a small selection of snowboards and had a healthy bargain corner featuring some Hurley, Volcom and WESC gear.

Next up was the WESC store which was really a half Burton, half WESC store – with great selections of both brands. Sadly the prices were on a par with the UK so there weren’t many bargains to be had.

Our final stop was the well-stocked One Off Snowboard store near Central Station

 which had a good range of hardware and streetwear. We browsed the Nikita and Volcom gear – again all priced pretty much the same as in the UK – and grabbed ourselvs some free mags and posters.

Next up we headed to one of the government-run alcohol stores to get our Saturday

 night supplies. In Sweden you can by 3.5% alcohol beer in supermarkets but anything else has to be bought from one of these government stores. They’re only open until 3pm on a Saturday so we made sure we got our wine supplies sorted in plenty of time.

Stockholm has a fantastic selection of shops. There are a ton of clothing and homeware stores – including, as you’d expect – an H&M on every street. The Stadium sportswear chain, which was sponsoring the Winter Jam – had a window display on the event in every store.

Coming from a country where snowboard brands are still really only available in niche stores, it was really interesting to see snowboard gear piled high and worn by such a huge number of people.

We were starting to feel the cold a bit so to thaw out we went to the Kungshallen – a three-floor complex featuring about 15 restaurants and cafes of different kinds.

We had some big hot chocolates to help us warm up and drooled over the massive plates of tempura and sushi being served to customers at the restaurant next to us.

After heading back to our digs to put on some extra layers, we headed to the Stadium for the evening’s snowboard contest.

Thousands of other people were arriving at the same time. While we waited for the main event we watched the skiers and snowboarders hitting the public rail and box set up on the steps on one side of the stadium.

The riders falling off the rails had only a thin layer of orange crash mats to protect them from the tiered seating below. However the crash mats seemed to be having as much trouble staying in place on the riders and skiers did staying on the rails. It was carnage. We could only watch people smacking themselves off the ground so many times before it became too painful to observe.

Luckily the action was kicking off on the main jump. A giant run-in that crossed the

 perimeter wall of the stadium had been built. The whole thing was a whopping 100 metres long, 33 metres high.

The contest was a knock out battle with a series of heats, quarters and semis leading up to the final round.

The commentary came from a pair of blokes who were also voicing the competition live on Swedish television. It was easy enough to pick out the trick terminology – it seems a backside nine translates as ‘backside nine’ in Swedish, which is handy.

There was also a giant screen on which to watch the riders and see their scores. Unfortunately for one rider who bailed his landing, the directors took great glee in repeatedly showing footage of him sat on the snow with his goggles round his chin, slightly stunned.

Matevz Petek in the air (pic PerSandberg.se)

While I’d wrapped my top half up in multiple layers of toasty clothing (us snowboarders do layering well) I’d stupidly forgotten that Vans slip-ons are about as useful as flip-flops for keeping your feet warm.

I tried a selection of hobbit dances to keep my toes alive but without much success. By the time the quarter-finals started, my feet felt like two lumps of ice so our journey to the beer tent to warm up and refuel was a slow, painful shuffle.

The final few rounds of the contest were jawdropping – massive nines and tens of all persuasions were landed again and again. There was huge support for the Swedish riders but it wasn’t enough to keep Slovenia’s Matevz Petek and Finland’s Peetu Piiroinen and Risto Mattila off the podium.

After the Slovenian victor picked up his riches (and a strange-looking bunch of flowers) we headed home for some food and a costume change.

Unfortunately we seemed to get our timings a little wrong and by the time we got to the party venue, the bouncers had announced the party was full and that they weren’t letting anyone else in. We tried waggling our press passes around but the bouncer was rather underwhelmed, shook his head and still wouldn't let us in.

Squashed in a pack of disgruntled volunteers and would-be partygoers who couldn’t get in either we waited patiently to see if we might squeeze in later. We felt really bad for people staying at the hotel who weren’t part of the Winter Jam party. They had to batter their way through the crowds to get the attention of the doorman to get him to unlock the door and let them in.

To add to our pain, I caught a glipse of the not-unattractive Norwegian rider Andreas Wiig chatting to friends in the lobby with a Corona in each hand. So near yet so far.

Not everyone managed to keep their cool in the queuing crush. Turning round at the

Hmm... late night junk...

sound of raised voices, we watched a less than sober girl fling herself on the ground, roll around and scream “It’s just not fair!”

A bit overdramatic I think. And it didn't help her get in either.

Finally, realising some time later there was less than an hour of the party remaining, we gave up and headed to another pub (via some more vending machines and the subway again of course) to reacquaint ourselves with the demon drink as soon as possible and drown our disappointment.

We weren’t heading home til the Sunday evening so we still had plenty of time for more exploring in Stockholm the following day.

We wandered through the old town again, stopping to check out some tacky souvenir shops.

It was a bit strange being faced by piles of teatowels, t-shirts and fridge magnets bearing smiling moose – when you’ve been to Canada and already bought them all there.

You’re never far from a piece of food with a funny name in Europe – and Sweden is no exception. Post-wine munchies drew us towards a shop where we bought some Plopp chocolate and sniggered as we munched our way round the city.

The rest of our day was pretty much a foodfest. First came lunch in a great caf?© with enormous cakes and ace veggie lasagne.Within minutes of leaving we got a call from our Swedish friends asking us if we wanted to go for coffee with them so it was straight to a cool little caf?© called Mugge for huge mugs of tea and more biscuits. Marvellous.

Still mentally scarred by our frustrating morning at Heathrow, we left ourselves plenty of time to check in at Stockholm. The whole process took about ten minutes and we ended up airside with a ton of time to spare.

We hit the shops and soon noticed that the winner of Saturday night’s contest Matevz Petek was in the same newsagents store – riffling through the magazines. His teammates – in their bright Slovenian Snowboard Team – jackets were a bit less conspicuous.

We tipped our Swedish spare change out of our pocket and spent the last of our kroner on Dime bars, Toblerones and fridge magnets before boarding our plane back to reality.

We’d had a cracking weekend – watching some excellent snowboarding, exploring a new city and hanging out with some great people.

We did learn a few lessons along the way – including a fairly depressing one on what time to arrive at popular parties.

But we did like our classroom so much that I’m sure we’ll be back.

Why don’t you enrol too?

For more info, pics and videos of Winter Jam check out www.winterjam.se

Stockholm snowboarding addresses:

WESC - Kungsgatan 66, 111 21

One Off - Hammargatan 6-8 ‚Ä¢ 262 71 ?Ñngelholm

Active – Klara norra kyrkogata