Joona Kangas

Levi, Finland | Active: 2012-present | Discipline: Creative Park, Street, Backcountry Freestyle and Slopestyle | Known for: Keesh, Jib League, X Games Knuckle Huck, SuperUnknown

Ruka In October Before The Rest Of Winter

The park at Ruka opened under cold Finnish light, weeks before most of Europe had reliable snow. Joona Kangas was there with filmmaker Arttu Heikkinen, stacking early-season clips on rails and jump takeoffs while the ground outside the lanes still looked half autumn. Ruka sits below the Arctic Circle, far enough north for October laps to feel normal in Finland and strange almost anywhere else. Kangas called Levi his home resort, four hours farther north, but Ruka had the right mix: film premieres, friends, rails, takeoffs and the first clean sound of skis on machine-made snow.

Himos Spark, Levi Habit, Finnish National Team Years

Kangas’ own biography places the start in Central Finland, at Himos Ski Resort, before his family moved north when he was still young. HAMK later reported that he had been on skis since age three, with a father who had competed in moguls at Finnish national level. The geography shifted from Himos to Finnish Lapland, and Levi became the home base that shaped his skiing. That matters because Levi is not just a resort name in his story. It is the snow rhythm, the long winter and the park culture behind his first public identity.

From 2012 to 2019, Kangas represented the Finnish National Team in ski slopestyle. During that period, he won the 2014 Junior World Championships in slopestyle at Valmalenco, Italy, and later represented Finland at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. His Olympic result was 26th in men’s slopestyle, not a final or a medal, but it placed him inside a national-team generation where contest structure still defined the path for young European skiers.

Valmalenco Before The Creative Detour

The 2014 Junior World Championships win at Valmalenco is the cleanest early result in his record. At that stage, Kangas was still being measured through standard slopestyle language: rail sections, jump lines, FIS points, national-team selection and international starts. His later career makes that result more interesting, not less. He did not leave competition because he lacked the tools. He left after proving he could function inside the system.

His contest record from the following years shows the same pattern. Kangas later listed World Cup slopestyle results at Stoneham and Seiser Alm, a seventh at the U.S. Grand Prix slopestyle at Aspen Snowmass, a HotDogs & Handrails win at Ruka, and a European Wild Card at the B&E Invitational in Les Arcs. Those events connected him with different freeski languages: FIS scoring, North American slopestyle, rail-jam pressure and the European style-heavy lineage around Henrik Harlaut and Phil Casabon.

Keesh Turned The Mountain Into A Sketchbook

After 2019, Kangas moved away from a national-team contest identity and toward filming. His own site describes that shift directly: ski movies with Keesh and other skiers, plus invitational events such as Jib League and X Games. HAMK describes Keesh as a Finnish ski collective with a gritty, DIY style that combines street skiing and backcountry skiing. That line fits the way Kangas is now read by the ski community.

Keesh gave him the right kind of frame. Instead of chasing only one course score, he could link street drops, backcountry booters, transition tricks, knuckle takeoffs, rails and natural windlips into the same personal language. The crew setting also put him beside Finnish riders and filmers who understood the same northern conditions: short winter light, cold starts, long drives, and the need to make style visible even when the feature is rough.

Land Of The Darker Sun Across Lapland, The Alps And Riksgränsen

Land of the Darker Sun, released in 2021, is one of the clearest standalone film markers in Kangas’ post-team career. Prime Skiing described it as a short video featuring his skiing, filmed in Finnish Lapland, the Swiss Alps and Riksgränsen during 2020 and 2021. The credits named Sämi Ortlieb and Adam Kackur as filmers, with additional filming from Janic Cathomen, Ailo Riponiemi, Zenja Potapov, Kai Mahler, Daniel Loosli, Didier Tanner, Antti Ollila and Suéde.

Those locations matter because they pull three different textures into one part. Finnish Lapland gives cold snow, low sun and terrain where a small feature can become strange with the right speed. The Swiss Alps give steeper faces and bigger consequence. Riksgränsen, up in northern Sweden, carries late-season snow and a freeride history that rewards improvisation. Kangas’ skiing in that context is less about one winning trick than a moving eye: where to pop, where to smear, where to let the landing stay loose.

Keeshlife Movie 2 And Three Minutes Of Backcountry Freestyle

In 2024, his full part from Keeshlife Movie 2 resurfaced with strong attention from ski media. Downdays described it as three minutes of backcountry destruction, while Freeskier framed the part around freeride and freestyle capability. The detail that matters is the setting: large backcountry kickers, different feature shapes and a Keesh approach that treats the jump as more than a scoreboard for spins.

Kangas’ backcountry freestyle works because the body language stays playful even when the feature is serious. He can take a misty axis into a soft landing, carry a corked rotation without making it look mechanical, or turn a kicker session into something closer to park skiing placed in open terrain. That balance separates him from riders who become either pure street technicians or pure backcountry chargers. Kangas sits between those worlds and keeps the looseness intact.

Dark ’Til Dark And The Keesh 3 Year

The 2025 Newschoolers Awards made Kangas’ cultural position difficult to miss. Newschoolers wrote that Antti Ollila and Joona Kangas bookended the Keesh movie and began the year with the NS Originals video Dark ’til dark. The same awards cycle gave Kangas Skier of the Year, gave Keesh 3 Movie of the Year, and named Keesh Crew of the Year. That is not a FIS title, but in creative freeskiing it carries real weight.

The reason is simple: those awards reward the edits, segments and crew work that skiers actually replay. Kangas did not win because of contest points or sponsor scale. He won through presence across video, style and community conversation. Newschoolers described the decision as a close one between Kangas and Antti Ollila, two skiers with similar résumés and heavy Keesh influence. That comparison is useful because Ollila is not a random reference point; he is one of the central Finnish creative skiers of the same era.

Nordkette, Crans-Montana And The Jib League Language

Jib League is one of the best modern formats for Kangas. His own results page lists him as Season 1 Champion, with a first place in Season 1 Episode 1 at Nordkette, Austria, and a second place in Episode 2 at Crans-Montana, Switzerland. Later entries list third at Season 3 Episode 1 at Muttereralm and third at Season 4 Episode 1 at Nordkette. The pattern is not accidental.

Jib League rewards the details that define Kangas: nose butter control, rail touch, corked takeoffs, knuckle tricks, speed checks, sideways landings and tricks that do not need a giant jump to read well. At Nordkette above Innsbruck, the features sit in an alpine setting but the skiing feels closer to a session than a standard contest. That lets Kangas use precision without flattening his skiing into a formula. He can win or podium while still looking like he is drawing lines with the crew.

Aspen Knuckle Huck Without The Podium

X Games Aspen 2023 gave Kangas a mainstream contest marker in Ski Knuckle Huck, where he finished fourth. Knuckle Huck is different from big air or slopestyle because the takeoff and landing zone invite creativity more than height alone. Skiers play with the roll, throw butters, misty flips, tweaks, shifties and unusual grabs, then land low on the downslope with barely any time to correct.

Fourth place at X Games is not a medal, so it does not push him into the same ranking category as Olympic and X Games champions. It does, however, match his profile almost perfectly. Kangas’ best skiing often happens in zones where the feature is open-ended and the trick has to carry style before it carries score. Knuckle Huck made that visible to a wider audience without asking him to become a pure spin-to-win rider.

Palisades Tahoe And The SuperUnknown Pro Week

SuperUnknown 22 at Palisades Tahoe added another recent proof point. In 2025, Powder reported that Joona Kangas won Men’s Pro Rider of the Week while the event brought together the invited amateur finalists and more than 50 established professional skiers. Palisades in spring gives a different canvas than Ruka or Levi: California sun, soft landings, big custom builds and a crowded park full of skiers trying to create clips rather than run identical laps.

One highlighted moment from that week was a tweaked misty five. That trick says a lot about Kangas because it is not about the largest possible rotation. A misty 540 can become forgettable when rushed, but it can also become a signature when the skier stretches the tweak, controls the axis and lands with the body already prepared for the next move. Kangas has built much of his reputation in that space between technical difficulty and visual timing.

K2, Capeesh And The Brands Around The Current Era

Public sponsor information around Kangas is clearest through media references rather than a text list on his own site. Freeskier described him in 2024 as one of the most creative and technical riders on the K2 roster. A later Freeskier piece on Capeesh listed him among riders connected to the belt brand alongside Jackson Wells, Matěj Švancer and Tormod Frostad. Older video references also connect him with Jiberish and Völkl during earlier phases.

The brand pattern follows the career arc. K2 fits the current all-mountain freestyle identity: park, backcountry, soft-snow play and film-driven visibility. Capeesh fits the peer-led style economy around Jib League, Keesh and modern creative skiing. The point is not only product. Kangas’ sponsors make sense because his skiing sells a way of moving through terrain, not just a medal count.

Why Kangas Matters More On Video Than On A Ranking Page

FIS now lists Kangas as not active, which is accurate for his old ranking path but incomplete for his present place in skiing. His live record is no longer best read through World Cup points. It is better read through Keesh films, Jib League edits, SuperUnknown clips, Knuckle Huck, backcountry parts and community awards. That shift is exactly why his profile belongs under a creative template.

He is not a retired legend and not a classic contest dominator. He is a current creative skier who passed through the Olympic system, then chose a looser and more expressive route. The factual endpoint is strong: Newschoolers Skier of the Year 2025, Keesh 3 Movie of the Year, Keesh Crew of the Year, SuperUnknown 22 Men’s Pro Rider of the Week, and a Jib League Season 4 podium at Nordkette in 2025-2026.