Kevin Merchant

Killington, Vermont | Publicly Documented: 2010s-2024 | Known for: East Coast park skiing, street edits, coaching, LINE Traveling Circus | Current: LINE media appearances and Muted Team listing

Killington Under Chairlift Noise

The Stash at Killington can sound like metal edges, cold rope tow gloves, and chairlift wheels turning above wet Vermont snow. Kevin Merchant, better known around the East Coast as Tweak, built much of his public ski identity in that kind of setting: park laps, side-hit rhythm, rails close enough for a crew to hike again, and a local scene where coaching, filming, and skiing blur together.

Merchant is not documented as a major FIS contest skier or X Games medalist. His profile sits in a different lane: a regional freestyle figure connected to Killington, LINE Skis media, street projects, youth coaching, Windells camps, and New England rail culture. That makes his story smaller than an Olympic profile, but more specific to the park and street ecosystem that keeps freeskiing alive between headline events.

From Alaska Roots To The Killington Orbit

Freeskier’s 2016 Local Beta profile describes Merchant as an Alaska native who later moved into the Killington, Vermont scene. The same profile says he coached at Killington Mountain School for five years and worked as East Coast Team Manager for LINE Skis, scouting younger talent while still skiing the mountain’s parks. That mix explains his public role: rider, coach, connector, and local guide.

Killington gave Merchant a practical playground rather than a ceremonial stage. The mountain’s park culture has long depended on early-season laps, cold rails, East Coast ice, spring slush, and crews willing to hike a feature until the trick works. In that environment, style comes less from amplitude and more from timing, edge feel, rail pressure, nose blocks, taps, butters, and clean exits.

The Stash, Skye Peak, And Local Knowledge

Merchant’s Local Beta answers point directly to the terrain that shaped his reputation. He named The Stash park as an on-hill must-do because of its natural terrain park features, and he pointed to Skye Peak Express Quad as the lift to lap. He also mentioned Julio and Anarchy as glade lines, giving the profile a very Killington-specific texture rather than a generic resort biography.

Those details matter because East Coast freestyle skiers often learn through constraint. Snow can be firm, takeoffs can change quickly, and park lines require fast adaptation. Merchant’s skiing is publicly associated with that environment: not huge contest scaffolding, but rails, snow-built transitions, trees beside the park, and local crews that treat a bad-weather day as another chance to film.

Daycare And The Street Crew Around Will Wesson

In 2023, Merchant appeared in Daycare, a street skiing video by Will Wesson and Patrick Ring presented by LINE Skis. The project’s cast included Wesson, Ring, Reagan Wallis, Kale Cimperman, Tucker Fitzsimons, Bennie Osnow, Andy Parry, Pete Koukov, Taylor Lundquist, Dasha Agafonova, Mitchell Brower, Ross Imburgia, Jed Waters, Liam Baxter, Merchant, Paddy Flanagan, Kevin Salonius, and Dickie Styza.

Daycare places Merchant inside a recognizable lineage of modern street skiing: handrails, stair sets, wallrides, quick landings, awkward run-ins, and crews who value trick selection as much as trick size. The film’s importance for his profile is not that he carries the whole project, but that his name appears inside a LINE-backed street crew with some of the most visible creative skiers in North America.

Traveling Circus Weather In The Adirondacks

LINE Traveling Circus 17.1, Weather Or Not, released in September 2024, put Merchant back into the LINE media stream. LINE’s episode page describes the crew lapping Sugarbush, Gore Mountain, Whiteface, and Snow Ridge, with unstable East Coast weather shaping the trip. The cast list includes Andy Parry, Will Wesson, Bennie Osnow, Mitchell Brower, Ian Compton, Merchant, Connor Starr, Shane McFalls, Sawyer Sellingham, Charlie Dayton, and Erik Olson.

The episode summary also notes that Tweak invites the crew to his family cabin in the Adirondacks. That detail fits Merchant’s public image better than a podium stat would. His role is tied to place, hospitality, road-trip culture, and the East Coast’s mix of ice, slush, small ski areas, and homemade creativity. Traveling Circus has always leaned into that personality-driven side of freeskiing.

How Tweak Skis Small Features

Merchant’s public clips and event mentions point toward technical park skiing rather than large-scale contest runs. The vocabulary around him is rail-heavy: nose blocks, tail grabs, flat rails, hand drags, rope tow laps, and quick park sessions. Newschoolers’ 2016 Gathering at Loon recap described him calling out a nose block tail grab on a flat rail during a giveaway session while young skiers rushed the feature.

That kind of moment says more about his lane than a formal results sheet. Merchant’s skiing operates where participation and style meet. The trick does not need Olympic amplitude; it needs the right body position, balance over the binding, edge control on metal, and enough looseness to make a local rail jam feel like a crew session rather than a judged final.

Coaching, Camps, And The Next Skier In Line

Merchant’s coaching record gives his profile a second function. Public reporting links him to Killington Mountain School, Windells On The Road camps, and Andy Parry’s Tell A Friend Tour. Those settings are important because freestyle skiing often spreads through direct contact: a coach explaining spin direction, a rider showing a younger skier how to approach a rail, or a team manager noticing someone with style before results arrive.

Windells coverage from 2018 also referred to him as Coach Tweak during summer camp activity. That camp context matters. Summer glacier and terrain-park sessions have served as a meeting point for North American freeskiers for years, especially for park riders working on rails, switch takeoffs, unnatural spins, and air awareness before winter. Merchant’s public record places him inside that teaching-and-riding loop.

LINE, Muted, And East Coast Visibility

Merchant’s strongest brand association is with LINE Skis through media appearances, local reporting, and the East Coast team-manager role described in 2016. He is also listed by Muted Ltd. as a Vermont team member, which connects him to a smaller rail-focused apparel and accessory culture. Those two contexts show different levels of the same scene: established ski media on one side, grassroots rider identity on the other.

His public profile should be read carefully. Available sources confirm involvement with LINE projects and Muted’s team page, but they do not support calling him a global contest star. His value is more local and cultural: he appears where young skiers, street crews, park edits, and East Coast resort communities intersect. For a video-focused ski archive, that makes him relevant as a connector in the creative freeski network.

Where His Public Story Currently Sits

Merchant’s most recent well-documented ski media appearance is tied to LINE Traveling Circus Season 17 in 2024. Daycare gives him a street-film credit from 2023, while the Killington and camp references establish the older base of his reputation. The available public record is enough for a concise creative profile, but not enough for a long competitive biography with rankings, medals, or national-team milestones.

The clearest way to frame Kevin Merchant is through terrain and people: Killington parks, Adirondack cabin stops, LINE road trips, Will Wesson and Patrick Ring’s street-film orbit, Andy Parry’s community tours, and New England sessions where young skiers hike rails until the trick clicks. His story remains grounded in that practical layer of freeskiing, where the next clip can come from a flat rail, a slushy park lap, or a cold morning with the crew already booting up.