WSKI 106 Trailer (2005)

Profile and significance

Eric Iberg is one of freeskiing’s defining storytellers—a skier-turned-filmmaker and event producer whose eye, curation, and mentorship helped shape what modern park, street, and film-driven skiing look like. Raised in Minnesota and connected early to the Midwest’s rope-tow rhythm in Edina, he surfaced on the global scene with his 16mm debut “Royalty” (2001), a tightly focused portrait of seven innovators that made urban rails and park style read clearly at full speed. He followed with the culture-shifting “WSKI 106” (2004), a Tanner Hall/Eric Iberg production that blended athlete personality, hip-hop, and progressive tricks into a coherent, rewatchable package. Over the next decade, Iberg evolved from director to multi-hyphenate producer, manager, and brand builder—co-launching Inspired Media and later steering projects like the Tanner Hall documentary “Like a Lion” and the two-year B-Dog & E-Dollo feature “Be Inspired.” Across it all, the constant is clarity: Iberg’s work turns difficult skiing into frames that make sense the first time and reward a tenth rewatch.

His significance goes beyond film credits. Iberg has been a connective tissue for a generation—elevating athletes, developing soundtracks, building tours, and creating spaces where style is judged by how it moves you, not just by rotation counts. He was part of the creative cohort that energized the rider-driven brand wave around Armada Skis, and he’s stayed close to the athlete pipeline in Park City, the Alps, and Québec. If you track freeski culture as much as contest standings, you’ve been watching Iberg’s influence for more than twenty years.

Competitive arc and key venues

Iberg’s “arc” is a road map of where modern freeski was built rather than a list of podiums. Early filming trips through Québec and the American Midwest refined his taste for honest speed and real-world architecture. The rise of Inspired Media turned film tours and premieres into moving classrooms, and the B&E era placed him at the heart of rider-led gatherings. The pinnacle on that front was the B&E Invitational in France, staged at Les Arcs from 2014 to 2016—a hybrid jam, concert, and broadcast showcase that treated slopestyle as an open canvas. Those sessions validated an idea he’d been building since “Royalty”: if you give the right skiers a course that encourages line design and musical pacing, they’ll produce skiing that reads beautifully without slow motion.

Equally important were home bases and hubs. The Park City ecosystem—airbags, tramp facilities, and lift-served parks—made it possible to iterate tricks and film quickly, which translated into Inspired edits and athlete projects that stayed fresh through long seasons. City-big-air venues and spring park laboratories rounded out the toolbox, ensuring that whether the backdrop was a scaffolding jump or a sun-softened rail garden, the footage preserved momentum and narrative. In Iberg’s world, place isn’t a backdrop; it’s a partner in the story.

How they ski: what to watch for

Though best known behind the lens, Iberg came up as a skier, and his preferences on snow are the blueprint for the clips he champions. Approaches square up early, body position stays stacked, and exits protect speed so the next feature arrives on time. On jumps, he has always favored measured spin speed and deep, functional grabs—safety, tail, or blunt held long enough to stabilize the axis—over frantic rotations that end in scrubs. On rails, it’s decisive lock-ins and presses with shape instead of wobble. That economy is why the athletes he highlights—whether in “WSKI 106,” “Like a Lion,” or “Be Inspired”—tend to look calm at full pace: the camera doesn’t need tricks to make the skiing legible.

When you watch an Iberg segment, study the spacing between moves and the way the music and edits honor it. Tricks don’t compete; they converse. A butter sets angle for a rail; a grab quiets a spin so the landing carries into the next setup. That conversation is what judges reward on modern slopestyle courses and what viewers feel in their chest when a great street part lands.

Resilience, filming, and influence

Iberg’s longevity comes from reinvention without losing taste. After “Royalty,” he stepped into larger canvases without diluting voice: “WSKI 106” layered athlete persona into the action; “Like a Lion” (co-directed) told a candid, comeback-era story of Tanner Hall that broadened freeski’s audience; “Be Inspired” focused tightly on Henrik Harlaut and Phil Casabon, proving that a two-year deep dive could still feel urgent if the skiing was honest and the soundtrack and pacing were deliberate. Around those landmarks were the touring projects—Inspired Demo Tours and premieres—that brought pros to local parks and main streets, collapsing the distance between global names and rope-tow culture.

Influence shows up in how crews build today. The clean-audio interviews, the insistence on shots that don’t need speed ramps to hide saves, the taste for venues that reward flow over spectacle—these are now common standards. Iberg also helped normalize the idea that a producer or director in skiing is a creative equal to the athlete, not a background technician. In practice, that’s opened doors for a generation of skier-filmmakers and editors who grew up on his canon and now run their own crews.

Geography that built the toolkit

Minnesota nights and Midwestern winters gave Iberg his edge ethic: firm snow, short in-runs, and a premium on accuracy. That foundation traveled well. In Utah, the pace of laps and off-snow facilities in Park City made experimentation sustainable, while European springs and event builds—the B&E courses at Les Arcs, for instance—proved that rider-designed features could translate to broadcast without losing soul. Québec City’s stair sets and neighborhood rails remained a recurring classroom, feeding the street vocabulary that his films made famous. Stitch those places together and you see why the work reads the same whether the camera is ten meters from a city down-flat-down or panning across a purpose-built park line.

Equipment and partners: practical takeaways

Iberg’s collaborations have always prioritized rider agency and durable tools. The athlete-driven ethos around Armada Skis aligned with his early-2000s push to center skiers in design and storytelling. Event choices and resort partners—from Les Arcs for the B&E era to the high-frequency training loop in Park City—reinforced a simple lesson: pick platforms and venues that make repetition safe and style visible. For progressing riders and filmmakers, the takeaways are concrete. Choose skis that feel predictable on takeoff and stable on rails; tune for hold but soften contact points to avoid surprise bites; and let soundtrack and camera support the trick’s shape instead of overpowering it. Equipment and editing won’t replace habits—but they can make good habits repeatable.

Why fans and progressing skiers care

Eric Iberg matters because he turned freeskiing’s creative surge into a shared language. His films and events taught viewers how to read line design, taught skiers how to build clips that hold up at normal speed, and taught brands and resorts how to support true rider-led culture. From Minnesota nights to Park City laps to Savoie soirées, the through-line is the same: protect momentum, make early commitments, and tell a story worth rewatching. If you love slopestyle, big air, and urban/street skiing for their blend of craft and feeling, Iberg’s body of work is required viewing—and its influence is still everywhere on snow.

Profile and significance

Philip “B-Dog” Casabon is a Canadian freeski icon from Shawinigan, Québec, whose style-first language—presses, butters, nollies, reverts, and shiftys that breathe—reshaped modern park and urban skiing. He rose through night laps at his local hill, Vallée du Parc, and became one of the most influential riders of his generation by proving that creativity, definition, and flow can outweigh brute force. His cultural footprint is matched by hardware: back-to-back gold medals at X Games Real Ski in 2018 and 2019, plus the 2018 Fan Favorite nod, cemented his status as a peer-elected standard. In the same window, he released the widely praised film “En Particulier” with Brady Perron and was named Freeskier’s Skier of the Year, a rare double for a rider focused on film and street. Casabon matters because he made style specific and teachable—clips that hold up frame by frame and a movement language that any progressing skier can study and apply.

Competitive arc and key venues

Casabon’s competitive résumé is unconventional by design. Early in his career he tested himself in slopestyle at Aspen, making multiple Winter X Games appearances when the discipline was still defining itself. As urban skiing’s broadcast moment arrived, he shifted to segments and rider-curated showcases that better matched his voice. The pivot paid off: his 2018 X Games Real Ski gold, delivered alongside the Fan Favorite award, was followed by a repeat gold in 2019—rare back-to-back wins that confirmed his dominance in the all-video, all-street format. In the culture-defining B&E era at Les Arcs, he collected “Best Style” honors in both 2014 and 2015 on a skate-inspired setup designed to reward touch and originality. Those landmarks—Aspen’s spotlight, Real Ski’s medals, and Les Arcs’ style awards—map the arc of a skier who used competition as a proof-of-concept for ideas refined in edits.

The places tied to his name help explain the skiing. Vallée du Parc gave him the repetition and switch comfort that show up in his lines. Aspen’s big-build tempo at Aspen Snowmass taught wind calls, long decks, and pressure management under cameras. The B&E park at Les Arcs encouraged butters into spins, long presses, and transfers that value feel over amplitude. Together they shaped a rider who reads features instantly and turns modest speed into full sentences of skiing.

How they ski: what to watch for

Casabon skis with economy and definition. Approaches stay tall and neutral. He sets rotation late, locks grabs early—often with unmistakable tweaks—and lets the trick breathe rather than rushing the set. On rails, the signatures are square entries, long-held presses and backslides that are obvious to the eye, surface swaps with minimal arm swing, and exits where the shoulders stay aligned so momentum carries into the next feature. Even when the spot is complex, he organizes edge pressure early to keep the base flat through kinks, which is why his landings read inevitable rather than rescued. On jumps and side hits the same patience appears: pop comes from the feet up, grabs are defined before 180 degrees, and the upper body stays quiet so the skis do the storytelling. The result is a blueprint any rider can study—calm entry, patient pop, early grab definition, square-shoulder exit.

Resilience, filming, and influence

Casabon’s influence runs through films and community projects as much as medals. He built a decade-long catalog of replayable segments, culminating in the late-2010s run that paired Real Ski golds with a festival-tested film presence. The work emphasized honest speed, horizon awareness, and compositions that make slope angle and body organization clear—choices that help viewers learn, not just watch. In the B&E era, his partnership with Henrik Harlaut created a platform where style was the scorecard, then pushed those ideas back into parks, streets, and product design. Interviews and long-form conversations from this period reveal a method that prizes durability over hype: habits you can repeat when conditions are imperfect and cameras are rolling.

That durability—plus a willingness to mentor—keeps his influence alive in a generation that learns from edits. Coaches use his clips to illustrate patient setups and clean exits; riders break down his presses and shifty timing to build their own lines. He is both reference and proof: you do not need the world’s biggest jump to show world-class skiing if your movements are organized and your choices are clear.

Geography that built the toolkit

Place explains the method. Shawinigan’s Vallée du Parc is a human-scale hill where repetition is abundant and mistakes are obvious. Night laps there forged the switch comfort, precise edging, and patience that define his rail game. The spotlight and wind at Aspen Snowmass layered in big-feature timing and composure. The creative modules at Les Arcs rewarded a horizontal vocabulary—presses, butters, wheelies—that Casabon helped popularize, proving that expression at low to medium speeds can be as compelling as amplitude. When you trace the map, you see the fingerprints in every clip: local-hill repetition, big-park patience, and skate-park creativity applied to snow.

Equipment and partners: practical takeaways

Casabon’s long relationship with Armada extended far beyond sticker placement. His pro model BDog and the experimental BDog Edgeless in Armada’s Zero Collection were designed to serve his priorities—predictable flex for presses and butters, confidence on switch landings, and swing weight that stays honest on slower-speed pops. The gear lessons for progressing skiers mirror that logic. Choose a true park ski with a balanced, medium flex you can bend without folding. Detune the contact points enough to reduce rail bite while maintaining dependable edge hold on the lip. Mount close enough to center that presses sit level and switch landings feel neutral. Keep binding ramp angles that don’t tip you onto your heels. Then build a process that matches the hardware: film laps, compare shoulder alignment and hip-to-ankle stack against a short checklist, and repeat until the movements become automatic. The setup is the scaffold; the habits are the house.

Why fans and progressing skiers care

Fans care about Philip Casabon because his skiing ages well. The clips prioritize timing, organization, and line design over noise, which is why they survive slow-motion scrutiny years later. Progressing skiers care because the same choices are teachable on normal parks and real snowpacks. If your winter looks like night laps on a small hill, weekend missions to a destination park, and a few street sessions with friends, his blueprint shows how to turn limited speed and imperfect conditions into memorable skiing. The medals—back-to-back X Games Real Ski golds and Fan Favorite in 2018—are milestones; the lasting takeaway is a method: calm entry, patient pop, early grab definition, square-shoulder exit, and a flow that connects a run into a single sentence. That is why B-Dog remains essential viewing for anyone who cares about freeskiing’s style, substance, and future.

Profile and significance

Tanner Hall—universally known as the “Ski Boss”—is one of freeskiing’s defining figures. Raised in Montana and forged in Utah park culture, he turned the early-2000s twin-tip revolution into a permanent shift in how slopestyle, big air, halfpipe and backcountry segments are skied and filmed. Hall’s competitive résumé is unmatched in its era: 11 Winter X Games medals with golds across superpipe, slopestyle and big air, a haul celebrated even by his longtime ski partner Armada. He co-founded Armada Skis in 2002 alongside JP Auclair and a core crew, codifying the rider-run brand model that many teams still emulate. After his early contest peak, he extended his reach with influential movie parts and later brought his power and feel to freeride venues, taking a podium in Japan while competing on the Freeride World Tour.

Hall’s significance goes beyond medals. He helped define park and pipe amplitude, he changed what counted as “clean” style in urban/street skiing and backcountry, and he became an archetype for longevity: comebacks from devastating injuries, followed by a second act of heavy edits and freeride results. For skiers who judge by both scoreboards and film parts, Hall is a cornerstone reference.

Competitive arc and key venues

Hall’s rise runs from Montana to Utah to Aspen. He learned to ski at Whitefish Mountain Resort, moved in his mid-teens to Park City for structured training and then began collecting major results while progressing tricks that read clearly at speed. His early X Games wins in big air and slopestyle set the pace; the superpipe three-peat era established his signature amplitude. Aspen’s Snowmass and Buttermilk venues became recurring theaters for those runs. After injuries reset the trajectory, he rebuilt through filming blocks and selective contests, then stepped into big-mountain inspection with the Freeride World Tour, where he earned second place at Hakuba in 2019 and later returned on a 2023 event wildcard.

Two places explain the durability of his career. Park City Mountain gave him long seasons, world-class halfpipe shaping and the repetition to make amplitude look easy. In British Columbia, Hall invested time and energy around Retallack, where storm snow and sustained pitches turned his pop and edge control into stacked backcountry lines. The mix—contest-shaped parks and authentic powder terrain—lets his skiing translate everywhere from a floodlit pipe to glaciated pillows.

How they ski: what to watch for

Hall’s style is built on timing, power and definition. Into takeoffs he stays tall, sets late and locks grabs early enough that the axis reads from the lip. In superpipe, watch the way he organizes his edges and hips before the wall—he loads the ski so the release is explosive rather than frantic, which is why his height out of the pipe has long been a benchmark. On rails and in street, he favors square entries and presses held just long enough to be unambiguous, with swaps that look inevitable rather than improvised. In backcountry, he carries the same discipline into natural features: ankles and hips start the butter, shoulders stay quiet, and landings arrive stacked over the feet.

The common thread is clarity. You can slow a Hall clip and still read the idea: patient pop, honest grab definition, centered landings. That legibility is part of why his runs aged well and why his segments—park, street or powder—became study material for a generation.

Resilience, filming, and influence

Hall’s resilience is central to his legend. In 2005 he famously shattered both ankles overshooting Chad’s Gap in Utah; in 2009 a filming crash in Washington destroyed both knees. He rebuilt twice, returning to X Games podium contention and then retooling his career around heavy parts and freeride competition. Through it all he kept filming: Poor Boyz Productions classics, the Inspired era he launched with Eric Iberg, and a steady stream of late-career projects that proved power and style survive long after most pros retire. When X Games took freeskiing to video with Real Ski, Hall’s entries and later Real Ski 2021 appearance showed how his approach meshes with modern, edit-first formats.

Influence also flows through equipment culture. As a founder of Armada, he helped shift the center of gravity toward athlete-led design and storytelling. That brand’s presence in parks, urban parts and powder edits—along with projects honoring JP Auclair—kept Hall’s technical choices and aesthetic priorities visible for young riders learning the craft.

Geography that built the toolkit

Place explains the method. Whitefish Mountain Resort gave Hall his first laps and an all-terrain foundation. Park City provided length of season, high-caliber halfpipe construction and contest-ready slopestyle lines—the training ground for his medal years. Aspen’s Snowmass/Buttermilk complex hosted many of the runs that cemented his X Games legacy. North of the border, Retallack brought sustained fall-line snow and real-world decision-making, producing backcountry parts that matched the authority of his park clips. Thread those venues together and you see why his skiing reads the same whether the stage is a perfect pipe wall or a wind-affected pillow stack.

Later, freeride stops from Japan to the Rockies gave Hall new canvases, but the fingerprints remained consistent: measured speed, stacked landings, and choices that keep flow intact for what comes next.

Equipment and partners: practical takeaways

Hall’s name is inseparable from Armada Skis. Over two decades he’s ridden and influenced platforms that span park icons to deep-snow shapes—tools chosen to pop predictably, press cleanly and stay stable at his trademark amplitudes. For skiers trying to borrow the feel, the hardware lesson is principle-based. A true twin with a balanced, medium-stiff flex will let you load the lip without folding and still hold presses on steel. A light detune at the contact points reduces rail bite while preserving trustworthy grip for pipe walls and jump takeoffs. A near-center mount keeps switch landings neutral and presses level. Binding ramp that’s too aggressive pushes you into the backseat; aim to stack hips over feet so you can release power on demand instead of rescuing landings.

Equally important is process. Film the lap, compare shoulder alignment and hip-to-ankle stack against a short checklist, and repeat until patient pop and early grab definition become automatic. That workflow—visible across his edits and Real Ski entry—is the part any motivated skier can copy.

Why fans and progressing skiers care

Fans care about Tanner Hall because he merged progression with clarity and then proved it lasts. The medals at Aspen, the segments from Park City to British Columbia, the later freeride results in Hakuba—each chapter shows the same readable language: calm into the lip, explosive but organized release, and landings that keep the line moving. Progressing riders care because those choices scale to ordinary parks and real snowpacks. You don’t need a contest bib to apply the blueprint—just patience at the takeoff, early grab definition, square exits from rails and stacked landings that set up the next hit. Two decades after he helped design the culture around athlete-led brands and film-driven skiing, the Ski Boss remains a living checklist for how modern freeskiing should look and feel.