The ultimate bro event went down this past weekend on the semi-warm waters of wakeboarding’s magic land – Lake Powell. This was the third year of Liquid Force’s infamous Brostock and the third time really is the charm, because 2008 was by far the best yet.

Bigger, better and way more bro-tastic, Brostock 2008 was an open invitation to everybody. Seriously, everybody. Not just LF team riders and wakeboarding fans and media. Everybody. Even riders from other companies were invited to this year’s Brostock because Liquid Force had put together the Brostock Invitational Double Up Challenge. This wasn’t just any double up contest, though. This was Brostock and at Brostock you either go big or you go home. On the line was over $40,000 in total prize money and first place would take home a cool 20 G’s. Yes, 20,000 U.S. American dollars.

The weekend started off on Wednesday (ain’t nothing like starting a weekend on a Wednseday, right?) as the Liquid Force, Skullcandy and Alliance crews rolled into Lake Powell to load up their houseboats. Liquid Force had four houseboats (five if you count Nor-Cal super rep Chris Patterson’s boat), and Skullcandy and Alliance both had two. On Wednesday over ten boats converged to start off the Brostock bash, but by Friday and Saturday there were over 20. That’s a good party and everybody made sure to let loose for the first night.

Thursday was a hang out and ride day and Thursday night, per usual was a party.

Friday featured another first at Brostock, the Bro-Shop Challenge. This was a double up contest for all pro shop/am riders. Before Brostock all a shop had to do was register it’s amateur team riders and find a way to get them to Powell. These guys competed against each other in a double up contest and the two winners would get the chance to ride the next day against the big boys for a chance to claim the $20,000 first place prize (or any of the rest of the massive purse). Pro shop riders came from all over the country, including Wake N’ Skate in Virginia, The House in Minnesota, and Performance in Florida. In the end it was Sports LTD’s Chris Williams and Ross Brawner who took first and second respectively.

Saturday was the big day as all the pros who were there would boost off some double ups for a chance at becoming $20,000 richer. The contest allowed each rider to hit three double ups of their choice and the best one would be judged by the three judges (Parks Bonifay, Bill McCaffray and Greg Nelson). The 20 riders were broken up into five heats of four for the first round, all by drawing names out of hat.

Heat 1:
Chris O’Shea
Chris Williams
Ben Greenwood
Phillip Soven

Heat 2:
Jimmy LaRiche
Shane Bonifay
Rusty Malinoski
Shawn Watson

Heat 3:
Collin Harrington
JD Webb
Aaron Rathy
Daniel Watkins

Heat 4:
Brad Smeele
Tom Fooshee
Ricky Gonzalez
Adam Errington

Heat 5:
Mikey Ennen
Ross Brawner
Chad Sharpe
Kevin Henshaw

The top two from each heat advanced, and after drawing names would face off in a round of head-to-head competition, each getting another three double ups of their choice. Round two went like this:

Heat 1:
Phillip Soven
Chris O’Shea

Heat 2:
Jimmy LaRiche
Rusty Malinoski

Heat 3:
Daniel Watkins
Ricky Gonzalez

Heat 4:
Tom Fooshee
JD Webb

Heat 5:
Mikey Ennen
Kevin Henshaw

Phillip, who many expected to bring out his switch  crow 7, didn’t connect as well as he would have liked and was taken down by Chris O’s huge, poked out tail grab roll to blind. Jimmy knocked out Rusty with his signature switch heel 9 that he seems to stomp like a it’s nothing but a 180. This left five men for the finals. Watkins managed to pull of his double back roll, but it was no match for the technicality and insanely clean indy Pete Rose put down by Ricky G. Tom Fooshee, the definite surprise of the day with his huge heel 9 easily took out JD (JD fell on all three double ups). The uber-bro heat of party lovers and Brostock bro-fessionals Ennen and Henshaw was a crowd favorite, and Henshaw took it with an indy backside 7.

The five man final was definitely a different list of names than what most might have expected going into the day, but they had all deserved it and everybody knew it was going to be insane (come on, there were $20,000 on the line, how could it not be?). In the end the youngest guy in the competition took home the bacon. Jimmy LaRiche continued to throw down his smooth as butter switch heel 9, and the judges deemed him the winner of the first ever Brostock Double Up Invitational.

Following the double up contest there was a huge party, which included a performance by Chuck D. and Jonny Juice of none other than Public Enemy. Let’s just say the bro-ing down raged through the night and into the morning, all on the beautiful shores of Lake Powell. I don’t think it can get much better than that, but who knows, ‘cause 2009 is just 12 months away… See you there, bros…