My excitement had been building all summer. Since I live in Portland, and Portland is now home to the final stop of the pro wakeboard tour, I would get to see all the best pro tour wakeskating first hand. So I got my foam finger, my wakeskate stat books and my binoculars together and headed out to Blue Lake park to see some wakeskate action.

When I showed up I ran into Aaron Rathy right off the bat. I excitedly asked him if he had any new tricks, and he started talking about wakeboarding. Now, I know Rathy is a strapper too, so I figured I needed to specify that I was talking about wakeskating. He kind of looked at me confused, and I decided he just didn’t want to give up any secrets for fear I would tell his competition.

I headed down to the competition dock, where the Men’s pro wakeboard division was about to start. Megan Mcneil was there hanging out. I asked if I could get a picture with her and her wakeskate. She seemed confused, and told me she didn’t have her wakeskate. I was beginning to get a bit worried.  Chase Gregory and Silas Thurman were there and they didn’t have their skates either. Seriously, wtf?

I went up into the judges tower to ask the officials when the wakeskating started. To my surprise, Brian Grubb was sitting behind the judges table. Everyone was too busy to pay attention to me, so I had to assume he was just judging the wakeboarding, and he would soon take to the water to win it all. I decided I would just head down to the lake and wait. The wakeskaters would surely go soon.

So two days pass. There were crow mobes and Pete Roses. Whirlybirds and Tootsie rolls. Batwings and KGBs. Dum Dums and Raleys. But no kickflips, frontside flips, big spins or even shuvs. This was shaping up to be the worst wakeskate contest ever.  After Rusty Malinoski and Phillip Soven took their final runs, and it was beginning to get dark, I finally gave up. Maybe the wakeskating happened while I was in the bathroom or something, bummer.