In Ice Cross, Race to Top Is a Sprint to the Bottom
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Version 0 of 1. ST. PAUL — A company at the top of the marketing game, Red Bull insists that ice cross downhill, like the other extreme sports the company has created, is not about selling beverages but rather an obligation to improve the lives of adrenaline junkies worldwide. The participants at the Crashed Ice qualifier at Xcel Energy Center here this week seemed convinced. Red Bull officials could have hollered, “This is an expensive marketing ploy to sell more energy drinks,” and the overwhelming response from skaters would have been, “Is it my turn yet?” Ice cross downhill combines elements of downhill skiing and motocross, and it is performed by four skaters at a time who race in full hockey gear down a steep, twisting, mogul-studded course at speeds reaching 45 miles an hour. Red Bull’s Crashed Ice World Championship consists of five ice cross downhill tournaments, only one of which takes place in the United States. It started here on Thursday and will end on Saturday. The Crashed Ice course, plunging from a bluff-top cathedral to downtown St. Paul, took 20 days and an army of workers with snowmobiles to construct, just for this three-day event. As the rookie Sever Lundquist climbed the 84 metal steps to the starting gate 48 feet above ground for the first time, realizing that within two strides he would be hitting vehicular speeds on thin steel blades, he said his only thought was, I can’t wait. “I used to be extremely involved in sports,” Lundquist, 23, said. “Now I work 50 hours a week at Target Corp and watch my two best friends play pro hockey in Norway. I want a chance to hopefully be a star, to be really great at something. To travel and be considered a pro athlete — that would be awesome.” The ice cross demographic is heavily white, male and 18 to 34 years old. Like the other extreme dudes, Lundquist said he had nothing but gratitude for Red Bull for investing its beverage-backed millions in all-comer awesomeness. “Sure, there’s a business incentive behind it, but Red Bull puts a lot of money into these outrageous events, and they don’t charge anybody for them,” he said. St. Paul businesses, particularly bars, are similarly pleased. The mayor’s office reported that Crashed Ice 2012 brought in $20 million in what was traditionally the coldest week of the year in the city. Lundquist is not about to waste this opportunity. Because the United States has no permanent ice cross courses on which to train, his father pulled him behind a snowmobile while he navigated an obstacle course they built on a lake. “Otherwise, at no time would you ever hit 45 m.p.h. on skates,” he said, laughing. Andrew Bergeson, a second-year member of Red Bull Crashed Ice Team USA, is another believer. “I have to pinch myself,” said Bergeson, 25, of Red Wing, Minn. He was attired at the tryouts in the offhand manner of a veteran, wearing pink and black Zubaz pants. “I’ve played hockey since I was 3 years old. Within two months of doing ice cross, I was at the top of the sport. It excites me to be a pioneer.” Like most ice crossers, Bergeson has a strong hockey background sprinkled with other fast-moving, hard-hitting pursuits like skiing, in-line skating and football. “My brother and I were always making jumps in our backyard,” he said. “So when I heard about the tryouts, I thought this was something I might be good at. The prize money never crossed my mind: I just wanted a chance to get on the course.” Competing last January against an international field of about 160 veterans and rookies, in front of a Red Bull-primed crowd of 80,000, Bergeson finished in 26th place, the third American. As such, he was invited to join Team USA for the Crashed Ice World Championship 2012 series — in the Netherlands, Sweden and Quebec — at Red Bull’s expense. “Everything was first-class,” he said. “Every city tried to outdo the last one with bigger parties, better dinners and cooler atmosphere.” Crashed Ice athletes pay no entry fee to compete, and the top eight finishers at each event win from $265.81 to $4,651.74. (The prize structure is in euros, since Red Bull is an Austrian company.) Bergeson spent $1,000 on custom skates, built an ice cross course in his backyard and burned through the vacation from his full-time job as a nuclear plant operator before the end of March. Then he dropped out of last year’s Netherlands Crashed Ice Championship with a separated shoulder. The loss of points, combined with a change in Red Bull’s athlete support structure, meant Bergeson received $500 toward hotel and airfare for this season’s first Crashed Ice tour stop in Niagara, Ontario, instead of full fare. “If Red Bull didn’t give me a dollar, I’d still do it,” he said. “It combines all my favorite sports — it’s a ton of fun. Plus, once you get out of college, there aren’t many ways to compete at a pro level like this.” A rising ice cross downhill star, Cameron Naasz, shared Bergeson’s sentiment. “I’m 100 percent grateful Red Bull has given me the opportunity to compete at the highest level of a sport I didn’t even know existed a year ago,” Naasz, a fifth-year student at St. Cloud State, said by phone. Naasz was a walk-on at last year’s Crashed Ice Championship in St. Paul, and his training in hockey, aggressive in-line skating, mountain biking and snowboarding paid off with a 24th-place finish. He won an award as the best newcomer to the sport and an invitation to join Team USA, joining Bergeson and the Salt Lake City native Tigh Isaac for the remaining three stops on the tour. “At first, I wasn’t thinking about competing seriously,” Naasz said. “I was just there to hang with guys like me, get a little crazy, have some fun.” The life of a professional ice crosser did not mesh with that of a full-time student, however, so Naasz took the spring semester off and caught up on classes over the summer. “My parents think the travel is great, but they probably would have killed me if I didn’t keep up with school,” he said. As latecomers to ice cross downhill, the Team USA athletes finished the 2012 season in the middle of the world rankings, with Swiss, Canadian and Finnish athletes taking the top spots. Naasz trained last summer with renewed energy, working out in the gym daily, mountain biking and getting on the ice three times a week. His dedication resulted in a second-place finish at this season’s first Crashed Ice event in Ontario, just behind the world champion Kyle Croxall of Canada. “The experience has been well worth the time and effort,” said Naasz, whose world ranking ensures that he will once again represent the United States on this year’s tour, at Red Bull’s expense. “We’re living the dream, traveling the world. We’re like semi-celebrities in the winter months. When I go out with friends, they’re like, ‘Do you know who this guy is?’ and I’m like, ‘How’s it going?’ ” |