I have to confess that I didn't know much about Stacey Gabriel prior to interviewing him, and for me that's a rare thing. I consider myself up to date with everyone involved in the Canadian skate scene: I visit all the websites, read all the magazines and watch all the videos. But somehow Stacey had slipped off my radar. After witnessing his skate skills in person, however, I knew I had to learn more. I guess you could say this interview was a learning experience for me as a personal fan, as much as it will be for you as a reader. So without any further babbling, I present the results of my "Five Things" interview with Stacey Gabriel.

Growing up, learning tricks and moving to Vancouver.
"I grew up in Kamloops, BC, where there are more rollerbladers than skateboarders. The one thing I miss most about home is our skatepark, because everything about the park is pretty much perfect. That's actually where I've learned most of the tricks I can do. I moved to Vancouver about four years ago to live with my brother ‘cause he let me stay with him for free. In Vancouver I skate with pretty much anyone. As a matter of fact, I'm skating a lot with Derek Swaim and the Aussie guys, Brett Box and Boyd Young. I ended up skating fakie a lot when I met Derek Swaim. Funny story, actually: Since Derek is goofy and I'm regular, I learned everything that he did, except I learned it fakie. We didn't have the skatepark back home until about three years ago, so when we were skating street spots and they were only backside, Derek was doing nollie tricks, and I had to learn them fakie. I could always do the nollie tricks, but everyone knows that I do a lot of fakie tricks and that's how I came to learn them. The two of us basically learned everything together."

Skating: It's a love and hate thing.
"Skating in general is super fun, and skating with all my friends is pretty much the best thing ever. I've been skating for about 10 years, since I was in grade five. The one thing that sucks about skating is all the hating that goes down, ‘cause there's not really a need for it. Most tricks have already been done a long time ago, so if you've got a trick on lock, just do it no matter if someone else has done it. One thing that gets me stoked on skating is that I'm stoked on videos and trying to film the best part that I can. Once I release a part, I tend to look back and focus on how I could have one-upped myself and filmed a better part."

I'm not a well traveled person.
"I've never been to the east coast and I've never been anywhere tropical. The only place that I've been to is California, and I've been there on three separate trips. I usually stay with Mike Stanfield whenever I'm down in Cali, because he knows all the spots and shows us Canadians so much love. I'm planning on traveling more in the future, but it's usually based on my sponsor's budgets, and I have to use what I'm given. You know what's weird? Everyone says that you get kicked out of places when you're in Cali, but for me it's never been like that. I've gotten kicked out of spots in Van as much as I have gotten kicked out of places in Cali. Weird, right?"

If you're hooked up, consider yourself lucky.
"Since I don't really work a nine-to-five job, I basically skate every single day. I'm lucky ‘cause I get enough boards and shoes to keep me stoked. As far as an amount, I can't really discuss that, but if someone's skating every single day, you might need about three boards [a month], but four would be ideal. Right now I'm hooked up by Etnies and Ruca from Timebomb, Listen skateboards and Destructo trucks from Ultimate, and my hometown shop B and B in Kamloops. Some people in Vancouver get a lot more then they deserve. I'm not naming names, but if you've never had a video part and you're just getting flowed tons of stuff, consider yourself lucky. I don't break boards that much because when I was growing up I taught myself how to preserve boards. My parents couldn't support my skating, so I was always using old used boards from friends. I pretty much learned when to land on the bolts, and when to kick my board out so that I could keep skating my boards for as long as possible."

Skate the streets, not the parks.
"Kids these days skate mostly park. When I grew up skating with Derek, we would just head up the main strip because we didn't have an amazing park to skate. We'd skate flat bars, flat ledges, and whatever else we could find in the streets. These days, kids just go from their house to the park and back home.  The kids these days are trying to learn the most insane tricks, but they don't really have the street aspect on lock. It's as if they want to just do all the tech-y tricks without learning the basics. It's way easier these days for kids to be good at skating because of all the parks they have access to on a daily basis. Once you see them push with their robot style and insane tricks, you can basically know if they grew up in parks or on the streets."

Quick Facts:
Favorite skate video: "Transworld's The Reason. It was the first video that I'd ever seen. To this day it is one of the best videos out there." 

First published photo: "Concrete Magazine, a laser flip down the Burrard 8-stair. Judah Oakes shot the photo and that's actually how I ended up landing a spot of the Etnies Canadian team."

Favorite skater: "Danny Garcia, simply for his style. In reality, there's really no such thing as a favorite skater for me. I like certain skaters at certain times." 

Future coverage: "I'm supposed to have an SBC interview coming out in the next two months. Also, Ben Stodard, Dave Erinright and Liam are working on a sequel to Sophomore Jinx and Young Folks."

Partying and girls: "I try not to have a steady girl; I find that not really having a full-time girl works for me ‘cause once things get all serious it definitely impacts my skating."