When Slopestyle was officially introduced into the 2014 Olympics this past July, snowboarders around the world were stoked to bring big jumps and rails over to a mainstream audience, but slowly the realization sunk in that they were about to embark down a road that they hadn't been down in about 14 years. Leading up to the 1998 Olympics, Terje Haaksonen, who hands down would have won gold, rejected competing in Halfpipe and has been an advocate against the FIS ever since. When the International Ski Federation (FIS) decided to reject the Ticket to Ride Tour's (TTR) proposal of a joint Olympic Qualification System this past November, snowboarders across the nation were outraged. There will be too many contests, they said. More athletes will get hurt, said others. When the notion that Slopetyle athletes should join together like Haaksonen once did and reject going to the Olympics all together, Spencer O'Brien dropped in to shed some light from an athlete's perspective.

Now that the FIS has announced their decision to decline the TTR proposal to combine some of their events in the qualifying system, what can be done about it from your perspective?
I think it's interesting that all of a sudden because Slopestyle is in the Olympics, everyone wants snowboarders to boycott it. No one's brought that up since '98 when Terje did it, and no one's asked any of the pipe athletes to do that since the very first Olympics. Of course, now the FIS has an even bigger hold on snowboarding, so maybe to some people it's the last straw, I'm not sure. I don't think boycotting is the answer. I think even if slope athletes boycott, the pipe athletes will still go - it's been the defining event for every pipe rider since 1998.

When ESPN ran this article, it mentioned that the founder of We Are Snowboarding (WAS), Chas Guldemond, planned to meet up with athletes like yourself at the first stop of the Dew Tour in Breckenridge and discuss what can be done now. What did you hope to get out of this?
Even if all the top men and women boycott both pipe and slope, there will still be people who will go, and the Olympics make their money off of people who don't know anything about snowboarding. Of course they've heard of Shaun White, but have they ever heard of anyone else? I don't think so. I don't think they'll care if me or Chas or Gretchen (Bleiler) or even Danny Davis are at the Olympics, and I don't think it'll hurt FIS or the IOC's revenue, which in the end is their bottom line. When Terje boycotted, he was the favorite to win and the biggest thing to ever happen to snowboarding at that point in time. He proved a point and it's something that will be remembered forever in snowboarding, but did it change anything from the perspective of FIS or the IOC? Not really.

Slopestyle highlights from the Breckenridge stop of the Dew Tour, including Spencer's winning run

What does this now mean for competitive Canadian snowboarders?
The Olympics are great for Canadian competitive snowboarders because now young kids have more opportunities and funding to get their careers started. From just an athlete perspective, the Olympics are great. I want to go; I've been waiting my whole career for them to let us in, and now I finally have that chance, but the question is: at what price? Is this really as big of a deal as people are making it out to be? Pipe's been in for four Olympics, will Slopestyle being in really change that much?

Is there anything non-competitive snowboarders can do to help? 
For a non-competitive snowboarder, I think the best thing to do is just stay involved and knowledgeable about the whole thing. I don't think anything is going to change for 2014, but if we work hard and everyone's together in this for the better of snowboarding, I'm confident that something can be done before 2018.

What are the main issues about FIS bringing in their own contest series?
First thing is that there're too many events. Without FIS events there are too many events; we have three different tours. It's great that there's so much interest in snowboarding and so many events, but there comes a point when you can't expect that much from an athlete. We're going to start seeing more injuries because everyone is pushing it so hard and everyone is so tired.