From the depths of Whistler's bromo-erotic cesspool that has brought us the likes of The Creekside Mob, the Whiskey delinquents, and The Wildcats, comes a new era of liver-neglecting, pow-worshipping, pro-ho tapping, uber-shred destroyers. 8 Mile, in all it's glory, was not much to look at, nor would you want to catch it's aroma of man if you weren't ready for it. But for Johnny Lyall, Mikey Rencz and Eero Niemela, it was the Holy Grail of resort town accommodation. It was cheap, two minutes from the lifts, relatively close to Whistler's nightlife, and right at the doorstep of the world's best sled-accessible snowboard terrain. Unfortunately the original 8 Mile condo is no more. But the character, or lack thereof, that 8 Mile stands for, lives on in print, video, web and the shenanigans of the riders that refuse to let it go.

In the beginning stood a townhouse condo across the road from the Creekside Gondola in Whistler, BC. Some say it belonged to the uncle of one Johnny "J-Bone" Lyall, but this has never been confirmed. Johnny tries to remember the exact scenario through a booze-fueled haze some call a memory.

"Mikey and I moved into a small basement suite and we were hyped ‘cause it was our first place on our own with no parents! Mikey's Dad said, the day he helped us move in, ‘This is a really small place guys, you're going to have to run a tight ship to keep this it in order.' The ship was tight for a few moments... then Eero moved in."

Eero had this to say in his defense: "It was a little one-bedroom suite. When you have three snowboarders living in that small of a place... it gets kind of hectic! We had so much stuff everywhere, there was no place to walk or even stand. The master bedroom was for guests only. We all stayed in the living room. Me and Bones slept on the futon and Mikey slept on the couch."

It seemed anyone could take a page out of the 8 Mile book -- the ability to read not required, of course -- just by swinging by ground zero. Mikey explains that he and the boys wanted to keep it casual, so the comings and goings weren't strictly regulated

"It was pretty much an open-door policy, literally, because Kale [Stephens] and Browner [Chris Brown] kicked the door in so often that it wouldn't lock or even latch closed anymore."

To really put things in perspective J-Bone interjects, "Sometimes we would be taking a mellow night and go to bed early, ‘cause we would be waking up at 6 am to go ‘boarding, and people would just bring the after party back to The Mile at 3 am anyway. So we would wake up for a quick drink and then go back to snooze town.

Obviously in these conditions, accurate recollections of specific happenings at 8 Mile are few and far between. To aid them in remembering details the boys opted to arm themselves with video cameras. It is a rare occurrence to not see a camera of sorts in one, if not all, of their hands. It wasn't long before the footage collected needed to be consolidated and a medium created to share it with the world. It was just that good. And so 8milelife.com was born. Long time, high-tech friend-to-shredders Randy Ross was tricked into designing the website. And like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the homepage triumphantly opens with the epitome of young bachelorhood -- a greasy slice of pizza -- appearing out of nowhere. If possible, the site only gets better from there.

Eero breaks down the website: "We are just going keep the dream alive with little movies and funny blogs that we keep posting. We are just all about having a good time and not taking life too seriously; we just want show the fun side of snowboarding and being young!" In true 8 Mile fashion, all the videos released will be free for the downloading.

"We are introducing 8 mile TV in the next week or so," ads Mikey. "We gathered all of our extra footage, that would otherwise never be seen, mixed it with some of the stuff we filmed ourselves and voila! Webisode one is done and ready to roll. I don't know how many webisodes we will do this year... Five? Ten? I guess ‘till we run out of footy!"

Rob Dow, video guru of Wildcats and White Out fame, was recruited for this stage and the results are nothing short of top-shelf entertainment. J-Bone ensures the content is updated on the regular, due to his desire to share the 8 Mile way of life with the world. As far as I can tell, all posts are backed with photos and video. It seems this is done mostly because it wouldn't be believable without the proof.

Like most good things, the original 8 Mile had to come to an end... Or did it? The crew was eventually booted out of their lair, but even while staggered all over the world, these globetrotting pro-shreds want the 8 Mile way of life to live on vicariously through all who will embrace it.

"We are all over the place," Mikey explains. "Bones is in Vancouver, Eero is in Cali in the summers, and I'm in Squamish in the winter. 8 Mile is just continuing through us being idiots. Everything was sooooo easy when we still lived there. It was just easy living. It was super cheap. We just paid our little bit of rent, and we were good for the month. No dishes, no laundry... and no real life!"

8 Mile Homies:
Chris Dufficy, JOFO, The Trouble Gang, Chris Brown, Trevor Andrew, Paavo Tikkanen, Iikka Backstrom, Lauri Heiskari, Benji Ritchie, Dustin Craven, Charles White, Kale Stephens, Shin Campos, Reno B., Martin Gallant, Paul Gonzales