SNOWBORDING AT GORD'S
Ever since we started selling boards about 15 years ago, Gord's has always seen itself as the thinking dude's (and dudette's) snowboard shop. Our colorful history with snowboarding goes WAY back... As a matter of fact, how many people can say that they bought their first two snowboards from Jake Burton Carpenter himself? Well JF has. Way back in the 80's our GM made a few trips to Manchester, Vermont where "the man" was still making snowboards out of his garage... JF and a few buds would stop near Stratton Vt to buy these weird things from a guy named Jake and take them to a little ski hill where some friends worked called Sonnenburg (one of the first to allow boarding) and did our best to learn how to ride.

JF's first real snowboard was a blue Burton Backhill from 1983 (see attached pic above right). "As poor ski patrollers at Owl's Head Qc, the only affordable down-time activity we could do was to snowboard. It was the perfect day-off sport... But back then we kept it strictly back-country as our boards had no edges whatsoever except for removable aluminum tail-fins..." His next board was the first P-Tex based board ever sold by Burton: The Performer. Still no edges but now with fancy new central aluminum tail fin! Sweet. Today JF mostly snowboards when no-one is around to make fun of him as he's pretty much always sucked at riding (which is why he now sticks mostly to skiing). He leaves the front and centre snowboarding to Our team of excellent riders that include staff-members Rowan, VanDusen, Aaron, Coppens, RT and the rest of the dudes and dudettes at the shop as they, conversely, do not suck at snowboarding. They live it. And that's why they call the shots at Gord's when it comes to snowboarding. Do yourself a favor, drop on by and check out our selection, our expertise and check out our unique way of approaching this sweet sport we all love. Snowboarding in Winnipeg lives at Gord's.

JUNIOR LEASE DROP!
As a way to encourage even more families to take their kids skiing and snowboarding this coming Olympic season, we here
at Gord's have decided to drop our Junior Lease rates this year to a ridiculously low, never-before seen
$99 a year rate for the entire 2009/2010 season! Yes, you read right! That's a dollar less than a hundred bucks to equip your kid with state-of-the-art skis, boots and bindings or Snowboard, boots and bindings! It's almost too good to be true! Hurry in to our Donald store though because quantities are limited!

BOARD TRIP CHECK LIST
The time has come upon us once again, Snowboard trip season! For all the kids out there, this means it’s time to put away your videos, magazines and those shredded toe rope mitts. For parents, its time to escape work for one week, grab the gear and those kids in question and RUN TO THE HILLS! But before you do that, your lovely partners in crime at Gord’s would like to give you a few friendly reminders to ensure that you’re going to get the most out of your ski holiday.

The gear:
Remember before leaving to check absolutely every piece of gear. Make sure your board is ready to rock. Check for rusty edges, any scratches in the base or the big daddy problem of them all, the dreaded core shot. (Remember last year when you just HAD to do Hell’s Kitchen on the last run of the day and you ran over that rock bed.) If you need any repairs, we would love to see you in the shop ASAP. The guys back there are ready for a busy week. That being said, we can only supply them with so much Red Bull before they go on such a glucose high that they wax your poles, adjust your skis and sharpen your bindings. So let’s do them great service and make sure we get all our stuff that needs work done early in the week. That sentiment is double for boot work. Our killer bootfitters are here for you, but believe me wait too long and you'll be sorry... stock is good but not unlimited. We would also like to invite you all to take advantage of our wonderful rental program. Come on in to the DONALD street location and we would love to set you up with some gear for your adventure.

Lookin’ Good:
Now that you know your equipment is taken care of, its time to make sure you’ll be comfortable on the hill. Bust out all the jackets, pants, goggles, gloves and helmets. Make sure that you have pairs of anything that requires two of something (gloves, mitts, socks, skis and discs one and two of The Wall). Check your pants… and your jacket too! How many times did we rip something and completely forget about it. And hey, let's not forget the wee little thing called "looking good". You owe it to yourself (and you significant squeeze) to look good out there... and guess where you can check out some of this years' bestest board fashions... yep, you guessed correctly: Gord's!

Getting there:
Some of you are flying, some of you are driving and even some of you are taking the train. All of you need to check the condition of your ski bags. As we all know, airport personnel or “throwers” can sometimes have the occasional accident. A good solid ski bag free of tears and broken straps will allow for your precious cargo to get there in one piece. For those of you brave souls who are driving the highway that brings cruise control a whole new meaning, I know exactly what you are thinking. “ Do I go with Supertramp or Steely Dan as my musical choice leaving Headingley?” I know this is an extremely important decision. However, don’t forget to mount your roof rack a couple of days before. This will give you a chance to see if you are missing any parts that may have been misplaced in the garage. This is not a dilemma you want to be having at 6 am in your pre-Tim Horton's state of mind.

So come on down to one of the shops, we would love to see you. And don’t forget, a bad day on the mountain is better then a good day anywhere else!

SNOWBOARD CULTURE LIVES HERE
I guess you could buy your deck somewhere else... But WHY? We like to say we're the thinking girl's / thinking man's board shop. Our Snowboard buyers don't just buy boards based on how the deck looks (even though we'll agree it IS important) But we do it differently... First, we do our homework, then, we get the best stuff (it's always easy to do when you got the good stuff), then we train and test and train and test and most importantly WE CARE!!! I know, sounds freakish and all weird and all... but we do. Unless your havin' a good time on your gear, we're not happy... and damned if we really like being happy! So trust us to make your board buy a kick ass one... On top of it all here's our guarantee: we promise you'll like your board or we'll swap it. Our kick-ass bootfitters will top it all off with the best fitting (and proper-sized) boots anywhere, we guarantee that too! Just come in and feel the love.

WHAT YOU GET
A few things you should know about buying your deck from Gord's:

[1] Killer service: Free UNLIMITED waxes for one year. That's a value of $15.95 a pop, dude! (and we're talking good, high performance wax... not the bottom feeder crap). No limits. You can even apply the free wax credit towards the best tune-up in town: Our Ceramic Disc Full Meal Deal and drop the price of said tune-up down to $29.00 from our regular $44.95. Sweeet.

[2] Love-it ride guarantee (if you buy a board and you don't love the ride, bring it back pronto and we'll make you happy... Just don't trash it and THEN tell us you don't love it... that's not cool) Take a day or two, then let us know. Life's too short.

[3] We give a sh*t. We're not in business to rip you off or to charge you more than the other guy. We're in business to make you happy so you'll keep on buying all your gear from us. Talk to us, let us know if the guy down the way is selling the same stuff for less, well match it. We want to be YOUR board shop and we're certainly not gonna lose your business over $15.

[4] Yes, we also sell skis. We believe in sharing the mountain, riding and shredding together... Enough with the BS, let's just get along and RIP!

[5] We ride the stuff we sell. Go ahead, ask us what board we ride... Ask us WHY we ride that board... We'll tell it to you straight up. Honest.

[6] We have demos. We have Manitoba's largest demo fleet. If you're not sure what board to ride and we can't help you narrow it down to one, we'll let you try a few. Who else does that?

[7] Bootfitting. That's where we proudly stand up and say "no one can fit you better" We'll do a proper volume assessment of your foot, we'll show you footbeds, we'll explain socks THEN we'll show you boots. AND we'll sell you the right size. And then, if you take our recommendation (and a footbed), we'll guarantee the bootfit for 3 THREE years! The best bootfit in the business, period. Read more about the way we fit boots HERE.

[8] Brands. We don't just sell anything. 32, Burton, K2, Arbor, Salomon, Drake, Northwave, Flow... and more. Just the good stuff.

[9] We refuse to be undersold. Everything we sell is covered by our no-nonsense LOWEST PRICE POLICY.

BS PATROL
There's some competitor somewhere in town that says on it's website "[we are] the only independent snowboard shop that has its own snowboard specific grinding machine" allow us to cough up the word "bullsh*t" to that one! Gord's has not one but TWO snowboard tuners. Bring your board in to either of our 2 locations and be prepared to be AMAZED. Check out more about our best-anywhere snowboard service HERE.

While on the subject of tunes, did you know we have the only 2 Wintersieger Ceramic Disc Edge Tuners in Central Canada? These things are the VERY best edge tuners ANYWHERE. No-one comes close. What they do is simple, they take your ground-out edges and make them new again (it's not that simple, actually... but you get the idea.) These machines will make your riding experience better Guaranteed!