MEET THE TEAM
Janne Saarinen
There are snowboarders who ride to achieve, and then there are those who ride for the pure fun of it. Janne is definitely one of the latter type.
He picked up the habit of snowboarding as a wee lad from his elder brothers in the later half of the -90´s and has been doing it ever since.
Competition trophies, trending tricks and pushing how much you can spin of a lip is something Janne has politely left for others to chase. Nevertheless he’s known to pull off podium positions and shiny medals from comps whenever the mood hits.
Freedom to just go for whatever feels right at the hip is his way to go, always preferring the slower threes to sevens over the mach5 spins of today.
In addition to riding the slopes and streets several days / week, pushing his own envelope, he coaches youths to seniors at Helsingin lumilautailijat.
Janne was the perfect first rider for the team. He rides with the best and not like the rest, still his open and sincere presence makes him feel like “one of us”.
-Until he pulls that switch method from his bag of tricks.
Heikki Sorsa
One common conception is that the world is on track when sons continue in their fathers footsteps, and pick up what dad used to do for the family’s bread and butter. In the case of Heikki Sorsa the world of snowboarding turned out as the winner when this son of an aviator discovered that flying can also be done standing sideways.
If the amount of podium positions is your meter to value an athlete’s worth or impact to their specific fields of sports, Heikki does tickle the needle, but probably will be left to a smaller notice. But if the meter values immaterial impact to the specific sport, and beyond, plus whom peer athletes name as one of the most inspirational and fluent riders around, Heikki Sorsa stands in a league of his own.
Skate- and snowboarding often walk hand in hand, in this specific order. Heikki makes no exception to this. He picked up a skateboard long before needing to shave, and luckily just long enough before any real bad habits found their ways to this kid growing up in Helsinki. During family winter holidays Heikkis family often traveled to northern Karelia, a region in Finland with places that have unpronounceable names like Mönni, Röksä and Mäkrä. There’s also a ski resort called Mustavaara. It was there where he found snowboarding.
After getting inspired and acquired that mandatory learn how to snowboard course (which he passed with flying colors btw) back in southern FIN, he returned to Mustavaara with a snowboard, excitement and a capital city kid’s skate mentality.
Even inclusive, skateboarding had a more surf style who’s who rank order culture stuck in the scene of Helsinki at the early half of the 90’s. Nothing straight up bad in that, but if being someone who had insecurity in their hearts it often felt a lot safer to just stick with your own crew. Used to this, Heikki kept a safe distance to the local rippers at Mustavaara, but faster he could think “I’m going to be an Olympic snowboarder in 2002” -someone from the local crew went “Yo! You snowboard too?! You should come and snowboard with us!”.
So he went. And the rest is snowboarding history.
The thing with more rural areas in Finland, especially before social media, is that socializing is a necessity to life, and it is not taken for granted as in the bigger cities. You alone, you die. To Heikki the call to join up the local crew at Mustavaara was taken as the unconditional acceptance of what it was, to feel safe and to come as you are.
One could say that skateboarding gave Heikki the lyrics for the song of his unfolding life. But snowboarding gave him his voice to sing the song out loud.
-Worlds highest air from a lethal quarterpipe in 2001 with 9.3 meters. He held that record for six years!
-The unforgettable mohawk hair, and winning the qualifiers heat in Salt Lake City Olympics 2002. He was the single most photographed athlete in those games, but what really went down was that he showed the whole world the radness in snowboarding. That it is not just about the sport. It’s about having fun and looking sick af while doing it.
-Numerous video parts with Standard films and Mack Dawg productions, which were the video production companies back in VHS and DVD times for the riders créme de la créme. The style gods of snowboarding.
And that’s not nearly all the “songs” he sang loud as hell on a snowboard.
Raw talent is something you can’t acquire. You either have it or don’t.
When the scoops for talent in air awareness, and body control was handed out Heikki got what most of us grind and practice for years just to come close to what he has.
Without guys like Heikki who just makes those insanely large cab 9 tail grabs look easy like the everyday front 3’s. The envelope of what is possible on a snowboard wouldn’t be pushed as hard as it still is to this day.
To quote another Finnish Snowboarding legend Eero Ettala, who also names Heikki as his personal GOAT (greatest of all times), “ Even the sickest video parts don’t do justice to that guy. You need to see him live to understand how good he really is.”
Even though he flew higher than most, has a family of his own and the active pro career in the rear view mirror, Heikkis feet are solidly on the ground, or better, in the stirrups. If you don’t know what those are, it’s the thing you put your feet in when riding horseback. That is his new midlife passion, riding. Instead of sports cars and motorbikes Heikki did once again a signature G move reaching the threshold of 40, he found horses. In his own words the kicks for him are the same as in the peak years of snowboarding.
But just to show he still is on top of the game, he is the Finnish nationals banked slalom champion of 2024. Remember Finland? Even today we produce those world class riders by the dozens like it was -98, so you can just imagine who’s against you at the gates. That banked champ title is not just out for grabs.
Or maybe it is.
For those who just are born with a snowboard on their feet.
