Ted DeGros – Jeremy Pettit’s North (2002)

It isn’t so much the flip in as it is the flip out.

RJD2’s drums rain down like the cold shower of a Summer storm catching everyone unawares yet reinvigorating at the same time. By 2002, the hammer hordes had turned the heat up so high, a lot of people had left the kitchen. Tech skaters like Ted DeGros were sharpening their skills in the shadows and it took independent skate cinema like Jeremy Pettit’s North out of Canada to give everyone a good reset.

Ted may or may not have been a skate celebrity in Canada before his international recognition took off. I’d like to think he was pretty lowkey much like another Bostonian skater who was preparing his own takeover south of the border.

In true Canadian fashion, Ted comes equipped with plenty of sheets of plywood and pallets to help make fairly unskateable spots skateable. And when he does skate, he kills it! Besides tech wizard, Ronnie Creager, nobody was flipping in and out of ledge tricks with such ease as Ted. His nonchalant frontside nollie heelflip over a knee-high jersey barrier after flipping in and out of a backside tailslide is laughable. The backside nollie bigspin heelflip over the roofgap is not.

The real shock grenade in this part is the frontside nollie 360 heelflip over the jersey barrier the size and colour of a juiced up body builder. Then the aftershock of knowing Ted would slowly fade back into the shadows…