Ex pro shred turned real estate agent turned DJ Chris Brown posted a commercial for Black Snow snowboards on his Facebook profile yesterday. The video is circa 1987, so for those who don’t know, Black Snow was one of the first price point board brands. Available at Canadian Tire and Sears the boards were made of plastic and, if memory serves correctly, some combination of fiberglass. The cheapest in the line, the Mogul Monster had grooves in the base where the straps from the bindings attached. There were no binding backs. The Mogul Monster sold for around $90.

A $150 would get you some plastic molded highbacks that were T-nutted on the Legend. The highbacks were pretty flimsy, but at least they added some support to your Sorels. The board was 125cm and you only got one stance option—zero degrees on the back foot and about 25 on the front. This was my first board, picked out of the Sears Christmas catalogue. I had never seen a snowboard before, had no idea what it was, but thought it look cool, so I took my Christmas money that my mom had saved for me from my relatives over the years and bought it. I was nine at the time. 22 years later I’m working at a snowboard magazine and still thinking snowboards are cool Go figure. 

For the $200 range you could step it up to the Legend SE Edge with metal edges. It was the closest thing to a legit board even though it didn’t have sidecut a separate topsheet or core.

Ah, when snowboarding was young. Here’s the commercial. I’m not sure why the “legendary snowboarder” has Predator-like abilities to turn invisible, but I’m staying the fuck away from Black Snow Mountain.

What was your first board?