Is it on or is it off? Will it be firing or will it be flat? Is it a contest or is it a circus? That is the questions for the Quiksilver Pro NY being held next week in the Big Apple. Or more like Long Beach, New York- about 30 minutes outside of Manhattan.
If you saw the North County Surf blog back in January, then you heard the rumors about Quiksilver wanting to mirror the success of Nike's US Open in Huntington (or at least that's my thought on their undertaking). Of course you can't have a similar event in California or it looks like you're copying 'The Swoosh'. So hold it on the east coast instead, have some bands on the beach, a skate demo, bmx exhibition, some tents to pass out swag- oh- and a surf contest, and will look like you're not doing the same thing. Even though it is the same thing- just replace Nike/Hurley/Converse with Quiksilver/Roxy/DC and your owner happens to be Bob McKnight instead of Phil Knight. Eerie.
Anyway, there was this little natural disaster called Hurricane Irene last week that rolled through town and dumped rain, washed away sand, and knocked out power to Long Beach. So the rumors flew on the world wide web yesterday that the event was cancelled. Cooler heads prevailed though and they got rid of the 'fluf' and kept the surf contest- oh- and kept the skate demo Friday 'cause the kids love Tony Hawk. So at the core of it all, what's up with a surf contest in NYC?! Well, there are waves from time to time in Long Beach but just inconsistently.
And as luck would have it, looks like the next hurricane in line, Katia, is headed towards the event. Now, it's still a long ways away, but best case is for the event to have firing surf the middle of next week and for Katia to stay in the middle of the Atlantic. Worst case is for a hurricane to plow through the event site- again. Anyway you look at it, the surf world is going to be focused on NYC and it will be interesting to see how Kelly, Dane, Mick, Parko, Owen, Jordy, and the boys deal with the adversity- in and out of the water. The waiting period for the surf portion of the event starts Tuesday the 4th so make sure to check out the all drama here!
