Commonwealth Stadium has been transformed from a football field to a snowboard World Cup stop in Edmonton.
A massive volume of snow was hauled from Rabbit Hill into Commonwealth Stadium Tuesday and it will continue in order to make sure the snowboard jump is packed in time for The Style Experience, FIS Snowboard Big Air World Cup.
“Similar to our event in the summer when we had Monster Jam when we brought in all all the truckloads of dirt, now we’re bringing in truckloads of snows,” said Heather Seutter, director of Commonwealth Stadium.
“This event is pretty unique to Edmonton you would have to travel to a ski hill you have to travel to Jasper, Banff, Whistler to be able to get this kind of experience and this is right in our own backyard.”
Some of the world’s top snowboarders will be in Edmonton the weekend of Dec. 9-10.
It’s the first time a snowboard jump has been built inside a stadium and into a grandstand in North America.
The construction of the jump, which is being done by Clark Builders, has been underway since Nov. 7.
It took 8,000 feet of two-by-fours to build the 483-foot-long snowboard jump on the southeast side of the bowl.
Scott Douglas, the project manager for Clark Builders, said the job was definitely unique and challenging.
“It’s different for sure we’re working with the scaffold system, so the scaffolding is typical but it’s usually square straight not normally built in curves like this and covered in plywood,” Douglas said.
WATCH: Snowboarding in Commonwealth Stadium
To get to the top of the jump, snowboarders will walk across field level, take an elevator up, walk across the concourse then climb stairs to the top.
“It’s really high up, it’s about 146 feet from field level to the top start platform,” Douglas said.
Richard Hegarty, with Snowboard Canada, said the wall at the bottom will be padded and fans can expect snowboarders to get some big air and perform incredible tricks.
“You’re likely to see some quad tricks out of some of the men, which is as far as it’s gone in big air competitions before and we’re really hoping that we’ll see a triple out of the girls,” Hegarty said. “There’s quite a lot of knuckle in the jump. there’s quite a lot of height on top of it. the riders will actually clear most of that, so they’ll be landing third of the way down this landing and then they’ll be able to slow down before they hit the wall.”
Commonwealth Stadium expects at least 10,000 fans to take in the event.