Chitchat: 45 minutes of bulls#it with Pro Skiers Joe Schuster and Matt Margetts

Friday, I jumped on a Skype call with a couple of the oh-so-crazy Canucks, Joe Schuster and Matt Margetts. I’d originally pitched them the idea of a “pro-on-pro” interview, with plans of having them discuss their recent skiing exploits and whatnot. What ensued was a banterful conversation that touched more on alcohol and girls than anything else. And why am I not surprised? The duo are among the best in the world at balancing top-notch skiing with top-shelf (and topless) partying.

Anyhow, the jabber is posted below. I quite enjoy the conversational feel of this one, and hope you will too. Perhaps we’ll do a little pro skiers Chitchattin’ on the reg’…

Chitchat with Schuster and Margetts:

Joe Schuster: What’s going on, Lambo?

Henrik Lampert: We’re working on our 2015 Buyer’s Guide. Got a few new hires at Freeskier, which we’re super pumped about. Boulder, Colorado summer is coming into full swing here pretty soon. Life is good.

JS: Fuck yeah.

HL: And you?

JS: We were still filming a few weeks ago a little bit, but it’s basically done around here [Whistler] now. Maybe we’ll go out again, but I doubt it.

HL: Shooting for Super Proof?

JS: Yup. This week we’ll do a bunch more shooting for the movie, like, scene-y, intro type of shit.

Matt Margetts: Yeah, gangster shit. Mobster, New York, Mafia style.

HL: Super Proof seems to be shaping up pretty well, from what I’ve heard.

JS: Yeah, I like it a lot. It’s going to be a good change. It’s not going to be your typical ski movie shit. Obviously our crew is the same crew we’ve skied with forever, but we’re doing it our way, skiing with the people we want to ski with, and not having to deal with the sponsorship bullshit. Like, there’s always that BS, but it’s not to the point like it’s been with some production companies, where it’s like ‘Cool, this guy rides for Red Bull, so we’re going to film with him for one week and he’s going to have twice as much footage in the movie as everyone else who filmed all year.’ So yeah, it’s definitely our movie, and there’s only seven [now eight, with the addition of Noah Bowman] of us in there. It should be awesome.

HL: Marg, you just weren’t cool enough to be included, eh?

MM: Yeah, totally. I blew my knee in January. So, that was that.

JS: Hank, I don’t know if you know, but I got into Real Ski. I’m damn honored, and hyped for that. So, I have basically two film parts to do now.

HL: Are you able to use the same footage?

JS: I’m probably going to use the same footage, yup.

HL: ESPN doesn’t care?

MM: The footage will come out at the same time this year, so it’s no big deal.

JS: The parts are due August 1, they put it online, I think, September 1, and then it turns into a feature on ABC, which should be airing around September 15. So, we get eight mini profiles on ABC, but they’re like, “Yeah, it has to be original footage,” and I was like, well I’ll be doing Super Proof all year, and we’ll premiere it at iF3, which is right around the same time period, so it should be fine. Each Real Ski segment is just 90 seconds long, so like, 12 hammers, and Super Proof will be a bit bigger for me, like a full part.

The Real Ski stuff will also turn into a one-hour feature for ABC. The film segments alone won’t fill that time slot, so there will be some behind the scenes stuff for each person, and they’re going to do some sit-down interviews with us, too. At least that’s the plan. Having that on ABC will be awesome.

Credit: Jake Largess

MM: Joe, you’re going to be famous.

JS: Yeah, as if I’m not already. There are some problems with sharing footage and whatnot, though. People don’t want to share their footage. I heard some people may be dropping out of Real Ski because of that. I don’t really know, but, I think [ESPN has] got it mostly figured. I’m really stoked for it, stoked they brought it back. It’s a wicked contest and they almost didn’t do it this year. I hope they don’t ever drop it. It’s a great chance for us film skiers to make some money.

MM: Yeah, usually you don’t even get to eat.

JS: Yeah, exactly. I don’t know, to actually get some more exposure, it will be sweet. It’s super good to get our stuff out there in the mainstream media.

HL: You mentioned iF3 in there. That shit is going to be massive for us this year; we’ll be unveiling the final episode of the Road Trip Challenge there.

MM: How’d that go?

HL: So good.

JS: That’s rad. Are you releasing the whole series there?

HL: No, plan right now is, starting the first week of August we’ll be releasing one episode per week, each episode switching back and forth between Team Nordica and Team K2. By the time the sixth and final episode rolls around, that’ll be unveiled at iF3, so nobody knows who will win until then.

MM: I already know who won.

HL: No you don’t, loser. Nobody knows who won. We don’t even know. I’m not telling Damian and the K2 guys what Nordica did, and they’re not telling us what they did, and we haven’t watched all the footage yet because there’s so damn much of it, so at this point, not a single person knows who won. K2 keeps saying, “We didn’t do shit, we just partied,” but I’m convinced they all got tattoos and racked up bazillions of points and they’re just going to smoke us.

MM: Let’s talk about partying.

HL: OK. Who’s been winning?

MM: I think Joe needs to go off on that for a little bit. He was recently up at WSI. Tell us about your week, Joe? How was competing, skiing?

JS: Oh, wow. I don’t think I did any of those things there. It was quite a hectic week this year, filled with no competing, no filming, ’cause the snow was garbage… it was basically 10 days of straight partying. We pretty much did six days in, two days out, two more days in. So I did eight for 10 of partying. Basically, just lit it up with the boys as hard as I possibly could.

MM: Tell us about Amsterdam, Joe.

JS: You dick.

MM: Out with it, bud.

JS: Well, it was one of those day-drunk kind of days. We ended up at the ol’ patio there, around noon, just rifling through drinks. One thing leads to another, and a certain pro skier who has a bee allergy brought out the EpiPen, and just happened to put it on the table for some reason. And another unnamed pro skier was there, and convinced this other guy… do I drop his name? He’s going to be pissed.

MM: Just keep going.

JS: Anyway, individual number two, he might have taken that EpiPen and convinced individual number one, that it’s all good to stab yourself with it, and that it’s nothing more than a little adrenaline rush. So, person two stabbed person one in the leg, and once that rush started going, it looked really entertaining, so I went ahead and filled it up and I stabbed myself in the leg with it. And then, things just got ugly from there.

HL: How did that make you feel?

JS: For a while I felt good, then I went to the village square, puked my guts out and went to bed by 6:00 p.m.

HL: That could kill you.

MM: [Laughs] I miss you guys. I was so bummed I wasn’t there for that.

JS: Yeah, it was fucking awesome. I saw [James] Woodsy and Joss [Christensen] the next day, they were like, “Dude, you were fucked.” I was like, “What? I haven’t seen you.” They were like, “Yes, you did, yesterday.” And then I felt like an idiot.

HL: Marg, you’ve sucked at partying lately. ‘Sup with it?

MM: Well, leading up to the Olympics, I really didn’t do any partying because I blew my knee. I was on the “athlete” program pretty damn hard there, trying to get ready to compete in Sochi without an ACL. I was able to go and do it, but I unfortunately didn’t do well, so as soon as I was done I was sitting at the bottom of the pipe, and I was like, “I haven’t had a drink in a month, I finally did it, I finally made it, I got to ski here, now I need to find a fucking drink.”

So, I started ripping around, trying to go into all of the tents, and even with my credentials I couldn’t get in anywhere, or find any place with alcohol. Eventually I saw [agent] Tom Yaps sitting in the friends and family zone with a beer, and I wasn’t allowed to go in there, so I was waving at him wildly and finally got his attention and convinced him to bring me one, and wow did it taste good. I sat there and put my beer in my Team Canada mitt as a koozie and sucked in a cold one, it was pretty awesome to have one for the first time in a while. And then things got weird.

HL: Go on…

MM: Well, after that pipe event, we rallied the troops, dressed in our finest Canadian gear, and went and sent ‘er out on the town, and holy guacamole, we got a little bit crazy. We were in the village, chilling at one of the bars for a bit, and before we were even getting into it too hard, I’d already had my sleeves ripped off my Noah [Bowman] and Bone [Justin Dorey], it was going to be one of those nights…

We went for eight days straight. Me and Noah sent it solid, really drank in the Olympics, experienced it, had a good time. We went to this place called the Audi House every night, I don’t know how we came across it, but somebody was telling us it was open bar, live music, we were like, “Yeah, we should probably check that out.” So, we roll up, they let us in, we go upstairs, and it’s this nice lounge, and all this awesome food, and I go to the bar, everything was free, so I ordered as much as I could carry and asked for a tray of shots to be brought to our table, and it was like, classy, nice lounge, and we just started pile driving.

Next thing I hear, I hear some sax. I thought it was from the speakers at first, but I walk to the front of this place and there is a dude shredding live sax, and I’m five feet away, losing my mind because there’s nothing better than live sax.

Then a girl started singing, and we were requesting songs. And we started dancing, and nobody else was dancing at all, but eventually, people started joining and it turned into a full-on mosh pit, and then we sang “We Are The Champions” when Canada won a hockey game. It was glorious.

Credit: @nateabbott

JS: Not bad.

HL: The only club I went to in Sochi was Sky Club.

MM: That place I can’t talk too much about.

HL: Bullshit.

MM: Fine. It was insane. It was a three level place. There’s a bar smack in the center of the, like, giant dance floor, and then there was a show going on, on stage, the entire night with like 15 of the hottest Russian females you’ve ever seen in your life. It was kind of like a Burlesque show. Lingerie galore. They would just bounce around and dance the entire time.

We’d sit up on the second level where they had bottle service, and the balcony went around the perimeter of the whole bar and we’d look down at the dancers and watch people party. On the third floor… what do you call that? A brothel? Strip club? Place where you get private dances? We definitely went up there and spent a little bit of time, you know, just to cool down. When things got out of control, it was a good place to go and unwind, and just chat with a couple of ladies.

We’d party until 6:00 or 8:00 in the morning, wake up at noon, or 4:00, whatever, we’d take a bus down to the “coastal cluster,” enjoy some free McDonalds, go to the Canada house, turn it up to 40 and do it all over again.

HL: Did you watch any events down there?

MM: I went and watched Canada vs. USA in hockey, and that was pretty damn good.

JS: You don’t even like hockey.

MM: I’m pretty good at NHL 2011 on Xbox, though.

HL: Speaking of X’s and video games, what’re your thoughts on X Games dishing medals for video gaming?

JS: Yeah, that’s really stupid.

MM: I love the X Games, but that’s dumb.

HL: Yeah, we posted a poll on the site about it. Seems to be the general consensus. Cody Townsend was pretty outspoken, among others. Todd Richards had some pretty epic tweets, too.

MM: Have you seen Cody Townsend’s signature?

HL: What?

MM: It’s a dick.

HL: What?

MM: Yeah, his “C” is the balls, and the “ody” is a bit of the shaft, and the “Townsend” turns into the tip. It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. The “d” is the very tip.

HL: I need to get a signed poster for my office, then. Marg, I still have your signed Freeskier cover hanging in my office.

MM: Yeah I have three covers now, no big deal. Let’s talk more about partying.

HL: Who do you think the top Canadian partier is right now? Is Pettit losing the crown?

MM: ABM [Alex Beaulieu-Marchand] partied for two weeks straight at the Olympics. Every night, no nights off.

HL: Yeah, I saw him at Sky a few times.

MM: Yeah, he was on fire. Every time we saw him we’d rip a portion of his clothes off. And he had nothing left at the end. He didn’t bring his own clothes he was just using whatever Canada apparel we got when we got there, so when he flew home, poor guy had to travel in all ripped stuff. He killed it. So fun to be around.

HL: What about this summer? Whistler is never a bad time.

MM: I am on the wagon this summer.

JS: Don’t you mean off the wagon?

MM: Whatever. Yeah, I’m not drinking.

JS: It’s going to be on for me. I’m actually head coach of COC this year. So that means a bit more responsibility for me this year, but I think I’ll find a nice balance.

HL: Head coach is boss status.

JS: Yeah, I’m stoked. I’m going to try and bring in some new coaches. Spice things up a bit. Should be good.

HL: I’ve got to try and get up there.

JS: Yes.

HL: Want to talk more about skiing?

MM: Fuck no. Hank, what was your experience at WSI?

HL: Best time ever, as always. But I sucked at traveling. Missed all of my flights and forgot a million things all over the place.

JS: Marg, you may be moving to Whis’ for next year, yeah?

MM: Yes, I’d like to make the big move from the Big Smoke up to Whis’. I’d like to try and do a full season, and try to ski a bunch more, more than just pipe, because skiing only pipe for three years has been a bit draining, there’s so many other aspects of the sport that I love. I’m so fired up to ski park, film in the BC, and all of that.

JS: You getting a truck and a sled, then?

MM: Yes, I’ve been looking. Stoked to hang out with all you psychos. Joe, any ladies in your life?

JS: You know, there’s been a couple, but nothing worth introducing to my mom or anything.

MM: I heard there was one.

JS: Oh, really?

MM: Yeah.

JS: Well, there’s been more than one.

MM: Yeah, but one you’d introduce to mom.

JS: Nope, definitely not. That’s a lie. But you know, I’m sure I’ll find one out there eventually.

MM: Plenty of fish in the sea they call Whistler. Plenty of touques and tall Ts.

JS: Oof. That is such a nasty look.

MM: Let’s rip on our friends a bit more. Like Teej [Schiller], or Bone [Dorey], or [Josh] Bibby.

HL: Yes. We’ve been talking for more than 45 minutes now, boys. Hurry it up because I don’t want to transcribe this thing, at all.

MM: Can you just post the audio so I can listen? I can’t read.

HL: I’ll have to cut out all of the X-rated stuff from this conversation. That’d be worse than transcribing.

MM: One thing I learned about TJ the other day: you know how he always claims food and fitness? Well he’s a great cook, so he’s covered on the first part, but the fitness aspect, where that comes into play, we haven’t been able to figure that out. Aside from skiing, what type of fitness he’s actually into, you know? But I figured it out. The fitness he does, it stands for drinking. The food and fitness goes hand in hand, and I noticed this the other night while he was eating a bit of food and doing a bit of fitness at the same time.

HL: So fitness is just a code word?

MM: Yeah, it’s a code for having one. Or two. I spent some time with Ian Kenneth Cosco the other day and he’s doing great, too. Flying planes, living the dream. Living the single life right now ‘cause his lady is out of town, so he was letting loose and actually hangin’ with his friends again. He’s got a new friend, Pat, that Joe is really jealous about.

JS: No, that was Mike you idiot.

MM: No, but there’s a new one, Pat.

JS: I know Pat, I was hanging with Pat, he’s cool.

MM: Yeah, sure buddy.

JS: Marg, let’s hit some other topics real’ quick, we’re just rambling.

MM: Let’s hit some urban.

HL: What else is Cosco up to?

MM: He’s working on Chug Life 15.

HL: No he’s not.

MM: You’re right. He’s still the man, but he’s just full on being a pilot.

HL: Let’s wrap this shit up. I’m really dreading the transcribing. Final thoughts?

JS: Yes. If anyone wants to sponsor me, I’m down and I’ll be really positive for you.