My relationship with Shane was very honest and fun. He was the most loyal MSP skier in the history of our company. He always worked together with us to figure out the best way to get things done right. Everything was always on the table and we worked hard for each other. Shane was also a very close friend, personally. We talked about everything: life, death, sponsors, whatever.
There were so many things that made Shane a likable person. He could and would carry on a conversation with anyone about any subject. He really wanted to know about people, like what it was like to be a plumber or a hotel clerk. As interested as people were about Shane and his exciting life, he cared about their life just as much. His honesty was refreshing.
We were tremendously bored in AK one year and came up with the idea of Saucer Boy. Shane always credited me with the idea, but it was more a collaboration between Shane, Murray Wais and myself. Then Gaffney did a great job running with it in the next few years. Shane, of course, made the character by poking fun at himself and other pros who took the whole pro skiing thing so seriously.
Shane definitely wasn’t somebody who would fight over a line. He would find something else. There’s stress sometimes with money and helicopters and bad snow, then when it’s good, everyone’s on their toes ready to get it done. Shane was really mellow and chill. He gave the whole crew a vibe of good times and fun.
We have received tons of letters from random people who are like, “You don’t know me, Shane didn’t know me, and I’m sure you’ve heard this, but Shane inspired my personal life for these reasons…†A lot of it was to not take life so seriously and to not let your ego get in the way of a good time. Shane never let his ego get in his way.
We were in Bella Coola when he started ski BASE jumping. It was also the year he did the waterskiing. He would throw his parachute rig, his waterskis, his normal skis and a backup pair of skis in the basket and take up all the room. We’d be flying around with Shane’s junk show.
He didn’t have a lot of epic ski shots for Claim. We were just hoping we could even make a segment for him. But with his antics and the song, it turned out to be a lot of people’s favorite segment. Shane was more than just a skier, he was a character. And that character made his segments stand out as some of the best segments we’ve ever done and some of the most fun to edit.
