Alpine Sled Style Snowmobile Film Competition 2022

The online competition showcases the backcountry riding exploits of five handpicked top-tier snowmobile athletes, presented in a high-quality short film format.

The winner of the best mountain riding segment is chosen by popular vote of the viewing public. The winner of the second annual event is Kyle Saxton. Congrats, Kyle!

Just prior to the 2nd running of Alpine Sled Style, Mountain Sledder spoke with Andrew Munster, who together with partner Jake Quinn, developed the platform for the film competition.
The goal of the organizers is to push mountain sledding athletes and the sport, and the Alpine Sled Style platform was created to help do for mountain sledding what X Games Real Moto and Red Bull media have done to elevate and promote other motorized sports like Freestyle MX.
The film competition ran for the first time in November, 2021. In the first running, three riders—Brett Turcotte, Andreas Bergmark and Cody McNolty—set the bar high with jaw-dropping riding accomplishments and high-quality edits.
Turcotte was the eventual winner with his segment (which you can watch here), securing the $5,000 grand prize.

For 2022, Alpine Sled Style is doubling the grand prize, putting up $10,000 to the winner of this year’s contest.

The field has also increased in size this time, with five riders competing for the prize. The riders are:

Ross Robinson

Caleb Kesterke

Kyle Saxton

Brett Turcotte

Albin Johansson

In the first two years, the project has been solely funded by Andrew’s company, Munster Canada, rather than by sponsorship and advertising revenue, in an attempt to create a competition that is as authentic as possible. Munster points out that Alpine Sled Style is and always should be a competition for riders, by riders.

Although it’s been a stretch for the organizers to put up so much money without any other support and no revenue from the project, they feel it’s important to do so to become established while providing the necessary incentive for riders to put forth their best efforts in riding and producing the short films.

Once established, the goal would shift to sustain and grow Alpine Sled Style with other support as well.

Munster says the long-term plan is not to make the competition profitable, but rather, with support, to increasingly funnel money back into the event to further incentivize riders to push their limits and the boundaries of high-quality content production.

During the competition window, members of the public can watch and vote for their favourite rider segment at www.sledstyle.com.

The winners will be determined 100% by popular vote, with no other forms of judging. However, Munster says he hopes voters will carefully weigh both the accomplishments of the rider in the segment and the production value of the edit, since the overall quality of a short film is so strongly tied to both aspects.

The team has also made it easier to vote this year. Voters will be able to log in using a Facebook or Google account, rather than registering an account as was necessary last year to ensure the each voter could not vote more than once.

For viewer who, like creators Munster and Quinn, would like to see a continued progression of backcountry riding and quality of content, they can help support the project by browsing to www.sledstyle.com and:

• Enjoy each short film
• Vote for their favourite
• Share the contest

It doesn’t cost a thing, and it’s an opportunity to contribute in a small way to such a great competition.

At Mountain Sledder, we’re pretty excited about Alpine Sled Style and the potential it has to help fuel the advancement of mountain riding and backcountry freestyle. With enough traction, hopefully it can also reach beyond our community to others who may not otherwise be exposed to the excitement of backcountry riding.

To help support the competition and grow it into a sustainable annual event, please consider sharing the contest with someone who you think will enjoying seeing some rowdy and radical mountain sledding action, presented in a high-quality production.

– MS