Troy Blackmore
Born: 11/11/70
Halifax,Nova Scotia,Canada
Lives: Vancouver, BC
 One Easter in the early eighties my Dad gave me a skinny fiberglass skateboard with a picture of palm trees on the top. I started bombing hills with my friends and just cruising around, it was fun. A couple years later I started to see skate mags and videos. I mailordered a Santa Cruz Roskopp complete, learned how to ollie and retired my ice hockey skates for good. I lived on the East Coast of Canada, where there were no skateparks, and since street skating consisted of curb slappies and bonelesses, we decided to build a vert ramp. Luckily for us, the town was putting in sidewalks that year, and the 2x4's that they used to form the concrete, were stelthily collected. Then after many hours of smashing concrete off, the wood was used to build our sketchy new ramp. From that time on most of the people I met and the places I went were because of skateboarding. I started working at a shop called Pro Skates in Halifax, and soon moved out on my own and into a huge house with about 7 or 8 other skaters(who I still skate with today), and started a fine arts program at an Art School. The distractions of being a teenager ( skateboarding, travel, parties, girls, etc.) took time away from school and when mid-terms conflicted with a chance to go to Milwaukee to skate the Turf (RIP), skateboarding won hands down and I got to skate the sweetest concrete bowls I had ever seen. That was it for Art School. A couple years after that, it was time to move to the west coast because of all the concrete parks in Vancouver and the winters were mellower than back east. My friend from the east coast, John Raimondo, had bought a shop. The Boarding House, that was part of the Richmond Skate Ranch. He gave me a job at his shop, and I worked there for about five years. During those years the Skate Ranch closed down, downtown Vancouver skate spots came and went, and the Clubhouse park was built sessioned heavily and finally closed. Then one summer I hyper extended my leg while skating and blew my acl. Since I had so much free time while waiting for surgery, I started doing drawings and stuff for Concrete Powder Magazine (a Canadian skate/snow magazine published by Ultimate Distributors). That has turned into a full time job, and I have been the Art Director/assistant editor at Concreete Powder for about 3 years. I had to have another acl replacement surgery on the same knee last year but I'm getting ready for a full on summer of checking out all the new skateparks that are popping up like crazy around Vancouver as well as everywhere else. I have had experience organizing and judging many local contests, including the Vancouver Bowl Series, and sat in on the judging of the street qualifyers, for last years Slam City Jam. I look forward to being involved in judging this years Slam City contest, and whatever else may come up in the future. later, Troy.
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