We received the following insight from SIA's research guru Kelly Davis explaining the growth in snowboarder visits:
Participation was up across the board for 2008. It correlates with the 60.5 million (a new record) skier/rider visits to resorts reported for the 2007/08 season when La Niña conditions brought record snowfall to alpine resorts across the U.S. According to the NSGA Sports Participation Study, alpine skiing participation was up almost 19% and snowboarding was up 16% for 2008. The sample for the NSGA study is a bit small so we triangulate the results with the Kottke Skier/Rider visits report issued by NSAA and another participation study SIA sponsors along with OIA, SGMA, tennis, golf, NCPPA and others that includes 41,500 responses. We have two seasons of data from that study and cannot use it yet to trend participation, however, for now it serves as a good check on the trends reported by NSGA and a better view of the actual number of snowboard participants. Additionally, that study looks at participation by season rather than by year. The NSGA and the larger SIA Participation Panel study correlate well:

NSGA Participation Study (participated at least 2 times in the given year) – 5,063,000 riders in 2007 and 5,854,000 riders in 2008
SIA Participation Panel Study (participated at least 2 times in the given season) – 5,874,000 for 2006/07 and 6,099,000 riders in 2007/08

So, my hypothesis is – a good snow year means more participation. We’ll see how last season looked around April 2010 – my guess is (based on the 57.4 million skier rider visits reported in the 2008/09 Kottke End of Season report) that participation in alpine skiing and snowboard riding was down slightly in

I can't believe this news. Eric was one of the nicest people out there and incredibly giving of his time, insight, and humor. We miss you man.

After receiving complaints from several of the manufacturers previously listed in this story we have removed all allusions to the brands. Apparently several of the brands listed, including Freestyle, which was mentioned as being one of the first stores that will go live with Surprisestore.com, are not planning on working with this retailer.

Comparing the two stories and reading the orignal emails from Torah Bright just about exhausts it.

After conducting our own thorough research on the issue, TransWorld Buisness staff has determined that this is original work. Since when do word associations and asking snowboarders about snowboarding constitute plagiarism?