Craig
McMorris
Canada
·
Snowboarding
Date of birth | December 14, 1991 |
|---|---|
Birthplace | Regina, Saskatchewan |
Age | 34 |
Nationality | Canada |
Career start | 2010 |
Disciplines | Snowboard Backcountry / Snowboard Street |
To have one world-class snowboarder from the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada, is pretty rare. But two? As the elder statesman of the famed McMorris brothers, Craig McMorris is a veteran of the Canadian snowboard scene after first stepping on a board at the age of 11.
When Craig was 14, he joined the newly formed Saskatchewan Snowboard Team and once a month during the winter, they’d drive eight hours each way to the slopes in Calgary. “That’s what really got us into freestyle snowboarding,” says Craig.
Craig got into competing in slopestyle contests at a young age and competed in major contests around the world such as the US Open and the European Open, and earned himself a spot on the Canadian National Snowboard Team in 2012.
While Craig had success in slopestyle, the contest scene was never his end goal. “For me, I was always more passionate about filming,” he says. “You don’t always have the means or resources to just start filming, so you have to come up through the contests and get your name out there. That was always my goal.”
In 2013, Craig and his brother appeared in an MTV reality show, McMorris and McMorris. Since then Craig has filmed a regular YouTube series and shot parts for many of his sponsors.
Then, in 2014, Craig landed a snowboard analyst role for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. "I loved talking about snowboarding, so I put my name in the hat for that,” says Craig. That job led to future gigs as an on-air commentator for ESPN during the X Games, for everything from snowboarding to skateboarding.
Two years later Craig scored the opening part in the ManBoys movie, shot in the Whistler backcountry and on a rails trip to Quebec. “I put everything I had into that segment,” he says of the project that left him with a broken leg.
When he's not travelling and putting his body on the line to capture awesome footage, Craig can be found snowboarding on the slopes of Whistler in British Columbia. “I was living in Regina still and in between trips I was finding that I wasn’t snowboarding at all,” he says. “So I moved to Whistler and now when I’m not travelling I’m riding the best resort in the world.”
He and his brother have also set up the McMorris Foundation, which helps get children in Canada into sports.