According to Dave Arciprete, manager of the Ski Racquet in Olney, snowboard sales increase approximately 25 percent every year and now make up 40 percent of the store s business. Many people feel that snowboarding s youthful image has pulled plenty of boarders onto the bandwagon. Now small children and even their parents are getting in on the action, even though they slip, slide and tumble their way through their beginning runs. This originally unofficial sport eventually became nationally recognized, and was later included in the 1994 Lillihammer Olympics for the first time. While ski resorts generally turned away snowboarders during the early years of the sport, only a handful of resorts now exclude them.
Many resorts even have special snowboarding parks with jumps.
These allow advanced participants to perform aerial feats and novice boarders to experiment as they bump and bruise themselves in their efforts to land upright. Blair's ski club has also seen a substantial increase in snowboarders in recent years. Snowboarders in the club have grown in number from a handful to half of the group in just the past several years. Ski Club sponsor Rick Moats feels that this shift has been positive, adding variety to group dynamics. The club has always been cool about what you want to do.