Of course, Haakonsen was already famous by that late fall of 1996. He could have gone somewhere, bought a ticket, boarded a plane, headed for some globally renowned dope spot where they would have welcomed a world champion snowboarder. But a kind of inertia, a torpid inability to get up and go, had struck him. I was, like, living underwater, like life was happening around me and I couldn't do anything to change what was going on.
Guys do strange things for girls.
And the reason Haakonsen was frozen was that his girlfriend a native Hawaiian with a cheery face, curly black hair, and a professional surfer's hard body, whose name we won't mention but whom Haakonsen was obviously stuck on was here. And that day, as it turned out, came. Today, right now, Haakonsen is stuck again, pinned momentarily in the status quo, in a space where he has more to lose than to gain from any change in his professional circumstances. He's generally acknowledged to be the best in the world in his sport indeed, he's spoken of as the best snowboarder ever. He can win premier events seemingly at will.