Missert earns chance to join extreme downhill skaters at Fenway

LACONIA — Two days after winning the final round of tryouts for a wild-card entry into Red Bull’s extreme downhill skating tour, Thomas Missert was unsure how to think of it all.

“I’m still in shock,” he said Monday.

Missert was one of 24 other competitors who earned a spot at the final competition Saturday at Loon Mountain Resort, by being one of the eight fastest competitors at one of the three open tryouts held in Boston and Buffalo, New York.

The tryouts offered entry into the final stop in Red Bull’s Crashed Ice tour, which pits four racers against each other, shoulder-to-shoulder, as they navigate a course with sudden drops, hairpin corners and jumps. It’s similar to snowboard cross or ski cross, but the Crashed Ice course is ice instead of snow, and the racers wear skates and hockey gear.

But there was only one entry available in the men’s field, and 24 hopefuls for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. For Missert, it came at the time in his life when he was most ready to take advantage of it. And, yet, after he had finished his final run, it looked like the chance had slipped through his fingers.

Missert, 25, brought with him a lifetime of experience that made him uncannily positioned to excel at such an athletic event. He has an extensive hockey background that includes two years of junior hockey, and has worked around hockey as a photographer and even as a zamboni operator. He has built park features at local ski mountains, so he understands how speed and momentum can be carried from feature to feature, and he is an accomplished skier, snowboarder and skateboarder.

So, he figured that he would have a good shot. Then he was assured once he saw his competition take their practice runs, and he saw that the only skater he had to worry about was Michael Romano of Brampton, Ontario. He was the only other skater who was striding over the moguls, accelerating over the feature, while everyone else was coasting to maintain balance.

“I knew right from the get-go, he was laying down 15-second runs,” Missert said. Missert’s own practice runs weren’t as impressive, because his skates were too aggressively sharpened, and he was catching edges and falling. Before his timed runs, he ground away some of the edge from his skates to make them a little more forgiving.

It worked, and he maintained his footing for his first run, finishing the 600-foot course in 16.3 seconds. Then Romano took his run and posted 15.9.

“All right, do or die,” Missert said he was thinking before his final timed run. He had some extra time to wait, as the competitor before him had fallen at the finish line and crashed into the timing mechanism. While event organizers made repairs, Missert visualized his run – he said the Loon park crew did a great job building and maintaining the course – and he was ready when he got the green light.

“I went down and put down a perfect run,” he said. But then the announcer said he had finished a time of 16.2 seconds.

Missert, who was still happy to finish second or third, retired to the apres-party with his girlfriend and family. He was just about ready to leave for home when he was notified that the times announced at the finish line were unofficial – the official time had him crossing the line in 15.62 seconds, a third of a second faster than Romano.

“I can’t believe I actually made it,” he said.

A ticket to Fenway

What, exactly, did he earn? A spokesman for Red Bull said his prize is the chance to line up, shoulder-to-shoulder, with members of the ATSX (All Terrain Skate Cross) 1000 tour when it arrives in Boston on Feb. 8 and 9, the final stop of the international tour’s season.

The ATSX 1000 tour, which includes three races, is branded as Crashed Ice. The races are managed by energy drink mogul Red Bull, will hold its championship weekend at  iconic Fenway Park.

If Missert can hang with the pros, he might earn himself the chance to skate in other ATSX events, said Scott Crowder, the founder of the New England Pond Hockey Classic and one of the local people Red Bull contracted to help organize the athlete search.

“He’s getting an opportunity of a lifetime to skate at Fenway Park, and potentially to break into the sport,” Crowder said. He is going up against experienced professionals, Crowder noted, so it’s a realistic possibility that he could end his heat finishing fourth out of four skaters. Then again, Missert has already proven himself capable of finding the finish line faster than a lot of other competitors.

“It would be an amazing story, if he comes out of this and wins this thing,” Crowder said. “He has already done something remarkable, he has an opportunity to continue that.”

The right time

Missert wasn’t born in Laconia, but his family moved here when he was in elementary school.

“I wasn’t the best kid growing up,” he said. He wasn’t a good student, and got into some minor legal scrapes.

His physical scrapes, on the other hand, were more than minor. He has broken 18 bones, and the causes range from hockey, to skiing, to fighting. He was once in intensive care for three weeks after bombing down Pine Hill on a skateboard, his wheel hitting a rock at the bottom of the hill. Based on his injuries, which included a burst spleen and shattered left arm, a doctor estimated that he was traveling close to 50 miles per hour when he hit the pavement.

But Missert is soon to enter his late 20s, and he has learned to harness his wild streak. As evidence, after earning a qualifying spot at the open tryout, he checked himself in to Fit Focus, one of the gyms in downtown Laconia.

“I focused all my energy right to it,” he said. “I’m in good shape right now.”

And, looking back on the events, it seems to be a story written for him. The open tryouts were held in Boston, where he was born, and Buffalo, New York, where he grew up. Then the second round was held at Loon, a mountain and staff he knows well. And the big event is going to start feet from the famed Pesky Pole, which bears Missert's name among the hundreds of fan signatures.

"There's weird signs in this," he said. "I get chills thinking about stuff like this."

Video from the Crashed Ice event will be aired on Red Bull TV, available for free through redbull.com, on Feb. 9 at 8 p.m. Cable subscribers can catch the events of each day at 10 p.m. on both Feb. 8 and 9 p.m. on Fox Sports 1.