'2 Days Off' from The Corduroy Boys | Video + Interview
The Corduroy Boys are a tight-knit crew based out of Whistler. There’s Gavin Sorg, Charles Etienne Leclerc, Matt Turner, and Ryley Gramatovich at the core, with more homies coming and going. Everyone’s based in Whistler and working at the same restaurant except for Ryley, who's currently in Banff. They’re a rad group of boarders who are out there making it work between shifts. They’ve got good heads on their shoulders, raw talent, tons of drive, and zero entitlement - my favourite kind of boarders to support. We’re stoked to help them release their newest project “2 Days Off” where they drive 7000+ kms coast to coast across Canada to snowboard. Enjoy the movie and keep an eye out for more from these determined lads.
Words: Rob Lemay
Photos: Jordan Mattock
How was the drive from Whistler to Newfoundland? How long did it take you guys?
Charles: We left Whistler on a Monday night after work, like 7pm, and got to Newfoundland on Saturday morning for sunrise.
Crew pic, after what must have been a blur of a drive across Canada.
Is that driving straight there with no stops?
Gavin: We stopped at Charles’ parent’s in Quebec for a day.
Charles: We slept a few hours in Manitoba somewhere too, and spent maybe 12 hours in Gatineau at my parents place.
Matt: Biggest thanks to JF & Michelle Leclerc for letting us stay that night and about ten days on our way back through.
Matt cleaned up this spot up nicely with a 5050 backside 180.
What kind of music you guys playing on that drive?
Matt: A lot of country.{laughs} A lot of Wheeler Walker Jr if you ever heard of him. He’s a comedian country artist. Pretty outrageous stuff.
Gavin: Lots of “On the Road Again” by Willie Nelson
Charles, truckin' through it.
Charles, you have lots of quality clips in the movie, but your ender boardslide to 50 on that roof is so good. Can you talk us through getting that clip? I heard you grew up pretty close by?
Charles: Yeah, that spot’s in Aylmer, Gatineau and I grew up there. A few years back, Nic Roy from the Bruner’s actually 50’d it on the other side of the building. I must have been there hundreds of times in my life and never thought anything of it until Nic hit it. I was like “Holy shit, this is insane! How didn’t I think of that?”
Charles going ender mode!
Why is the film called '2 days off'? Who named the movie?
Matt: I came up with the name because that first year we’d go on a lot of trips on our two days off. We’d leave on a Tuesday afternoon after working in the morning and drive straight there. We’d hit spots Wednesday and Thursday and then drive back late Thursday for work on Friday. We did that at least three or four times that winter. It’s really amazing what you can fit into a couple days if you have the motivation. We stayed up late a lot. That was one of the biggest parts of this past winter. Building crazy drop-ins and trying to get spots ready for the morning definitely cut a lot of time off and we were able to achieve a lot more.
Walk me through Ryley’s clip on that crazy kink rail. I tried counting. Was it ten or so?
Matt: It was a bonkers rail. We pulled up to it and it’s at a university. The security guard was not stoked. There must have been another crew, cause she was yelling at us that she already told us no. After talking to her and trying to reason with her, she got to the point where she was like: “You know what? I’m done at 10pm. Just come at ten.” So we went to the bar for a couple hour lull and went back and Ryley got it pretty quick. It was pretty surreal.
Ryley returned to this multi kink by darkness and made it happen!
Gav, talk us through your half-cab 50 to front board on that big recognizable kink in Ottawa.
Gavin: It was definitely a bit of a battle. We pulled up to the spot and the whole rail was buried. Literally the whole rail was covered in snow. It took us like eight hours of shovelling with six guys. Finally, after we finished, I wanted to do a different trick but got a bit scared. Ended up battling it for about four hours. I wanted to get it better but we were running out of time, but the reason I think I battled for so long was that one of us needed to get something to make all that shovelling worth it.
Gavin making the shoveling worthwhile.
How were the people in Newfoundland? I’ve had some great friends from there.
Gavin: The Newfies are all so good, really lovely people. Even the cops. We’d show to a spot and if the cops came they would say we were good. “You’re not trying to disturb anyone.” Other people would give the Trailer Park Boys vibes, showing up with drinks in hand, offering us beers and stuff. Felt really welcomed there.
What’s next for the Corduroy Boys?
Matt: There’s nothing really concrete yet. Wherever there’s snow. We’d love to do another trip
