One of the most unpredictable announcements of the New Year! It is quite a shocker to hear Eric Koston has bounced from the Lakai camp. And in no way is this an April Fool’s joke.

Lakai has posted a pretty hilarious “press release” video about his leaving. You can tell that it’s under no harsh terms due to the fact that Koston would even participate in a good hearted humorous press release with his homies over at Lakai. I’m sure he has something preset and planned as to what’s next. Perhaps his own shoe brand launched out of the Crailtap network? I would think so! If not that, then maybe he will join his long time friend Tim Gavin at DVS shoes. All of these are possibilities but Koston has always made power moves.

I don’t really think he would leave for something as corporate as Nike or Adidas. I mean he easily could but I don’t think that’s his style. Froston footwear perhaps? It has a ring to it doesn’t it? Imagine that the new Froston 1’s due for release May 2nd, 2009. Hey, it could happen nowadays.

Whatever he chooses, its still Eric Koston, one of the most skilled skateboarders in the world. You can sure bet that his following will carry on no matter where he goes and what he chooses to do. I do however find it gnarly how so many riders have been leaving Lakai after such a successful video. Its almost strange to watch Fully Flared now knowing a good portion of its riders are no longer sporting the flare.

It’s that time of year again and here are the top 10 moments in skateboarding for 2008. Drop us a comment below if you disagree of if we missed something you strongly feel should have made the list.

10. Chaz Ortiz winning a Dew Tour stop! Why did this make the list? Because someone finally won one of the darn contest stops other than Sheckler or P-Rod. So stoked to see some new blood winning a contest. This kid is breaking through fast. Pretty soon it’s going to be him winning all the contests.

9. Split clothing going down and out! This shocked and not only surprised a lot of people, but it let many know that even the big companies aren’t safe from the economic pinch. I would have never guessed that Split was going to call it quits. Especially with the new video about to drop. Where did all that footage go? I still want to see it. DEMONS IN THE ATTIC?! Where’s it at?

8. Southern California Skate parks! Yes this has been a massive year for newly opened skate parks here in So-Cal. including what I consider our first legit Skate Plaza. Well first one that I think looks spectacular. If you are ever in Wilmington, Ca go on by and have a sweet session there. Its so worth it, seriously.

7. Thrashers Bust or Bail contest had to make the list. The contest was held at the world famous Paul Revere 16 stair in San Francisco. $25,000 was at stake and none other than Ryan Sheckler took top honors. Tons of first time tricks were done there as well and the bar was set super high. I honestly don’t even know what else to think of someone doing on the set anymore.

6. Goofy vs. Regular is always a highly anticipated contest. This year the Regulars took the trophy back. Chris Cole seriously annihilated the course. Although I still don’t agree on the way they settled who won by playing a game of skate in the manner they did. I do agree that the Regular team killed it. I skate Goofy so I voted for my side but I got to hand it to the regulars this year. Goofy has it next year though just watch!

5. The Berrics!!!! Everybody knows about Eric Koston and Steve Berra’s private training facility. The Berrics took 2008 by storm. All year long there was something big happening underneath that warehouse of theirs. Not only that, but just the whole indoor training facility footage craze this year has grown tremendously. The Berrics has my vote though for the gnarliest. Clever, unique, intriguing, and always entertaining to watch. 5 stars for the Berrics!

4. The Blind team! These dudes took every team contest this year, like the Vans Downtown contest! These dudes held it down big time. And its rad because it seems that everyone voted against them or for some other team throughout the competitions only to watch these guys come up big. Still got my Gideon Choi deck! Blind goes way back. History for days.

3. S.O.T.Y. winner Silas Baxter Neal. Yes the man deserves it. A fabulous part in Es “eSpecial”, and a worthy winning of “Best Rookie” at the Transworld awards. Oh yea and an “Inhabitants”, and more recent Strange Notes part. Don’t forget all of the magazine covers and the mass array of photos featured just about everywhere. The dude needs his own pro shoe already!

2. Lakai’s the Final Flare! This skateboard video absolutely obliterated the stereotype that skate videos would no longer sell. It just goes to show that if you make a video actually worth buying, it WILL sell! It will forever go down as one of the greatest skateboarding videos of all time. And all throughout 2008 everyone around you was talking about this video and you know it. Hats down and a massive applause to the Lakai dudes for this masterpiece.

1. The Maloof Money Cup! This contest had the largest cash purse of any skateboard competition of all time. I was there and witnessed the craziness go down firsthand. It was amazing! Probably the biggest batch of big time skateboarding names in one location at one time skateboarding. The course was unlike anything I had ever seen. And to make it even more insane they destroyed the entire thing after its contest use. The skateboarding that went down during the contest was unheard of. And the star studded guests and world wide attention it grabbed shook the year 2008 with a seismic 10.0 magnitude earthquake. And the best part is that it looks like the contest is here to stay.

So the long awaited, Final Flare Lakai video, is finally up for purchase. Now you can check out all the bonus goodness that comes along with it. On top of that, you get the Blu-Ray disc that comes along with it.

This is the perfect item arriving at the perfect time of the year. It’s raining over here in the Valley and snowing in many other parts of the United States. Since we can’t go out and actually skate, and since there is no indoor park over here in the Valley, watching the Lakai Final Flare DVD sounds like the perfect plan.

According to the Lakai website all the DVD’s shipped out Friday and whatever didn’t get shipped out on that day went out this past Monday. So your local shop should have them in stock by now. And by all means, try to get it at your local skateshop and support your scene. Get the Lakai video and get yourself pumped up to skate when the weather clears.

Looking out at the rain right now reminds me a lot of Marc Johnson’s entrance trick to 3rd and final song of his part. Right when he looks into the camera and says “See those little dots right there Ty? That means its raining.” And then he commences to do a lipslide to blunt on these two gnarly benches all while it is pouring rain around him. Classic.

Check out the Lakai site for more details!

Prepare to be hyped again. Lakai is releasing a 3 disc box set of their masterpiece video “Fully Flared”. It’s going to include 2 SD DVD discs and 1 HD Blu-Ray disc? What? Blu-Ray? Yup, unheard of for a skateboarding video until now.

The trailer they put together for the “Final Flare” is absolutely gripping. It’s really good and only adds to the kinematical genius that Ty Evans already is. I didn’t buy Fully Flared for the reason that I already knew this video was going to come out. I knew the lack of bonus footage in the original Fully Flared was purposely done. The video was rushed to be released, thus all the extra footage and work was held onto tightly. Until now of course, and for good reason.

I honestly wouldn’t doubt it if the bonus footage surpasses the videos length multiple times. And back to the Blu-Ray disc point, seriously that’s insane; I don’t even have a Blu-Ray player. But it would be a cool thing to have, and don’t be surprised if you find some HD Panasonic hvx200 footage up in the bonus section as well. Plus the whole “Making of Fully Flared” bonus stuff is enough to make me want to purchase this DVD.

I would love to see a full on documentary of the making of Fully Flared and getting behind the scenes of everything. That last clip of the trailer where you see Mike Mo do the Switch flip down the set right before the explosion is insane. You truly see the danger and pin point accuracy of what he was doing in that situation. Truly impressive and mind blowing. And of course, “The Final Flare”! They couldn’t have chosen a better name for the box set edition.

Lakai Limited Footwear has just released their brand spanking new website. Basically, the whole site was redone and has been given an entirely new look. Right off the bat, upon entering the site, you will see four figures on podiums. Mike Carroll, Eric Koston, Marc Johnson, and Rick Howard. They have a cool little shoe election deal going where you can watch a video and decide for yourself whose pro model you like best. This is kind of a cool relation to today’s presidential campaign race going on in our country. Except of course, instead of voting for your presidential pick you are voting on your next shoe.

You will also notice below that there’s a video section. Lakai said the hell with it and basically put up the entire Fully Flared video. Trying to battle the public on taking down clips from Fully Flared every other day just isn’t worth it. If you can’t beat them join them, it’s nice to see a company embrace social media instead of fight it. May I remind you, the video quality is incomparable from the actual DVD and the YouTube versions. Watching it on the big screen on DVD is an entirely different experience that is undefeatable.

Everything on the new Lakai website is super easy to access and there’s a lot of information on there. No problems for me whatsoever and everything runs smoothly. Be prepared to be there awhile trying to check out everything they have to offer. I personally like how on their team bios, each member has the alphabet trailing across to the bottom. And for every letter they add in, a word that either pops off the top of their head or actually relates to them in some way. Pretty interesting and definitely a super original idea.

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One of my greatest inspirations is watching skateboard videos. We all love skateboarding videos. I have seen hundreds of skateboarding videos and I never get tired of watching them. I have a whole collection of them, many that I had anticipated purchasing and watching well before they were even released.

It’s an awesome feeling to open up your new skate video and pop it into the player. It would be spectacular if skateboarders three years down the line got to experience this exact feeling. Nowadays though, it seems as though the entire industry (as has all industries) has been shaken up by the media monster known as YouTube. There are many other video uploading websites out there but YouTube is by far the most popular. It’s becoming common for skateboarding videos to be uploaded onto the ‘tube before they are released on DVD.

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