In the mid-’90s, the freeskiing movement was on the cusp of breaking through a stagnant ski culture. A bold Publication titled FREEZE Magazine became the outlet for the burgeoning newshool nation on an 8-year run that changed skiing forever.

FREEZE Magazine was originally drafted as a business plan in 1996. The name was Punk Rock Ski Magazine that Doesn’t Suck and that was the placeholder before a drunken Brad Holmes, with a bloody nipple, burped up, “How about FREEZE?”

The premise of the magazine was to make skiing cool by providing a platform for the ski industry to market the sport through the personalities that made it.

The First issue of FREEZE was the magazine’s worst. Exceptional photography, good design, and some above-average writing were enough to get the industry interested, but by no means did the magazine take off on its first publication. The Red Bull/FREEZE Party featuring RUN DMC at SIA in 1997 was the first breakout moment for skiers to unite in drunken madness.

Over the years, with the help of friends like K2 and it’s BK2 photoshoot – a moment in time that not only displayed how much ski talent was on the horizon, but also showed that the industry was churning with creativity and a new outlook on the future of the sport – FREEZE became the publication that every athlete and it’s team wanted to be featured in. Ads like BK2 were the coming-out party for many in the budding freeskiing movement at a time when most mountains still didn’t allow skiers in terrain parks, no skiers were invited to the X Games and skiing was about as marketable to youth culture as New Coke.

There is no harder task in media than to be funny; especially in print, and to do it for six issues a year took massive efforts by the FREEZE staff. The major comedic themes and columns were developed in-house – “Gay or Frat,” “Blue Flame-O-Meter,” “Catching up with The Jerk!” – but one column quickly became skiing’s biggest must-read and by far the most talked about. “Ask Brad” started in the premiere issue as a forum for Brad Holmes to talk shit about anything. After the first column, many would say that he was a man possessed.

Behind every scene, there is someone in the driver’s seat, and for FREEZE, along with its old friend K2, it was Jeff Mechura. Jeff had more than a K2-invested interest in seeing FREEZE succeed; he was, and always will be, a magazine editor trapped inside a ski marketing body. Everything from BK2 to McConkey, Seth, and Plake acting out scenes from Animal House were because of Jeff. Before 1997, marketing and fun as not the norm in the ski industry. As FREEZE gained in popularity, it became the canvas for the Jeff’s and K2’s of the world to paint their athletes and brand as they pleased.

While people like Brad and Jeff helped with the marketing of the magazine, it was always the imagery that made the magazine run. Without the revolutionary images, FREEZE would have been a comic book rather than a bible for the movement in the sport. No person went about taking advantage of the importance and progression and creating those
images better than Seth Morrison. FREEZE became Seth’s scrapbook each winter, and the dedication he put into it was nothing anyone, removed from the gates, anyone had ever seen in the ski world before.

Today, digital technology and web-based photography have commoditized an experience that was once owned by print media. The demise of FREEZE is a depressing topic for many, but one that will stay with all those that put their blood sweat, and tears into the magazine. If FREEZE had been a clothing line, movie company, or website, everyone in those early years would be rich.