Michael and Steve Hayes
The Hayes brothers poached Stratton long before the certification program commenced. Steve often got rides to the top of North Brookwood road and “come Snurfing down to Snowbowl lift and jump right on and tell the lifties ‘it's all good. The ski patrol told us it was OK for us to ride the whole mountain.’ Steve Hayes continued, “… and then we get spotted and they would send out a chase committee. And fortunately, we dodged them and got off the mountain without getting into any kind of serious trouble. But the word got out that there were snowboarders riding on the lifts."[ii]
Once Carpenter and Johnston started the certification program, the Hayes brothers had to deal with the new authority. On day, Steve Hayes was giving snowboard lessons to three fellow Stratton Mountain classmates. When Steve arrived at the bottom, he was met by Jake and PJ, who “were standing there with their one-piece suits with their arms crossed. They were like ‘we are trying to set up a program here at Stratton and you can't just go up and snowboard.’” This was news that did not go over too well with Hayes and he promptly told Jake and Paul “to go *&%^ themselves.” Hayes explained “I've been snowboarding at Stratton for five years and I didn't give a shit what the hell they're trying to do, that I'm out here trying to have some fun with some girls from Stratton Mountain School and we can do whatever we want. So that didn’t go so well."[iii]
After taking certification lessons for Mark Heingartner in 1984, the two were “the only ones with full mountain certification for a long time … we were pretty proud that we had the full mountain sticker on our passes. “[iv] During this time, Heingartner regularily provided the Hayes brothers with lessons and new equipment, allowing them to demo the latest boards. Soon thereafter, the two joined the Burton team, competing at the first US Open in 1984. Steve attended the Stratton Mountain School for alpine ski racing, then made the conversion. The two then went to school at the University of Vermont. Steve Hayes recalled "I was the only pro rider who was going to college during the off-season … It took me a long time, but I'm sure glad I had an education to fall back on."[v] Steve Hayes commented, “I actually managed to get through college and graduate … that wasn't easy. I would do summer school and do the fall semester and then take off the spring semester and compete."
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“We were little smart-ass kids at Stratton Mountain. When people asked us about snowboarding. We didn't really care,” Steve Hayes recalled, “We understood to be sponsored was to promote snowboarding but we didn't really give a shit about what people thought about us.” When Mike and Steve were in the lift lines, surrounded by skiers, they had to field endless questions about their curious contraptions. “In the beginning, it was so many questions from so many people, that it got so tiresome that we were just giving snappy answers.” Steve explained a few games that the brothers played on the inquisitive skiers. “We would give them the 'yup treatment' where every question they asked it was just 'Yup.' "Is that fun?' Yup.' Is that hard? Yup.’ ‘Does that take a long time to learn? Yup.’ And then we got a little more creative and people would say, 'Is that fun to do? And we say 'No, it's really hard. But my mom thinks it's going to be in the Olympics someday.' The funny part about it was my mother never thought it would in the Olympics. She told me that I should give up my snowboarding and I should just focus on school."[vi]
The Hayes brothers found them self at the dawn of a new era – they were pro snowboarder in time when there weren’t many snowboarders and the sport was still a curiosity. “That’s where the lifestyle and attitude of 'I don't give a &*%^ about anything' really came,” Steve Hayes said, “It was such a special time and a special place with special people that really was amazing because snowboarding was so new. No one knew where it was headed, what it was going to be like.” Insert Image #192
[i] Interview with Mike Hayes June 2017
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Dalager, Norman, “In Charge of the Board,” The Boston Globe. December 2006. Web. March 2015.
[vi] Interview with Steve Hayes July 2017
