A Team Format for Halfpipe, Starting Today
The Snow League opens its second season not with an individual event but with something it has never tried before: the inaugural World Challenge, a team-based halfpipe competition that begins on Friday at Cardrona Alpine Resort in New Zealand's South Island. Sixteen athletes — eight snowboarders and eight freeskiers — compete not for personal points but for their four regional squads across two days of competition.
The format draws a clear distinction from the league's regular season. The World Challenge stands apart from individual Snow League standings; it is a one-off event designed, in the league's words, "to highlight the global depth of snowboarding and freeskiing while creating a new competitive dynamic." Friday's action opens with a Mini-Pipe Challenge running from 1:00–3:30 p.m. local time, streamed live on YouTube. Saturday's main World Challenge gets underway at 9:30 a.m. NZST in Cardrona's 22-foot halfpipe, with teams competing head-to-head in a best-of-three bracket.
The 720 Cap: Style Over Spin
The competition's most discussed innovation is a rule introduced specifically for the semifinal rounds: a hard cap at 720 degrees of rotation per single air. Any trick spinning beyond two full rotations will be scored as a fall rather than a successful hit. The restriction, which league sources say was requested by the riders themselves, aims to break a pattern critics have labeled "spin-to-win" — the tendency for judges to reward the highest-rotation tricks regardless of style, amplitude, or execution.
The cap applies only through the semifinals. In the final, athletes can return to their full repertoire, bringing the sport's most progressive rotations back into play.
The Four Teams
Team North America fields Brooke D'Hondt (CAN, snowboard), Jake Pates (USA, snowboard), Amy Fraser (CAN, freeski), and Hunter Hess (USA, freeski). Team Europe pairs Queralt Castellet (ESP, snowboard) and Jonas Hasler (SUI, snowboard) with freeskiers Kelly Sildaru (EST) and Jon Sallinen (FIN); Sildaru, a two-time world champion, is among the event's most anticipated competitors.
Team Asia-Pacific features Korean snowboarder Gaon Choi, New Zealander Cam Melville Ives on the board, Australian Indra Brown in freeski, and defending Snow League freeski champion Luke Harrold (NZL). The fourth squad, Team Challengers — a wildcard team of emerging talent — includes Japanese snowboarders Sara Shimizu and Ryusei Yamada alongside New Zealand freeskiers Mischa Thomas and Fin Melville Ives.
Absent from the lineup are three of Season One's four individual champions: snowboarders Sena Tomita and Yuto Totsuka, and freeski champion Eileen Gu. Harrold, the fourth Season One champion, is present and competing with Asia-Pacific.
Season Two Context
The Snow League was founded by three-time Olympic gold medalist Shaun White and crowned its first individual champions earlier in 2026. The Cardrona World Challenge serves as Season Two's curtain-raiser before the individual event calendar resumes at subsequent stops. A broadcast replay of the weekend's competition is scheduled on NBC on December 27, 2026.
With the spin cap in force for Saturday's semis and all four teams pushing emerging talent alongside established names, the format's first result will land as a genuine data point for a league that has spent its debut year arguing that halfpipe judging can be reformed from the inside.