RISING STAR ON SLOPES
Massie’s big on para-snowboard
At 6-foot-3, 265 pounds, hulking Ali Massie does not look the part of the stereotypical snowboarding star.
But appearances are deceiving for the 21-year-old X Games silver medallist in adaptive snowboard-cross, who occasionally gets funny looks from people when his prosthetic leg slips off at a bizarre angle under his snow pants.
“People think I need help or something, because it looks like I broke my leg,” he says over the phone from Vancouver.
Shocking people is nothing new for the product of Barrie, Ont.
“I would always find it funny up at the cottage every summer when they would have a regatta,” Massie says. “I would always win the diving competition. I’m this big kid and people would think I was going to do something like a cannon ball. But I would always have this beautiful, graceful dive.”
Thanks to that tantalizing combination of power and grace, Massie is a rising star on the Canadian team preparing for the 2017 World Para Snowboard Championships in February at the Big White Ski Resort near Kelowna, B.C.
But five years back, the gregarious teenager wondered if he would have to give up his beloved snowboarding and football for good after doctors amputated his left leg below the knee. The leg was mutilated during a morning of wakeboarding gone horribly wrong. After a miscommunication with the driver, he was sucked under the boat. The propeller sliced Massie’s leg five times, turning the water a stomach-turning red.
Panic ensued. His friends hauled him up on the boat and asked for his mom’s cellphone number.
“Nine-one-one,” he replied in a delirious state.
Upon arriving at the dock, Massie’s brother likely saved his life by grabbing a wakeboarding rope and using it as a tourniquet to stem the flow of blood.
Inches. Minutes. The margin between life and death proved slim. Five surgeries later, Massie finally left the hospital with a clean bill of health and a decision to make on whether to wallow in his misfortune or start anew.
“There was obviously an hour or two where I thought everything was over,” he says. “But I wiped the tears and thought, ‘It’s just an injury. You can come back from anything.’ I saw my own brother break his back and come back fine a year later snowboarding and doing everything he loved. I knew inside that anything was possible and that I would still be able to go out there and live my life. I didn’t have to sit on the couch and live my life through video games.”
Indeed. Post-accident, Massie lives his life like the star of a video game, not a guy glued to a console. He even played guard on the football team in his senior year of high school.
“One of my coaches would go over before every game and tell the other team, ‘We have a kid with one leg. If you take it easy on him, you’re going to get hurt.’”
Sure enough, some of the defensive linemen leaned into Massie at the line of scrimmage, and he would bulldoze them in return.
“After the game, people would always say how amazing it was to see how I could move on one leg and how it inspired them,” he says. “It was always kind of cool.”
Mark Fawcett, head coach of the Canadian para snowboarding team, chuckles at the image of Massie in his pads and cleats.
“Every once in a while, a kid would get a face full of prosthetic out there on the football field,” Fawcett says. “He’s a big, heavyhitting guy, but he has great hands and great touch. That’s what he has on the snowboard. It’s exceedingly rare for a bigger guy. He’s got the mass and in a gravity sport, mass is your friend. You don’t usually get grace with that kind of body type, but he’s a really smooth rider.”
Massie won bronze as a rookie at the 2015 World Para Snowboard Championships. His goal this winter is to upgrade that medal to gold on home snow at Big White in front of his family and friends. Then hopefully comes the 2018 Winter Paralympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. And whether he reaches the podium or crashes out, Massie knows deep down he’ll always be able to get back up.
“I have ADHD, which helps me,” he says. “I’m distracted. It helps me look forward to the future. Whether it’s a win or loss, I always know to look at it as a new game and the score is 0-0.”