It’s true: I’m a Burton fanboy. My first board was a Burton Custom. I learned to ride on that board, and for my whole snowboarding life, Burton has been the gold standard. But this new release from Burton? Hard pass – like Magic Johnson on a fast break.
Burton’s new Mine 77 collection drop honors the 2008 Boston Celtics. Burton was able to get some of the parquet flooring used during the Celtics’ 2008 championship run. Yeah, the one where they had Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce, which at the time was tantamount to a cheat code. Those guys were just sensational.
Why the Celtics for this Mine 77 release? Donna Carpenter, the widow of Burton founder Jake Carpenter and current president and CEO of the company, is a long-time Celtics fan and has had season tickets for 29 years. In a recent episode of The Bomb Hole podcast, Carpenter recounted that as a child, her family moved to New York, and her father would take the family to Knicks games, which somehow fostered a fandom for the Boston Celtics. This sounds like the ’60s and/or ’70s. The Knicks were pretty good in that era, and some of those teams had a guy by the name of Phil Jackson, who would go on to lead the Los Angeles Lakers to dominance in the 2000s.
Burton used the flooring throughout this Mine 77 drop, not just in the top sheet or as an aesthetic. And there are only 77 of the boards, 13 of which are signed – but we don’t know by whom. We’re going to assume players from that team. It would be neat to have those three legends mentioned above sign a board you bought from Burton, no doubt.
The Mine 77 Celtics board is a Process, which is just a great board from Burton. The Parquet flooring is incorporated into the center and sidewalls of the board.
But let’s be clear that the Celtics are an inferior team to my beloved Los Angeles Lakers. Are these two franchises tied for the all-time lead in championships? Sure, but the Celtics got all of theirs in the ’60s when the NBA was weak.
I would also like to point out that while the Celtics did beat the better team in the 2008 NBA Finals, the Lakers three-peated from 2000-2002 and had back-to-back titles in 2009-2010. The Celtics weren’t the best team of the aughts, nor were they the best team of the 1980s. That would be the Lakers.
We also have some questions:
- Is this the same Celtics parquet flooring with the famed “dead spots” – and do you really want that in your snowboard?
- Did Burton choose 2008 because it was the year the Celtics beat the Lakers or because it was the last time the Celtics won a championship?
- Will we see a Boston Bruins board celebrating the 2011 Stanley Cup, too? (That would be cool; I’ve got no beef with the Bruins.)
It’s fun that Burton Snowboards is celebrating a singular championship, but as a lifelong Laker fan, I’ll have to keep my $1300.77 and skip this drop. On the bright side, that leaves 77 boards you can buy, not 76.
