Alex ‘Bubz’ Massie: What I do off the snow

Canada’s Alex ‘Bubz’ Massie is one of his country’s best Para snowboarders, and one of a group who will ride at their home 2017 World Para Snowboard Championships in Big White.

Here, Massie offers an insight into his life off the snow.

Bubz, the Garbage Man

While based in his cottage in northern Canada for training, Massie also runs a small business that he describes as “not too typical.”

“It’s a business I actually inherited from my older brothers, so that’s one of the kinda cool things. I live up in my cottage in the summer, and everybody that’s up there lives on islands. So, there’s no way really for them to get their trash to the station, and so like forty years ago someone had the great idea that there needed to be a garbage man.

“So there’s a twice weekly garbage man Tuesdays and Fridays, and my family’s owned it now for the past 15 years or so. And it’s definitely a blast. Me and my buddy do it together, and we get to go out all day and drive around in the sun and see some beautiful sights, and be with some pretty amazing people.

“Tuesdays and Fridays, we do trash our way. That’s what we like to say.”

Wake fishing

“I wake fish, which is actually how I lost my leg when I was 16, but it’s definitely something that I still love to do. I was back in the water actually eleven months after the accident, so it hasn’t scared me off at all. It’s something that me and my friends do all summer long.”

Ice hockey

“I spend a lot of my time playing hockey in the winter, when I’m not snowboarding. I’ve got a backyard rink, 90 feet by 50 feet wide, with the boards, lights, so you can usually peek your head out and catch me playing around midnight or 1am. A couple of times, some kids come by to start a new game, but they’re all invited anytime they like. So we haven’t heard any complaints.

“It’s very Canadian, yeah. That’s for sure.”

Catch Massie in action alongside around 80 more of the world’s best Para snowboarders at Big White 2017 from 1-8 February.