2004 Adrenalin Commentary
by SkateGroove.com

At the writing of this article, many words and opinions about the 2004 Adrenalin Awards and Skate Jam have already been expressed by skaters either by word of mouth, through the represents on SkateGroove or on other skating Web sites.

We at SkateGroove.com and Three-0-Two Entertainment, try our best to listen to skaters concerns, suggestions and ideas, yet realizing that no one entity can ever achieve 100% satisfaction with all constituents. I’m using the political term “constituents” to lead into one of the objectives of this article: 1) to recap the activities and events that transpired over the weekend of April 30 – May 1 in Wilmington, DE and 2) To formulate a parallelism between the Adrenalin Awards voting and the power each of us has in exercising our political freedom in this country.

I'd like to address both the concerns and complaints about how the results of the Adrenalin Awards were heavily favored for Chicago skaters. We believe this happened for a couple of reasons.

1) Some of the people who were asked to be on the nomination committee did not fulfill their obligation by the deadline date. Some had events in their lives that prevented them from getting the forms in on time and others did not respond. We understand that things can happen and we are not faulting anyone, but when this happens, it can through the results off balance.

2) The voting rules state you can vote either by paper ballot or online and anyone could request a paper ballot. Those who requested a paper ballot received one either by mail or email. Several people took it upon themselves to take the ballot to their local rink and campaign for the local favorites.

For example, some of these people are Chicago skaters. With Chicago being a strong skate city, they have a lot of support. There is a skate session every night of the week which skate a minimum of 300 each night, therefore the support and network is there.

For some time, the Washington, D.C. Metro area had the lead in several categories, more than Chicago, up until Chicago overturned the polls with ballots. Washington Metro has had an influx of skate clubs in the past 12 months that has created a camaraderie of well-connected and networked skaters that support one another. This is evidenced by their large showing at the 2004 Rolling in the Carolina's skate event. They have about 15 skate clubs in the area and more than five web sites that all supported the Adrenalin Awards. They were not asked to do this. They were excited and took it upon themselves to participate in the event. We applaud both the efforts of the Chicago and Washington, D.C. Metro skaters for their support.

There was also evidence of cross regional support. Many of the votes from the southern and eastern areas supported both themselves and Chicago and the east coast area also showed support for Atlanta.

The following chart shows of breakdown of the actual number of votes from each state. If a state is not listed, no one from that state voted.

As you can see, the largest numbers were from DC (125), IL (165), MD (198), OH (198), and TN (146). This accounts for the votes heavily weighted in Midwest and East Coast Favor.

We have posted the preceding chart to disclose the voting information to answer some of the questions that people have been asking. While no one is obligated to participate in the Adrenalin voting process, we appreciate all who did and hope you will continue to support this venture. For those who did not for some reason or another, we invite you to join in next year. We'd love to have you participate.

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Freedom of the Vote

Every four years, we as Americans have the opportunity to go to the election polls and select our choice for which we want to represent us in the role of leader of our country and Armed Forces. Prior to Election Day, we are inundated for about 18 months with political campaigns and promises for a brighter future for our country. That sounds good but doesn't it always? How many promises are broken? How many promises are fulfilled?

But first, we find that we ask ourselves:

• Who are the candidates and how do I feel about them?
• Is this the candidate I would have chosen?
• I label myself as a Democrat (or Republican) but am I happy with the person running for President?
• Do I want to vote for either candidate?
• Do I feel that either of them can do the job?
• I know the majority vote will be for the other candidate so is it worth my time to vote?

With this said, I come to the parallelism of the national election with the Adrenalin Voting.

When the 2004 ballot was posted, some people expressed dissatisfied with the nominee selection. Some of the comments were:
1) I don’t know who these people are;
2) I think this person should have been nominated;
3) No one from my area was nominated so I’m not going to vote;
4) I wasn't nominated so I'm not going to vote;
4) Oh, I think this person is going to get it hands down so I’m not going to worry about that one;
5) My one vote doesn't count.

Those where the issues . . .here are some possible solutions:

• If you do not know the talent and abilities of the nominees and you do not feel you can make an accurate or fair selection, you are more than welcome to omit the category.
• Voting is based on your personal opinion and if you don't feel that anyone nominated has talent or skill, ask yourself, is there anyone in this category who I think is the best of all that is listed? Why not show that person some support?
• The Adrenalin Awards is not a regional event, it is “National” event. So there may be some categories where no one from your region or state is represented. It would be a lengthy ballot if someone from all fifty states was nominated in twenty categories. Chose who you think is the best from that category or skip the category completely.

We thank each and every one of you for taking the time to read this commentary. Please remember that your vote does count, in both the Adrenalin Awards and the national election.

In closing, I'd like to take a moment summarize the importance of voting in the national election by reflecting on the trials and tribulations of those that came before us, how they fought, struggled and died so that we would have the rights and freedoms that we enjoy today.

African Americans were not allowed to vote until 1865 as granted by the 15th Constitutional Amendment. Even then, we were chastised, discriminated against and suffered intolerable violent acts when we attempted to exercise our right to vote. Not until the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's were the last of the racial restrictions finally removed. We have the right to vote without suffering from violent assaults or intelligence tests that not many could not pass even if we had studied for 30 years. Those days are in the past but today we have a different scenario. Do we do vote? Many of us do, most of us don’t.

So please, when election day comes around this November, head out to your polling booth and CAST YOUR VOTE.

Your Vote Counts