The Snowboard Yukon Association will hold its first event of the season this weekend at Watson Lake's Mt. Maichen with the hope of selecting a team of eight competitors for the upcoming Arctic Winter Games (AWG).

For the past two Games, the trials event for the snowboarding team was held around the beginning of January at Mt. Sima in Whitehorse, but this year's closure of the ski facility has forced the sport's governing body to delay this from taking place at an earlier date. It has also resulted in Snowboard Yukon not being able to run any of its programs or events.

"It's great, we are all excited because it is something different,"said Chris McNutt, president of the Snowboard Yukon Association. "I think everyone is excited that we are going to go to Watson Lake and that the trials are going to take place."

The Snowboard Yukon Association decided to hold the trials at Mt. Maichen one day after Mt. Sima announced it would remain closed for the rest of the ski season, which was due in large part because of mechanical problems with the T-bar.

Mt. Maichen was open and supportive to the idea of hosting the trials. Just a few days after the ski hill was contacted, a weekend was selected.

Scheduling conflicts with members of the sport's governing body, as well as the time and effort needed to prepare for an event like this are the reasons the trials are being held with just a few weeks to go before the Games begin.

The trials event will be held on Sunday, but there will also be a training camp offered on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. with Snowboard Yukon's head coach.

The purpose of the camp is to help prepare AWG hopefuls for Sunday's competition. It will focus mostly on areas like carving, general technique and giving those who attend pointers on how to increase their chances of success at the trials.

The organization has held events at Mt. Maichen in the past, such as the Yukon Cup and plans on using the ski facility for the Yukon Championships in March.

The process of holding the snowboarding trials event involves building a course for a slope style competition, which is a series of jumps, rails and obstacles that snowboarders can choose between as they go down the hill. It's up to the rider to hit which ones they want and they often choose from a variety of terrain and perform tricks, which are judged with a selective criteria on the combination of tricks and obstacles.

Sunday's event will be judged by a panel of three individuals in four main categories, which include the overall height of the jumps made in a run, rotation, the difficulty of the trick and the overall impression.

There is a possibility of a second event being set up for the AWG trials called the big air competition, which will be held this year at the Games.

The trials will start in the morning and probably go until late afternoon if the big air competition is held. If put on, the big air competition would only be open to those trying out for AWG teams.

There are two main categories for snowboarding at the AWG: being junior, for those born in 1989 or later and juvenile, which is for individuals born in 1991 or later.

Two boys and two girls will be chosen from each category. Selections will be made based on whoever scores the highest overall point total.

The slope style event will also be open to the public and those interested, provided they are members of Snowboard Yukon, are encouraged to come out. It costs $25 to become a member of the organization as well as an additional fee of $25 for both the training camp and for the trials event on Sunday.

All competitors must supply their own equipment and wear a helmet. Other requirements include those under 18 having to supply a waiver signed by their parents or guardian.

Registration will be held on the morning of the event, but it can also be obtained on Snowboard Yukon's website, which is www.snowboardyukon.com.

Besides being held at Mt. Maichen some of the differences at the AWG snowboarding trials include not having any timed race events. They will instead hold one or possibly two judged competitions.

The Snowboard Yukon Association was also hoping to have a boarder-cross, which is a mass start event that features six competitors at a time in a race to the bottom of the hill.

The sport's governing body was unable to hold this competition because the starter's gate that is required is too big in size to be transported to Mt. Maichen on such short notice.

During the 2008 Games there will be four events for snowboarding that all of the competitors must take part in. Three will be judged and one will be a time-based race.

Members of Snowboard Yukon will begin work on the course on Friday. McNutt said he expects it to take a couple of days before they will be finished for the trials.

At the last AWG, the Yukon snowboarding team won a total of 13 medals.