Travis to the left. Torgeir to the right. Brin Alexander, better known by his Instagram handle @betterthanthepolice, upset Bjorn Leines in the first-ever foot-powered Duel. Now he stood as the underdog at the 2025 Natural Selection Tour Finals.
“So, what now?” I asked him, minutes before he uploaded to the start-gate. He didn’t make any claims but pointed at the most prominent area on the course—the center-stage diving board, what we like to call a mega dong. I nodded proudly. And although I couldn’t be sure exactly what he was referring to, I was sure of one thing: No matter the context, Brin always takes the meat.
Friendly competition—Brin prepares to drop first ahead of Travis Rice at Natural Selection 2025 in Revelstoke, BC. Photo: Rob Lemay/Natural Selection Tour
While most riders dialed tricks off the man-made wedges, Brin's lines felt different. The melon grab off the 60-foot cliff was stunt-like, and the frontside 360 off the same cliff was almost rebellious. He didn’t ride for the judges—rather, he rode the way he thought the course should be ridden. Brin didn't win, but his intentions were pure, and his heroics introduced us to a new breed of organically pure freeriders that live in an alternate reality, far beyond the Red Bull TV carousel.
Revelstoke wasn’t a fluke—it was the payoff of years spent moving quietly through the mountains. Verts on. DOPE Industries snowboard strapped to his pack. Bong cinched to the side. An example: that time our crew destroyed 3,000 vertical feet of skin track in 2018—some on splitboards, others by bootpack—and Brin feasted on a 400-foot pillow stack north of Pemberton, BC. No full-frame cameras, Goretex or radios in sight. Just a cracked iPhone 8 and a lot of sweat-stained cotton. He yelled “Jim Rider” and dropped into the rodeo below, pin-balling down the face, weaving through the complex terrain, and riding out as if nothing had happened. It was the smoothest, most natural descent I’d ever seen, real-time masterful snowboarding, and nobody was watching.
Back then, I wondered the same thing everyone who watched the 2025 Natural Selection Tour did: Who the hell is this guy and why is he my new favorite snowboarder?
“Brin, Rusty Ockenden, and Chris Rasman all agreed—a switch straight air had still never been done on this iconic Whistler, BC, backcountry stepdown. Of course, Brin opened the session with a switch stalefish.” Photo: Alastair Spriggs
“for us, it’s all about being in the mountains as much as we can. It’s where we’re the happiest.” —Dave Alexander
Brin was born and raised in Whistler, BC, in the same house he still lives in today. He’s had a Whistler-Blackcomb pass since 1997. Brin started skiing at 3 and strapped into his first snowboard at 5. That same winter, his dad Dave learned to snowboard too.
“I wouldn't be doing any of this if it wasn't for my dad,” Brin says without hesitation. “He'd drive me to the mountain every day and pull me out of school on Mondays so we could ride. I still remember landing my first backflip when I turned 8—he built the jump for me and a few friends.”
Like most groms from the Sea to Sky, joining Whistler Valley Snowboard Club and spending summers up at Camp of Champions were a rite of passage. Brin watched Sandbox Films on repeat, and idolized riders like Rusty Ockenden, Andrew Geeves and Michael Petersen. At 10 years old, Kevin Sansalone—Sandbox Films founder and winner of the first-ever X-Games Snowboard Big Air—gifted Brin a custom-made 122 Option Sansalone Pro Model.
“That mini Sansalone board was too big for him at the time,” Sansalone adds. “Brin was a tiny kid, so everything he did looked extra huge—on his snowboard, skateboard and mountain bike. I still have some of his first sponsor-me videos that his dad sent to me, he’s always been so well-rounded.”
But unlike most groms from the Sea to Sky, Brin was already funding his snowboard career himself—including passes, gear, travel, coaching and more—thanks to an early start in the film industry as a stuntman.
Brin’s dad moved west in the early ’80s with just $500 and a duffel bag. Originally from Scarborough, ON, he built a life in the mountains as a ski patroller, raft guide, climber and BC Highways avalanche tech. The work eventually brought him to Whistler in 1986, where he met Brin’s mom, Leslie—a local ski patroller.
Dave eventually stumbled into stunt work after being cast as a climbing double in K2: the Ultimate High (1991). “I went down to Vancouver on a whim to audition for the movie—alongside every other Squamish climber we knew of,” he recalls. “When Luca Bercovici (a supporting actor) came out, he took one look at me, and I was hired on the spot. It was a total fluke.”
By the time Brin was born, Dave was a seasoned stuntman who worked with major Hollywood stars like Owen Wilson and Anthony Hopkins. It was no surprise when Brin landed his first stunt gig at the age of 10—where he doubled a little girl who ollies off a picnic table and gets stuffed into an oven, in the Stephen King horror TV series, Kingdom Hospital (2004). Makeup and wig on, he cried—until Dave told him that the money he earned could buy him a new Game Boy.
Brin on set for Escape From Lemoncello’s Library (top) and A Series of Unfortunate Events (bottom). Photo: Alexander Family Archives
Years later, Brin doubled a magical bunny rabbit in the film The Last Mimzy (2007), and Dave put his earnings toward a summer trip to Woodward West Action Sports Camp in Stallion Springs, CA. Brin was a camper; Dave—45 at the time—took a job as a cabin counsellor so he too could learn to skateboard. That same year Dave broke his wrist skating the vert ramp.
“A lot of the stuff Brin does has always been sponsored by what he did,” Dave says. “He learned from a young age that stunt-work can create a life that keeps you in the mountains. And for us, it’s all about being in the mountains as much as we can. It’s where we’re the happiest.”
Alongside his stunt work, Brin’s snowboarding was trending upward until 2010. He rode with Whistler Valley Snowboard Club for 11 years, and even podiumed at Next X, a 13-and-under X Games event. “Then things got too serious,” Brin says about how his mindset shifted when he entered high school. “It became all about competing, so I stopped altogether.” Most of his friends switched to skiing, so he did too. Head Skis even sponsored him.
“It’s rare for a new natural feature to emerge—and, it’s even rarer to be the first to randomly stumble upon it. The spotlight into this highly trafficked ice cave in Whistler, BC, only revealed itself for a few weeks during the winter of 2023. Thankfully, we showed up minutes before another ski crew rolled in, and weeks before it collapsed.” Photo: Alastair Spriggs
Brin has a knack for finding the goods in the Whistler, BC, backcountry—even with warmer temperatures, when all other crews have already left town. Springtime spine explorations in mid-May. Photo: Alastair Spriggs
“After a long day on the sleds near Whistler, BC, we passed this prominent closeout wall catching evening light. Without hesitation, Brin asked for a shuttle to the top, dropped in, unexpectedly cracked off a small wind slab, and outran it to the bottom. Our whole crew was speechless. It was one of the rawest, most energetic snowboard laps we’d ever witnessed.” Photo: Alastair Spriggs
“I found a medium where I could make my snowboarding look exactly how I wanted with no constraints.” —Brin Alexander
After two years away from snowboarding, something clicked again. “I started watching the FootyFIEND edits, they brought me back,” Brin says. “It was all relatable stuff, homies riding to good rap music, it really aligned with what I liked at the time.”
Soon enough, Brin was dropping hammers for Whistler-based FootyFIEND himself. Now 19, with a newly acquired learner’s license, an old, dark blue Chevy Blazer, a flow sponsorship from Dinosaurs Will Die, and $5,000 in budget from Billabong, Brin joined Kai Ujejski, and a 14-year-old Don Wheeler, on a cross-country street trip to Boston, MA.
“Once Don dropped out of Grade 9, we knew we had to leave,” Brin says. “We got some heavy clips but were all just down to hang out on the road. It’s funny how you can be doing nothing with your friends, even just hanging out in a hotel room, and you still feel more productive than being at home.”
After years of riding steel, Brin’s snowboarding shifted once again in 2016 when he met Will Kovacic, a long-haired, snaggletoothed newcomer to Whistler who just completed a Mountain Adventure Skills Training program at Fernie, BC’s College of the Rockies. Will brought an infectious energy to his snowboarding: a blend of big-mountain curiosity and freestyle roots, a loose outlook, and most importantly, the ability to make shit happen.
That season, the two traveled to Terrace, BC, while filming with a Whistler-based crew, The Greybirds. Will accessed backcountry zones via splitboard while Brin, kitted in hi vis safety coveralls, always had a solid strapped to his pack. The following year, he and Will bought a beat-up 2014 Arctic Cat snowmobile, “The Green Hornet,” for $3,500. “We ran it for three years, doubling all the time,” Brin says. “We never maintained it. Shops wouldn’t even take it.”
These days were also heavily influenced by the start of a new era for Squamish-based D.O.P.E Industries. Founded by filmmaker David Brocklebank, the crew—featuring riders like E-man Anderson, Alex Stathis and Layne Treeter—became known for their self-titled film trilogy, mind-melting street snowboarding, and off-snow debauchery. “We were a group of kids who watched way too many Wildcats videos,” says Brocklebank, of the crew that descends from underground Whistler and heyday counterculture once glorified by Kale Stephens, Chris Brown, and David Carrier Porcheron.
“Their premieres were madness, and the vibe around the crew was always different,” Brin says of the D.O.P.E. crew. “They were crazy good at boarding, smoked weed, sketchy, local—I loved it. It was intimidating hanging with those guys in the beginning, but it didn’t take long to become family.”
In 2016, the film-crew-turned-brand pressed their first snowboard, and a year later, they added “Big Mtn Brin” to the team. Bringing the D.O.P.E ethos into the big mountains resulted in a lot of slow moving, marijuana-driven approaches, and park boards in places they probably shouldn’t have been.
Will and Brin’s first backcountry expedition came in 2018: a helicopter-accessed base camp in the Tantalus Range just north of Squamish, BC. What was supposed to be a quick hit of big line riding and winter camping turned into a five-day whiteout. “Luckily we had access to a cabin with enough food supplies to last, but we ran out of weed right away,” Brin says with a grin. They rationed a bin of oatmeal between the five-man crew and spent the days playing Catan. The two documented this mission, and other self-filmed, and funded, high-value endeavors under the name Big Mountain Media, which Will still operates today.
Brin says that Will always led the way in the mountains because of his training at school, though Brin’s natural presence and knowledge in the backcountry came from his upbringing. His parents, as well as his godfather John “Buff” Buffery—one of the most prolific avalanche experts and guides of our generation—passed it on. “Buff supposedly introduced my parents, so I guess I wouldn’t be here without him,” Brin says, laughing. “I always knew he was a part of the [snowboard] industry, but it wasn’t until I got into backcountry snowboarding that I realized he guided for Art of Flight.” Buff secured Brin a spot at Pat Moore’s Risk Maturity course in 2021, where he was first exposed to well-known freeriders like Sage Kotsenberg and Beau Bishop.
Eight-year-old Brin (left) with legendary Canadian vert skater Pierre-Luc Gagnon at RDS Skatepark in Richmond, BC. Photo: Alexander Family Archives
Brin launches a backside double 1080 over the Squamish Valley, BC. Photo: Jody Wachniak
By 2022, Brin created his first DIY project, Covid Analysis, followed by Stay High (2023) and Stay High 2 (2024). He, rider Jack MacDougall, and a few close friends dubbed as “The Dongboys,” turned to their iPhones and iMovie to craft a manifesto that resonated with snowboarding’s raw, freeride subculture. “I found a medium where I could make my snowboarding look exactly how I wanted with no constraints,” Brin explains. “Creating my own projects, editing, choosing the music, all gave it a personal aspect, which I think a lot of people respect nowadays.”
These self-made projects were supported in part by The North Face, one of Brin’s earliest, and now largest backers. But ultimately, these videos were made possible by his stunt work. By this point, Brin had finally outgrown the name “Dave’s kid” in the film industry. He had flown under the arm of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in The Tooth Fairy (2010), acted as a werewolf in Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library (2017), and thrown fists in RoboCop (2014). Brin also widened his focus behind the scenes, continuing to work alongside his dad in stunt rigging and safety coordination. “My job is to do sketchy shit and make it un-sketchy,” Brin says with a grin, “Sounds familiar right?”
Following the release of Stay High, pro snowboarder Eric Jackson spoke up on the Air Time Podcast, calling Brin a “phenom,” and adding, “that kid should be getting paid to snowboard.” Others began labelling him as underrated, and the masses threw his name into Natural Selection conversations across social media.
“My first introduction was in an Instagram post of Brin riding the most psycho pillow line I’d ever seen,” Jackson told me later. “I became a fan since day one.”
Jackson crossed paths with Brin in the Whistler backcountry in 2022, and his opinion only deepened. He recalls a specific hit that Brin picked out “wasn’t friendly”—a 30-foot drop over a tree-scattered spine-wall, with a ledge in the landing. Brin landed a frontside 360 first, then followed up with a switch backside 360—two tricks that earned him his first cameo shots in that fall’s ManBoys flick, Tango Echo November.
“I was blown away with how good he was,” Jackson says, “But more so, I couldn’t believe his attitude. This guy is a boarder’s boarder—it’s in his DNA. He seems a little unorganized, a little careless, and he’s out there whether he’s getting paid or not. This is why people resonate with him so much—it all commands respect. At the same time, I think he deserves more support and opportunity because, maybe this is selfish to say, but I need to see him in Alaska.”
These types of public endorsements are clear signs that Brin is one of the best, but he didn’t always see himself the same way. “I didn’t really understand it,” he admits. “The entire time I’ve been snowboarding, I always had a drive to get recognition. But whenever I’m out there, it’s so in the moment. I’m never thinking, ‘I’m doing this for some other time in life.’ And, I guess I never really thought of myself as being good enough for that kind of thing.”
Brin’s arrival wasn’t delayed because of his lack of talent—it was a reflection of how the industry works and how he saw himself within it.
“In this day and age, there’s so many hoops to being a professional snowboarder,” explains Rusty Ockenden, a professional snowboarder and filmmaker at Megafauna Films Inc (previously The Manboys). “There’s so many deliverables and content expectations. Being good at snowboarding doesn’t mean everything is going to happen to you. Some want to snowboard and do their thing, but don’t jump through the hoops. A lot of riders fail to get the recognition they deserve.”
Brin is one of those riders, never focused on views or fabricating a larger-than-life image. Yet his riding speaks loudly. He’s spent years jimmy riggin’ his way through the mountains with his crew, experimenting and learning first-hand how to move through complex terrain. And he’s always choosing to be there. He’s stayed loyal to companies that supported him from the start, like D.O.P.E Industries, Airhole, and The North Face. For Brin, snowboarding has never been about anything more than the love. Now, it seems like the rest of the world is finally catching on.
“Just 15 minutes from the highest lift at Shames Mountain near Terrace, BC, we found the most stacked freeride zone of our 2017 trip to Northern British Columbia. Brin teed up the biggest cliff on the face and stomped a frontside 360 within a couple of tries. After years of shooting with him, I’ve learned to play it safe on the angle—because he’s probably going bigger than expected, and landing it first try.” Photo: Will Kovacic
“I’m always stoked to get more opportunity, but at the end of the day, snowboarding will always be something where enjoyment comes first—and I hope that shows in my riding and how I live in the mountains.” —Brin Alexander
The hype around Brin finally pushed the needle in the summer of 2024 when Travis Rice called Brin to compete in the 2025 Natural Selection Duels, and Ockenden, a childhood hero of Brin’s, etched his name into the 2025 Megafauna film project alongside Chris Rasman, Stale Sandbech, and Torgeir Bergrem.
“After years of watching his iPhone footage, I wanted to point a real camera at him,” says Ockenden, who was quick to compare Brin to John Jackson after their first season filming together. Ockenden says Brin reminds him of “John Jackson—back in 2010, filming for Forum Forever—when he won [SNOWBOARDER Magazine’s] Rider of the Year and Video Part of the Year. He’ll be chilling all day, never stressing, then suddenly he straps in and does something crazy. I’ve never seen any other riders operate like that.”
Now with a breakthrough year behind him, Brin talks more about the people he met than his accomplishments. Cracking jokes with Bjorn Leines throughout the Duels week and the ease of travelling with The Manboys, he’s still the first one to stop and soak in a view after a hip session or double a homie up the ridgeline so they too can get their fix. He’s calm, cool and collected. He hardly talks about his success—unlike his partner Kendra—because at the end of the day, balance and moderation have always shaped his life.
“Getting all this opportunity has changed my perspective on what snowboarding could look like for me moving forward,” Brin reflects. “But stunt-work will always be as influential in my life as snowboarding. I think that puts me in a cool position.”
“I’ve been in the film industry since I was 10 and it’s benefited my snowboarding immensely,” he adds. “Both financially, and in the fact that I’ve never viewed snowboarding as work and will never have to. I’m always stoked to get more opportunity, but at the end of the day, snowboarding will always be something where enjoyment comes first—and I hope that shows in my riding and how I live in the mountains.”
Brin at the inaugural human-powered Natural Selection Tour Duel in Whistler, BC, where he opted for Verts snowshoes over splitboard—and defeated Bjorn Leines to advance to the finals. Photo: Ben Girardi / Natural Selection Tour
Frontside 540 near Whistler, BC. Photo: Alastair Spriggs