At the inaugural Snow League World Challenge held on September 18, 2026, at Cardrona Alpine Resort in New Zealand, local freeskiers Fin Melville Ives and Mischa Thomas led Team Challengers to victory on their home halfpipe. Joining forces with Japan’s Ryusei Yamada and Sara Shimizu, the team secured the overall win despite the finals being canceled due to weather, with semifinal results deciding the championship. Melville Ives marked his return after a broken collarbone sustained at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics by winning his match against Team North America’s Hunter Hess, while Thomas impressed by defeating Amy Fraser with an inventive run featuring a switch alley-oop flat 540.

The Snow League’s innovative competition format included a 720-spin cap in semifinals, designed to prioritize creativity and style over sheer rotation difficulty. Both Melville Ives and Thomas praised this approach, which encouraged riders to innovate rather than simply spin faster. For Thomas, who recently transitioned from slopestyle to halfpipe and competed professionally at her home resort for the first time, the event held great personal meaning. She also participated in supporting local upcoming athletes during the community mini pipe session the day prior, awarding prizes and gear to future halfpipe stars.

The Melville Ives family has deep ties to Cardrona, with Fin and his twin brother Cam growing up snowboarding from the age of three, nurtured by parents who worked as instructors there and an uncle who once shaped the resort’s halfpipe. Fin noted that training in New Zealand’s often unpredictable weather conditions builds resilience useful in competitions, a condition he welcomed ahead of the World Challenge. Despite the weather cutting the event short, the local athletes embraced the challenging environment and took home trophies along with stuffed yellow-eyed penguins.

In addition to the competition prizes, the Snow League contributed NZD $5,000 to the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust, supporting conservation efforts for the endangered native species. The winning team earned the unique privilege to name GPS trackers for penguins monitored by the trust, underscoring the event’s commitment to environmental stewardship. With the New Zealand event wrapped up, the Snow League is set to kick off its second season in January 2027 at Aspen’s Buttermilk, but for Melville Ives and Thomas, the triumph at Cardrona will remain a memorable highlight on home soil.