Life on the Edge

Hey y’all. My name is Brittan Morris, and I was born and raised here in Austin, Texas. And tonight I’m going to talk to y’all about how I ended up racing on a Russian military base on the same day that Russia invaded Ukraine and their war officially began. But before I get more into that, let me first tell y’all about the sport that I was there competing in, a sport called Ice Cross. And based on the blank looks on most of y’all’s faces, I’m going to assume that practically none of y’all know what that is. So what the hell is Ice Cross? Ice Cross is a downhill ice skate racing sport. That didn’t get y’all anywhere. So imagine dirt biking, but instead of a dirt bike, you’re doing motocross, instead of a dirt bike, you’re wearing hockey gear, you have ice skates on, and you’re racing down a frozen track made of ice with jumps and turns and speeds over 40 miles an hour, and you’re going against three other guys that are trying to rip your head off. It’s the most insane sport that you’ve never heard of.
So how the hell did a kid from Austin, Texas get into an obscure winter sport like Ice Cross? Well, from a very, very young age, I was infatuated with ice skating. I would go with my family to North Cross Mall, and in the middle of the mall there was an ice rink, and I would just be standing at the glass watching all the people skate around. Figure skating would come on the TV during the Olympics, I’d be glued to the television. I’d be spinning and twirling in my living room. And somewhere along the way, my dad was like, “We should probably take this kid to a hockey game before he becomes a figure skater.” Not that there’s anything wrong with male figure skating. As a matter of fact, I became one. No, I’m kidding. I didn’t become one. My dad took me to a hockey game and I started playing hockey at the age of four.
I played all the way through juniors and college and on every team I played on, I was always the fastest skater. I wasn’t always the best with the stick and the puck, but I was always the fastest. So the first time I saw Ice Cross on TV, I was like, “Hang on a second. No stick, no puck, all speed? I am going to be fucking awesome at this sport.” So I signed up and I went to my first race, and it turns out I was not awesome at this sport. I was crashing and falling all over the place, but the first time I sailed 20 feet through the air on ice skates, I was addicted. So I came back. I trained, I prepared, and I went to my second race. And that one I did a lot better. I ended up taking third place and that podium finish champagne showers with all the boys, that podium finish ended up qualifying me for my first professional race, which was in Fenway Park.
That’s right, the baseball stadium. Red Bull, which was the primary sponsor of the sport at the time, built a multi-million dollar track in the middle of the iconic baseball stadium. It was one of the most glorious things I’d ever seen. So I get there, friends and family are there, 20,000 fans in the stands, my name and face up on a giant jumbotron. It’s one of the coolest experiences of my life. This was the peak for the sport of Ice Cross, the absolute pinnacle. And this was in 2019. Next year, everybody knows what happened. COVID came in, killed the sport as it did most sports, and 2021, there was no Ice Cross season at all. It left us feeling like, “Is it ever going to come back? What’s going to happen in this sport?”
We were a little bit lost to be honest. Well, 2022, the sport came back, but it was a shell of itself. Red Bull was no longer the title sponsor, but they were going to do one more race, and that race was in Russia. A lot of the athletes were a little bit hesitant on going to Russia, but me and one other American, Jack Schram, decided it’s the last Red Bull race we have to go. So on Tuesday we got our sports visa approved. On Wednesday we arrived in Moscow, and on Thursday, February 24th, we pulled up to the Ice Cross track that was built on a Russian military base, Russian military vehicles, military personnel everywhere. I mean, I’m looking at jets and tanks and all kinds of things, and there’s this giant track built on it. We’re like, “Well, let’s make the best out of this.”
So we adventure around. We hop on some tanks, we take some pictures, we smile. We were the funny Americans here in Russia. It was a lot of fun. But then after all the pictures on tanks in my American flag Ranger panties, it was time to get on the Ice Cross track and actually do some practice. So we get on the track and we’re practicing. We finish up, we go into the locker room, and I’m a popular guy, but this is probably the most missed calls, texts, and DMs I think I’ve ever had. Are you actually in Russia? What the hell are you doing there? You’re an idiot. You need to get out, and I have no idea what’s going on. Come to find out, Russia has invaded Ukraine in one of the largest scale attacks ever on a European country and the biggest war in Europe since World War II has officially begun while we’re on a Russian military base.
Uh oh. So we’re scrambling. We’re trying to figure out what the hell to do. All American companies pull out of Russia. Our flights get canceled, everyone’s scrambling. Luckily, we get flights out. We’re like, “Well, we’re here. We’re here until Sunday morning. Two more days, let’s make the best of it.” So we decided to go down the track holding the American flag, because what else would you do if you’re on a Russian military base and you’re an American? See the judgment from y’all’s eyes. I tie it around my neck like I’m Superman meets Captain America. Somehow they don’t arrest us. We do the race. We survive Russia, we fly out, and we get the hell out of that country. We survived. But will the sport survive? What happens to Ice Cross now?
Well, me and my best friend DJ decide we’re going to do something about this to bring some more awareness, and we make a documentary film called Ice Cross: Life on the Edge. We have never made a film before, but we make a really good deck. We get another production company to come in with us. We get investors and we make an hour and a half long feature-length film. It gets accepted into Mammoth Film Festival. We win two awards for best documentary feature and best sports documentary. And now hopefully if we can get this film out there, it’d be released next year early and Ice Cross will become the most insane sport that you have heard of. Thank you.