So, does sponsorship by the Young Men’s Christian Association make skateboarding less, well, cool?

Both skaters are emphatic that it makes no difference.

The tournament runs much like back-to-back games of HORSE in basketball. The skater who goes first (decided by a rock-paper-scissors match) does a trick, and if his competitor misses he gets a letter.

In this case, the first letter is “O,” because the game is OUT.

Another variation, SKATE, “gets pretty gnarly,” Vossberg explains. After consulting a colleague for the definition of “gnarly,” he explains that it takes too much time.

Williams has an aggressive strategy that involves going straight to difficult tricks.

He starts his first match by popping the skateboard up with his back foot, flipping it around beneath him, then landing on it. His opponent, 19-year-old Eloi Albanil of Fairmont, can’t match it, earning the elder skater an “O.”

But Williams can’t keep up the pressure, and loses to Albanil, the eventual contest winner. He’s got a more conservative strategy: Start simple, then move to harder tricks.

In round one, competitors have a success rate somewhere between baseball and basketball — landing five out of 10 tricks would be a good record. By the second round, the hit-miss ratio is about even. And by the final round, skaters are landing three tricks for every one they miss.

If there are two generations here — younger teenagers and older regulars — then a third generation may have had representation as well.

Tamera Saar, of Eagle Lake, is here with her five- and seven-year-old boys, and if she has any reservations about skateboarding or the crowd it draws, she doesn’t show them.

“I’m a very open-minded person and if this is something that they can enjoy, that’s great.”