Profile
Alex Hackel
THE OTHER STREET: Alex Hackel’s Unconventional Rise
East Coast pro skiers often follow a well-trodden path: a ski academy education, a move out West, then punishing rounds on the competitive circuit. Alex Hackel started down that road at 14 years old. This past winter, a full decade later, he won his first X Games medal. His journey between those two points, however, reads very differently from the norm.
Hackel didn’t earn his X Games medal in the halfpipe or by lacing the perfect slope run. Instead, he struck bronze thousands of miles from Aspen as part of the X Games Real Ski competition, winning the fan favorite vote in the process and solidifying his place among the most innovative athletes in the sport.
Originally from Boston, Hackel was once on track to become a force on the slopestyle scene. Under the guidance of Mike Hanley at Windells Ski Camp in Mt. Hood, OR, Hackel stomped one of the first ever triple cork 1080s at West Coast Session 8 in 2014 and made the U.S. Freeski Team as a teenager. He also met Magnus Granér about then, a young Swedish skier making waves with The Bunch, a Scandinavian crew bringing new cohesiveness, fluidity and style to street skiing…