DIY in the Deeg

Former Orkus proprietor Gabriel
Laduke gets up to No Damn Good

NOW WORKING, NOT FIGHTING: Laduke and friend

by LUCAS WISENTHAL

When Orkus shut its doors a couple of years ago, Gabriel Laduke figured he was through running skateparks. But he couldn’t shake his skate sense.

“Everywhere I go, I can’t help but look for spots,” says Laduke, 30, who’s spent well over a decade on board. He found himself scouting for real estate that could accommodate a new park. “Skateboarding—it’s in me. I was like, ‘Why am I fighting this?’”

In the end, Laduke didn’t. Next month, he and his partner, Robert Barnes, will open No Damn Good, a semi-private indoor skatepark, in NDG (2105 Old Orchard, corner de Maisonneuve). Barnes helped spur Laduke’s return to the skatepark business. He “really wanted to have something private to ride,” Laduke says. The 44-year-old day trader, who’s been skating since 1976, didn’t want to schlep to the East-End Taz Mahal or the South Shore South Parc to skate after work. They set out to find an affordable space close to a metro station. Barnes now monitors the market on a handful of computer screens in the park’s office area and expects to sneak in sessions during lulls in the trading day.

Consisting of only a bowl, a miniramp and a small street course set up in a roughly 3,000-square-foot area, No Damn Good is about a 10th of the size of Orkus. Laduke speaks as though it will be about a 10th of the headache too. “To run that place was 30 grand a month in operating expenses and rent,” he says. “It was ridiculous. It’s so much money. I have nothing. And I have [bankruptcy-related] lawsuits on top of it.”

No Damn Good is also a far cry from the Taz, the indoor park the city resurrected for $13-million earlier this year. The promise of that facility’s return seemed to cement Orkus’s fate. But Laduke doesn’t blame the city for the closure. “It was our own fault,” Laduke says. “The rent was too expensive. There was stuff that went wrong.” But he calls the city’s decision to pump that kind of money into a park when a similar one existed nearby “just a little bit ridiculous.”

Though its price tag vastly exceeded what he says a park of its size should cost, Laduke has no problem with the set-up itself. “I think it’s awesome,” he says. “It’s super well-built. It’s [the work of skatepark designer Dan Vezina]. How can you talk shit on that?”

Barnes, whose involvement in Orkus was limited to skating it, echoes this sentiment. Both say that while No Damn Good is kid-friendly, their park caters to a different crowd. Barnes considers it an alternative to a fully private facility. During the day, it will be open to all comers. But they’ll also offer 24-hour access to older skaters who spring for a monthly membership.

“If we can sell, like, 20 new memberships, basically, a month, we’ll just go 100 per cent private. That’s kind of the goal, to keep it kind of underground,” Laduke says.

According to Laduke, the skate community is ready to plunk down the dollars required to sustain this brand of park. After normal business hours, he says, “We want to do something where you can bring your six-pack and you come with your two friends and you just skate—no stress, no little kids in the way, no parents coming in.”

For more information, including an official opening date, see ndgskate.com.