REBAGLIATI STILL LOOKING FOR A BUZZ

Infamous Boarder In Pursuit Of Next Adventure In Life

>From Race Cars To Real Estate, He's Testing The Waters

Canada's most infamous snowboarder is holding court with several fascinated
members of the media, talking about a new career.

Actually, he's talking about several. A driver on the CASCAR circuit is one
option. Maybe get a real estate licence and sell posh houses to
millionaires. Then there's the idea of following in Mike Weir's footsteps --
he's got a sponsorship deal of some kind with Ben Hogan golf, he says. Of
course, snowboarding is still pretty cool. And he was supposed to have been
in a movie in Montreal last month, starring as a famous snowboarder who's
forced to share his digs with a rock star at a snowboard event. But
production has been delayed.

It's been five years since Ross Rebagliati puffed his way into Canada's
consciousness at the Nagano Olympics. For those whose memory is a little
foggy for one reason or another, Rebagliati became famous around the world
after winning a snowboarding gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics in
Japan, then having the medal stripped away from him because he tested
positive for marijuana. He insisted he hadn't lit up for a year and had it
in his system because he had been exposed to second-hand smoke at a party.

The 31-year-old B.C. native got his medal back after a much-publicized
campaign that made him almost as famous as Jamie Sale and David Pelletier
would become at the Salt Lake Games over another medal mixup four years
later

Rebagliati was in the Big Smoke yesterday to help promote
Vancouver/Whistler's 2010 Olympic bid. He started the day at a Roots
clothing store in downtown Toronto sporting a Vancouver 2010 T-shirt but
finished it wearing one that promoted his love for T.O.

It would be uncharitable to say he's mixed up about his life. Instead, let's
say he hasn't quite made up his mind about where he's going.

Asked what he's doing for a living these days, a quintessential Toronto
question if there ever was one, he laughed and replied, "I ask myself that
every day."

The engaging Rebagliati said he's building a house in Whistler, where he
leads snowboard tours, and still has several endorsement deals that help him
out.

"I don't want to jump into a 9 to 5 job or jump behind a desk right away,"
he said. "I've got time right now to pursue more unrealistic things."

Real estate sounds pretty cool, Rebagliati said.

"You just have to sell one $5 million house a year, and that's pretty easy,
right?" he said with a grin.

There's also stock-car racing, something he did on dirt tracks last year.

"My first race that I ever did and it was the first time I was even in the
car and I passed a guy, right," he said. "It doesn't seem like much to pass
a guy but when you've got like 15 rednecks out there who have been driving
for 10 years and their stock car is their most valuable possession and to
pass one of them on my first time in a stock car, everybody was pretty
excited about it. It was just a rush."

For now, Rebagliati is content to consider a vast array of options.

One item on his to-do list is to work out legal problems preventing him from
getting into the United States. He wasn't convicted of a crime in Nagano,
but his name still pops up in U.S. immigration computers and he hasn't been
able to journey south of the border. He did attend the Salt Lake Olympics,
but he said that was only after Roots founder Michael Budman called someone
he knew and arranged for a one-time visit.

He hasn't been to Europe since he stopped competitive snowboarding but said
he thinks he'd have similar problems across the pond.

Australia uses the same computer system as the U.S., he said, so that's not
an option, either.

"I can't compete in snowboarding anymore because I can't get down to the
States," he said.

"Corporately, it's definitely a blow."

Rebagliati said he has hired a lawyer in Vancouver to work out his
immigration problems. In the meantime, "I'm just trying to play the cards
right and not ruffle too many feathers on the U.S. side of things."

Reporters yesterday couldn't resist sniffing out Rebagliati's opinion on the
issue of decriminalizing marijuana, something Ottawa is considering and a
matter that has widened the gulf between Canada and the U.S.

"Absolutely," he said.

"The whole idea is it would make the legal system function as it should be
and not clog up the courts. It's becoming more socially accepted."