photos by JustKalby

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Squad.

The first piece was a text from Kalby, the sharpshooter hailing from Calgary who makes the lot of us aspire to a higher standard of sneaker photos on social media. He told me of a conversation he had with his wifey where she suggested he spend a few days in Montreal to hang and do sneaker stuff. That idea evolved into wifey joining in on the trip and the nature of the travel towards the East morphed into more of a life thing rather than a shoe thang. More life. More life. More life.

Crew.

Once Kal confirmed his itinerary, the next piece fell into place with Jonathan Kim, affectionately referred to sometimes as Kimbro, starting the plans for his transportation from Toronto. With the Brag’s digital content curator en route, we were together again for the second year in a row. These boys are up to something.

Team.

One man coming in from the GTA, might of put the idea of a road trip into our 416 brethren heads with one more mans announcing that he would also be making the jaunt over. Lawrence, the international superstar, and one head of CanadaGotSole blog was gonna bless us with his attendance. Good times were surely to ensue because the dude gets recognized first-name-basis style even in the streets of Montreal.

Gang.

Do you know the feeling of rolling into a spot, having all eyes on us, and feeling majestic? Into restaurants, down the street, even when posting up to take sneaker photos, the vibe was familiar and encompassing. For every moment that we spent together, it was our world. We ran around the city filling every minute with shop visits and picture locations. Whether we kept the schedule was not of much matter, I had the feeling that we were just happy to be powerful because we were able to finally join like Voltron.

The energy kept flowing during the episode of podcasting as a hyper panel on The Sneaker Podcast took to the mics. Montreal heavys in the form of Cid and Cherry (if you know, you know) rounded out a buzzing lineup. Mostly unscripted, the shots, stories, and laughs barreled out into the night, and carried us to a famous Montreal smoked meat spot to close out the day’s festivities.

Our last day together culminated in what we call a The Fast And The Furious style supper. Good eats, relaxed mood, laughable conversation, and appreciation around the table. Even the incomparable Stefan aka Mstrpln made the 3 hour drive from Ottawa to attend, 24 pack of Coronas in hand. His investment in the long commute echoed how much this gathering meant to us. The chatter kept going till our realization that the night would eventually need to end lowered the volume In our speak. Highkey, we all live quite a ways away from each other throughout this country, lowkey we’ve always known that we’ve been closer than most… One love, Family.