The Mushroom Blading Sum is made up of the top four self-ranked inline skaters in the world.
Joey McGarry is not very good at skating despite doing it for over 30 years. He is a below-average skater and a great example of "you don't have to be good… you just have to love it." He is very likely in the top 500 rollerbladers in Canada (but possibly not). He can't do any truespin topside tricks, isn't very good at gaps, and spins around on the ground a lot to distract from the fact that he doesn't do hammers. It's a miracle he has stuck around in skating this long because he's definitely not winning any awards for his skills. He did win "Blader of the Year" in 2016 (an award he gave himself).
Todd McInerney got 36th place in the Canadian Inline Nationals in 1998. Outside of getting third place in a cones skating competition, he has won no other awards, nor has he ever done a kinked rail, a fakie 720 or a switch soul. Despite all this, he continues to approach skating like he's training for a UFC fight to ensure he's prepared for his big opportunity to become a professional rollerblader one day.
In conversations discussing the most influential skaters in our sport, people quickly point out pioneers like Chris Edwards or Arlo Eisenberg. And while they are correct, another individual came along and personified an emerging sense of individuality, skill, and pure blade destruction. That person is Joe Garry.
Rod Kinney is known today as one of the best skaters the world has ever seen. Not bad for someone who has never had a video profile or a picture in a magazine. People have referred to this kid as the second Messiah, which are pretty strong words coming from a growing number of skaters who have never met him or seen him skate in person.
