Video: Monster Energy Drops Pro Riders Into Chicago’s Green River for St. Patrick’s Day

Emerald Takeover – World-class talent meets one of America’s wildest traditions

Chicago doesn’t do subtle on St. Patrick’s Day.

Every year, the city turns its river a glowing, impossible green — a decades-old tradition that draws massive crowds, shuts down streets, and transforms downtown into something closer to a festival than a holiday.

But this year, right in the middle of that controlled chaos, the script flipped.

Instead of boats and barges owning the water, two of the sport’s most recognizable names showed up and turned the Chicago River into a riding surface.

Backed by Monster Energy, P1 AquaX World Champion Tory Snyder and freestyle phenom Coy Curtis dropped into the freshly dyed river at Wolf Point — not for a demo in a closed course, but for a full-send exhibition in one of the most public, unpredictable venues imaginable.

And that distinction matters.

Because Snyder isn’t just a show rider. He’s a proven race force, used to speed, precision, and tight competition lines. Watching him thread a high-performance Sea-Doo RXP-X through the confined bends of the Chicago River — surrounded by buildings, bridges, and thousands of spectators — gave the moment a different kind of weight. This wasn’t just about flash. It was about control.

Then Curtis took it somewhere else entirely.

Known for pushing the ceiling of freestyle progression, Curtis treated the river like a competition run — launching into backflips, 360s, and corked rotations on his TC Freeride setup as if the skyline wasn’t looming overhead. The contrast was unreal: trick riding at a level you’d expect in a purpose-built freestyle venue, happening in a river most people associate with tour boats and taxis.

That collision — elite-level riding meeting a completely non-traditional environment — is what made it land.

Because the Chicago River on St. Patrick’s Day isn’t designed for this. It’s crowded. It’s unpredictable. It’s a place where the audience didn’t come expecting a jet ski show… which is exactly why it worked.

For a lot of people on those riverbanks, this wasn’t just entertainment — it was their first real look at what modern PWC riding can be.

And for those already in the sport, it hit differently.

You know what it takes to ride at that level. You know what it means to put a world champion and one of freestyle’s most progressive riders into a space like that and just let them go.

By the time Snyder and Curtis wrapped their runs — joking about renaming it the “Monster River” — the moment had already done its job. It didn’t replace the tradition. It amplified it.

The celebration rolled on afterward, spilling into the streets along Columbus Drive with Monster’s parade presence and the usual St. Patrick’s Day energy. But the highlight wasn’t on the pavement.

It was in the water.

Because for a brief moment, the Chicago River stopped being a spectacle.

It became a stage.

And for two riders at the top of their game, it was showtime.