NY local Balaram Stack, pitted at home in Long Beach. Fingers crossed for waves like this…

You may have heard rumours that the next event on the surfing World Tour, the Quiksilver Pro New York, had been cancelled due to recent and still possible hurricane damage.

Quiksilver’s Asia-Pacific marketing manager, Simon MacGregor, told Stab magazine that “The City of New York declared the site at Long Beach was unsafe. The other parts of the event (skate, BMX, music, moto X) aren’t confirmed to run, but we’re definitely going to roll with the surf event. The impact of Hurricane Irene is still pretty messy and we’re just waiting it out to see the damage. The Allegria hotel, where most of the surfers are staying, has had waves going through it.“

After the drama at Chopes last week, heading to a freezing city beachbreak will require a huge change of gears for the world’s best surfers,

Kelly Slater now leads the rankings, and f you’re thinking NY’s small beachbreaks will be where young guns like Owen Wright and Matt Wilkinson  will get their time to shine, remember that before Tahiti, Kelly won the US Open in small beachbreaks at Huntington, California.

If you didn’t catch any of the US Open, it’s worth checking out at least Kelly’s semi-final against Dusty Payne, particularly the exchange that starts at 0.55 in this clip, which looks more like a balls-out free surf than a contest heat.

How’s Kelly’s air at 1.40? Remember, this is a guy who’s pushing 40. Who last won the US Open a whole decade and a half ago. And he’s still beating kids who were barely out of nappies then.

Has there ever been an athlete like Kelly? Is his next world title anything less than inevitable?

Be interesting to see how it all plays out in NY. The contest starts September 2. Like, in a couple of days.