The Short Version
The claim is partially supported but oversimplified. The best peer-reviewed data shows snowboarding's injury rate is only marginally higher than skiing's in professional and Olympic settings (e.g., 3.99 vs. 3.57 per 1,000 athlete-days), with confidence intervals that often overlap, making the difference statistically inconclusive. These studies also focus on elite athletes, not the general public. Additionally, injured snowboarders skew heavily toward beginners, inflating observed rates. The two sports have different injury *patterns* (upper vs. lower extremity), but an unqualified claim that snowboarding has a higher injury rate overstates the evidence.