Fear and Awe

So the other day I was skating at the rink, minding my own business, when Emanuel Sandhu decided to drop by and practice some footwork and jumps. Uh, yikes! He was pretty good about not disrupting us; he mostly stayed at one end of the rink and only did some enormous jump when there was a clear path. I imagine that this is how I looked while trying to stay out of his way:


Looking him up just now, I discovered that we were born in the same month. But, even had I know that at the time, I don't think it would have been good enough to convince him to help me with my bracket turns. I'm dying to know why he was practicing, as far as I can tell he isn't competing anymore. Maybe he is still in the elite training program trying to break back in to the National crowd. Or maybe he just wants to maintain some of the skills that he worked so hard to attain. As far as I can tell his jumps need a lot of work before he could compete nationally again, but he still jumps high and has the carriage and grace of a champion.

In other news, my bracket turns still suck but slightly less now; my back camel is an ugly duckling but I can get in a couple of revolutions; I still jump about one millimeter off the ice; I feel more confidence in sit spins; I feel less confidence in forward camels; and my coach thinks my layback spin has improved a billion percent. She actually said today that my leg position is stunning. This is a great compliment considering that when I first started on layback spins, she immediately went to work on my leg position. Now that part is fine, and it's the whole rest of it. Oh we also had a neat breakthrough with my upright backspin. Coach recommended keeping the skating knee bent when I hook the spin, and gradually straightening it over some revolutions. This made a huge difference, the spin feels faster and I don't feel so wobbly either. Now I need to make sure I practice it again before I forget how to do it!

This week in ice sports

I had another busy week, just the way I like it!

• Saturday: Figure skating practice, including skills lesson. I had a decent skate and my bracket turns might be getting a teensy bit better. They are seriously hard. And I haven't even learned the backward ones yet! Otherwise my test routines have not really improved all that much. Why? Uhm, lack of practice. You bet.
• Saturday: Hockey game! We played a team with a lot of beginners so I tried to focus on taking my time to make a smart decision with the puck instead of panicking and throwing it away.
• Sunday: Another hockey game, usually I don't play 2 days in a row but they moved one of our games that would have overlapped with the Stanley Cup (how nice!). This time we played a much better team and as usual we were short-handed so this game was a little more ugly. One good moment for me was when I got a half-decent backhand shot on goal from the high slot. Another one was when I did a cool stop-and-turn-around move to lose a check and got away a nice pass.
• Monday: More hockey! Usually I figure skate on Mondays but there was no ice this week, and my team is always shorthanded so I played for the 3rd time in a little over 2 days. These 3 games were like a 'Goldilocks Series'. The first opponent was 'too easy'. The second opponent was 'too hard'. But the third opponent on Monday was 'just right'. We lost 1-0 because I screened my own goalie. Oops!
• Tuesday: Personal training. Sweat was rolling down my nose. Also, my husband has a sudden interest in hockey so we went to public skating and looked in on some games to see if there is a beginner's division for men. I wore my hockey skates and tried to do some backspins. On the first one I fell on my butt because I apparently rely on my toepicks waaay too much. After that I tried to balance more on the ball of my foot the whole time, but the best I could manage was to not fall down. On the bright side, I have pretty decent twizzles in my hockey skates, which I attribute to the lack of toepick. Then I tried a forward spin and fell again. Crap! Kurt Browning can do an Axel in hockey skates.
• Thursday: I found a store that was open late today and ran out there after work to pick up a couple of street hockey pucks. I bought the 'Green Biscuit' puck and the 'Proshot' puck. I also grabbed another stick for home use only. I wanted to try them outside on the road but it started pouring rain as soon as I got home (!). I found a piece of cardboard and put it down on the carpet in the spare room and practiced a little stickhandling, probably for 30 or 40 minutes. I definitely need a bigger piece of something slippery to practice on indoors. My forearms are already sore and that was just a couple of hours ago!
  

It's Deja Vu all over again

Well, the Stanley Cup final is all done and it ended in similar fashion to the one in 1994 - a Game 7 loss followed by a riot. Blech! In fact the Canucks came closer in 1994 when the game was a 3-2 nailbiter (including 2 goals from Captain Trevor Linden) instead of a 4-0 groanfest. Other than that observation, I don't feel too much need to comment on it because you can find plenty of that elsewhere on the internet. However for me there were some personal differences between the 1994 loss and the 2011 loss.

• In 1994 I was only 13, this time I am 30 so I was able to handle it a bit better
• Probably for the same reason, while it was exciting, I don't think I got as emotionally drawn into it except in those Game 7's.
  
• This time I live in the area, so I made the most of it by attending one game, watching one game outside in the sunshine downtown, and attending one of the away game viewing 'parties'. I now have 2 towels sporting '2011 Playoffs Final'.
  

In terms of the fans, I thought expectations were higher this time. In 1994 the Canucks were never supposed to make it to the final and while they won the first game they dropped the next three games rather decisively. Their come-from-behind wins in Games 5 and 6 were downright sensational. When they won Game 6 at home it was euphoric. The crowd went absolutely bananas and there were fireworks. One guy jumped the boards and slid across the ice on his knees, arm outstretched. The party went into the streets. In my opinion, it is still the best moment in Canuck history.

When the Canucks won Game 5 at home this year, it was also wonderful, but somehow less exhilarating and I didn't get that same feeling that everyone was going bananas now that they were only 1 win away. Instead there seemed more of a feeling of relief, like why did that take so long? Haven't they won yet? And the sense of dread, that going back to Boston would mean another bad loss (which it did).

The Canucks gave us an incredible season this year and it was both fun and stressful at the same time. Until the end, it seemed as though they could pull out a dramatic game-tying or game-winning goal when they needed it most, and it was wonderfully entertaining.

The fact that they have come so close and lost twice is of course a disappointment for me, but I feel a new motivation now. When it was all said and done and Zdeno Chara was hoisting the Cup instead of Henrik Sedin, I turned to my husband and said, "If the Canucks can't win the Stanley Cup, I am just going to have to win the damn thing myself!"

Go Canucks Go!

Ok so they are not as snazzy as some of the ones I have found on the web, but I made some Stanley Cupcakes today to cheer on my Vancouver Canucks, who are going to Game 7 tomorrow. They are certainly good enough to win it, and when you think of how many players are due to score by now, I hope they can all get their games back at once tomorrow!

Was it really 17 years ago?

This past Tuesday, May 24, the Vancouver Canucks advanced to the Stanley Cup final for the first time in seventeen years, exact to the very day. I remember it like it was only yesterday. The Canucks came only 1 goal short of sending Game 7 of the Final into overtime. After weeks of thrills and excitement, I was devastated when they lost. But, the whole experience sparked a love of hockey I never knew I had, and was one of the catalysts that convinced me to hang up my figure skates and pick up a hockey stick instead.

My family was not a hockey family. My sister and I dabbled in various sports and as a family we liked activities but weren't into pro sports. Contrary to the Molson Canadian commercials, not every Canadian family is glued to Hockey Night in Canada. But as I got older it was probably inevitable. Strangely, the way I remember getting interested in hockey was that one of my eighth-grade teachers loved the Calgary Flames, and my girlfriends and I hated this teacher. It turned out that year that the Vancouver Canucks found themselves down 3 games to 1 in their series against the Flames, and we found ourselves with a new interest in hockey somehow, so we could stick it to this teacher if the Flames lost (we were 13). From that moment on I followed the playoffs with a sudden excitement, discovering just how fast and thrilling a game hockey is. We were amazed as the Canucks pulled out three overtime victories in a row to beat the Flames and then only lose 2 of their next 10 games to win the Western Conference. It was bedlam. The announcer shouting 'Greg Adams! Greg Adams!' as the goal-scorer skated into the glass, arms overhead. Trevor Linden picking up the trophy and the lid falling off behind him. Then the fear of having to face the New York Rangers, yeah the guys from the Big City.



After they Canucks won Game 6 of the Final decisively, this iconic photo was taken. Yep, that's blood on his jersey.



Many of the games I actually listened to on the radio while I was doing my homework (I was a weird kid). I would keep my own little boxscore going on a scrap of paper. As the Canucks continued to surprise with win after win, the players started appearing in corny radio commercials and clever musical montages were put together. I would eagerly search for good photos in the paper hunting especially for good shots of Cliff Ronning and Jyrki Lumme.


It was a different time, before you could watch the archived game on CBC.ca and download pictures from the web immediately after the game. I knew all the names and numbers of all the players, men whom I had never heard of only a few weeks earlier.

As they continued to win there was no way to ignore it and I would have gotten into the excitement at some point or another. A sort of fever took over the province, even other parts of the country. It was the sort of experience that does not come along very often when you are one of those cities that's never had a 'hockey dynasty'. And now 17 years later they are going to the final again! There are a lot of differences this time of course. The Canucks had the best record in the regular season and expectations are much higher. The uniforms are different and not a one player is the same from 1994 since Trevor Linden retired. In fact many of them were just little babies in 1994. But the fever is still powerful, and this time since I live in the city, I'm hoping to get a chance to go watch one of the games with the crowd downtown. Yes, all the games start at 5pm so it might be tricky. But I may never get this chance again, and I'm going to follow the action as much as I can!

It's at times like this, I just can't play enough hockey.

Stars on Ice

My mom and my sister and I went to Stars on Ice last Friday. It was amazing! So many great stars were there and I could not believe they were skating right past me, the real deal. There were so many exciting performances, how to comment on them all?

• Sale and Pelletier showed that they still make a great team on the ice. One of their programs was a bit forgettable but their other one had all their signature tricks. Still like last year's 'Scream' the best though.
• Sasha Cohen, whom I had never seen live before, did a fun number in a sassy outfit and another one with Browning and Pelletier dressed up like old-school clowns. Oh, and when they start that number she climbs out of a little box that the boys had just brought out! They used a bunch of balloons and a kite in that number, it was very creative.
  
• Evan Lysacek was there, and it was also my first time seeing him. They kinda made him the 'star' of the show and I was really admiring his smooth edges and grace. He also let loose a bit in a 50's number complete with poodle skirts and Tessa Virtue as the knockout blonde.
• Virtue and Moir. Can't get enough. They did part of their free dance from this year. She is one lucky girl.
• Kyoko Ina is just as adorable as she was on Battle of the Blades. She and Shawn Sawyer were acting goofy together in the 50's number.
• Shawn Sawyer kept his shirt on this year, but still managed to dazzle me with great personality and feats of weirdness. The joy was so evident on his face, no wonder he skipped Worlds to do this. He is truly a performer.
  
• Joannie Rochette! Still strong, beautiful, and flawless. Ah JoRo, please compete next year!
• I appreciate Jeff Buttle more each time I watch him. I thought he was absolutely stunning.
  
• Kurt Browning is still my favourite skater. What else can I say about him? Love that he is still going strong at 44.
  
• It was a surprise (at least to me) that they actually brought in Miki Ando and Takahiko Kozuka! I am not a big fan of Ando's but she is World Champion and her show program was actually much more artistic than her competition programs. Still had too many of her feature move though, what I call the 'two-foot grimace'. And Kozuka was fabulous, again with all this personality that just doesn't come out in his competition programs.
  

Anyway it was a great show and my throat was sore from the rest of the weekend from all the screaming!

Back on the Ice

Well I haven't done a ton of skating in the last 6 weeks, hence the lapse in blogging.

• Primarily this is due to the closing of the public rinks for spring/summer, and because I experienced an injury to my neck and I wasn't able to jump or spin for a while.
  
• This week I had terrible luck and tweaked my neck again so I had to miss a session and then two other sessions were canceled for an ice show.
  
• That would not have been so bad if they had at least let us know that the sessions were canceled, but it was a surprise to everyone even my coaches.
• I've skated 3 times with the Adult synchro team. Now I see why it was called 'Precision' in the past. It's really hard! But it's so cool to skate with other Adults and they even talk to me.
• My skills have not taken too much of a hit and I think my spins have even gotten better. I've been working on more attack in all of them and I recently started putting more work into a layback spin and a sideways leaning spin. Camel spins are still inconsistent but because they've gotten a little wild as I try to make them faster. OK, my jumps have probably gotten worse, they barely leave the ground. But, I'm doing better at bracket turns and pivots.
• I got to play a couple of playoff games with my hockey team and we even made it to the final! We lost in the final, but whatever. For the spring I am playing in a league that plays on a day that works better for me, but so far it's very disorganized. The first game was ok but in the second game we only had 6 players and nobody arrived to give us jerseys or pucks. Eventually we procured jerseys and a couple of subs but double-shifts are not my favourite way to play hockey. Fortunately the other team was not too skilled and I had a lot of chances to breathe. Had a couple shots on goal too, not bad for a defender.
• I got both sets of skates sharpened and it made a huge difference. Duh!

Here's a video of my new layback spin. My parents watched one of my practices recently and brought their camera! OK so it doesn't look like Alissa Czisny's layback spin, but it sure feels like I am bent back until my body is parallel to the ice. The camera really has a way of shattering my internal perceptions ;)

Thoughts on Worlds

We finally had the 2011 World Championships after it was moved due to the tragedies in Japan.

Here in Canada we were blessed with free, complete coverage of all post-preliminary skates on the CBC streaming video. Unfortunately it was a bit choppy for me and commentated by PJ Kwong but I endured it. I stayed up late a couple of nights getting through it all! As usual there was plenty of intrigue. Here are some of my thoughts.

• Patrick Chan! He skated brilliantly and truly deserved to win here. Not quite as good as his skate at Canadians but so thrilling anyway. Feels like ages since a Canadian won anything, so very exciting.
  

• I wish his competition had been a bit better though. The men's freeskate was a bit of a gong show with Takahashi losing a screw, Oda having a combination disallowed, and generally a disappointing number of wipeouts.
• Brian Joubert's FS outfit is so pretty, I want one for myself. Also I thought the camera was shamelessly zooming in on his package after his skate, but later I realized he had cut his hand and I guess the intention was to get a shot of that. Shows where my brain is I guess! Also Joubert didn't put a combination into his SP and did not do very difficult spins which generally left me disappointed.
• Speaking of the Frenchmen, Florent Amodio skated his 'Once upon a time in Mexico' program right before Joubert's, and I thought Amodio's was really superior. Then Amodio dropped my jaw not with his great FS but with the vocals he apparently chose to keep in the music. I actually think it was kind of a cool move but wish he had chosen better vocals with which to make his statement...I mean, the Black Eyed Peas really deserve this honour? meh.
• I didn't watch Artur Gachinski's programs because I had this impression from GP season that he was some kind of nobody in pink gloves. Looks like I have to go back and watch his bronze-medal performances...oops. In my defence I was trying to get through all those programs at 2am and I had to skip some performances.
  
• Adrian Schultheiss missed the cut for the FS, which I thought was kind of a shame.
• Michael Brezina was 4th. WTF?
• Richard Dornbush actually making me root for an American man. WTF?
• Peter Leibers really fun to watch.
• The other Canadian boys not having great skates. For Joey Russell it was his first trip to worlds so I cut him some slack. But Kevin Reynolds needs to step it up. If I understand correctly we will only get to send 2 men next year?
  
• In pairs, I didn't see all the performances yet but the real winners in my mind were Vol/Trank and their stunning triple twist. It looks like she is going to hit the rafters! Almost as stunning as SavSzol's huge triple flip. The pink bodysuit is a bit much for me but there is no denying that they nailed every single element including those pesky SBS spins they missed at Europeans. The other two Russian couples were a bit lacklustre in my opinion but maybe I'm just distracted by how hungry the girls look, it's just not a look I'm into. Pang and Tong were also a bit off in their FS with jumping errors and just not a lot of wow factor bumping them down to bronze.

• The Canadian pairs skated well but small mistakes were enough to keep them out of contention. In fact they even came close to qualifying 3 teams for next year but it was not to be. Eric and Meaghan were fierce competitors, she accidentally broke his nose early in the SP on a triple twist but they finished their program and even brought in a great score. Serious competitiveness to push through that! Anyone that thinks figure skaters are not tough as nails should watch the video.
• I actually really enjoyed the American team YanCoughlin and they skated very well and placed surprisingly high in 6th place.
• Takahashi/Tran really surprised me by placing so well in the SP, I didn't know they were actually contenders.
• Really like some of the choreo in the other German FS from Prince of Persia even if the outfits are a bit over the top.
• Miki Ando put together two clean programs to win. Yawn. Watching her programs I got the feeling it is like watching her practice, only there happens to be some completely unrelated music playing. Kudos for her for really nailing the technical content though.
• Overall I thought the ladies really brought it in the SP. Lots of those elusive 3/3 combinations that we just did not see on the GP season.
• Amazed at who beat out the Canadian ladies. They did not bring their best performances, but I thought PCS would hold them up. Mae-Bernice Meite and Sarah Hecken, seriously? Ok, in the FS the Canadians really imploded. It's a bit saddening that that is the best our country can produce, when you look at how popular figure skating is in Canada. We have top coaches, top facilities, tons of participants, and a sad lack of 3Lutzes, 3flips, and 3/3 combos in world-class competitions. JoRo, when are you coming back? And the Americans think their ladies were a disappointment, pshaw.
• To Sarah Hecken's credit, she has a 3/3 combo and clearly loves to skate, she brings a real exuberance to the ice.
• Pleased to see a couple of girls with actual boobs skating at this level and even placing well. Elene G is a real sassy one, fun to watch.
• Shocked to see the Russian ladies do so well. Not because they are Russian, but just because of their inconsistent GP seasons. Wow! Leonova and her new hairdo really sold the Witches of Eastwick. I have to say, it's not fair that the guys get to do footwork with attitude, drunken footwork, and Sherlock Holmes while the girls have to look pretty in their footwork/characterization. It's kind of refreshing to see someone do something slightly out of the ordinary (is Stephanie Rosenthal ever going to come back? Sigh)
• Mao Asada smiling! Hate the new SP dress. Love her FS, dress and all. Wonky entrance to the camel spin made me feel better about mine.
• Kanako Murakami changed her SP dress and look which really did not do it for me, shame because she is a sheer delight.
• Kiira Korpi did not skate well, and Carolina Kostner skated forgettably but well enough for bronze. Her SP is good, but I just can't get into her FP and I'm tempted to blame it on that awful dress. Why do the dresses impact my opinion so much?
• The return of Yuna Kim! Ok, she wasn't perfect, but it was really exciting to have her back. It was sad to see her tearing up on the podium, maybe it will inspire her to , um, actually compete next year?
• Voir are back! And they brought a sassy FD with them which was amazing to watch in its entirety. I thought the ice would melt! It was thrilling and should have won over Marlie's snoozefest of a tango. Yeah, I get that it's difficult, but it looks difficult, and I just don't get the feeling that they need a chaperone the way Voir do. They didn't even look pleased afterwards, bah.
• Fabian Bourzat fell on a bracket turn. Stupid bracket turns! On the one hand I feel a bit vindicated for finding them so difficult. If Fabian Bourzat can fall on a bracket turn, they must be hard. On the other hand I thought it was really tacky of him to get so mopey in the KNC and then walk away leaving Nathalie looking like a limp pile of bones.
• Ok I love the Shibs, but since when is it possible to medal in ICE DANCE in your first trip to worlds? Where was this kind of love for Bourne and Kraatz? I absolutely adore their Nat King Cole FD but apparently it's not that difficult....dunno. However I'm very pleased that they took the bronze and not one of those awful Russian couples. At least Bobroviev got rid of Tom Jones!
• Did Cappelinni and Lannotte change their FD music? It was a classy selection and they just seemed to float in the air, it was beautiful. We didn't see them for a while, glad to have them back and skating so nicely.
• Crone and Poirier were fun to watch yet again but they just weren't getting any love from the judges, leaving them in 10th. But Weaver and Poje skated their little butts off to place 5th overall! Their SP is sensational and classy. Their FD feels 'messy' to me with all the musical cuts and I just want to pull her hair back into a bun already but it didn't bother the judges. Ice dance is definitely the strongest discipline in Canada.

Shockingly good public ice

I don't have any freestyle ice until Saturday, but it's spring break this week and there are extra public skate times on at one of the private rinks all week. I dropped in after work today and for only $2 I skated for almost an hour with only about 20-30 other people on the ice. It was pretty roomy! I did do some spinning but 'figure skating' isn't technically allowed so I didn't spend the whole time spinning in case someone complained. What I did do was practice my bracket turns a LOT. I just learned them a little over a week ago. The inside ones are not so bad but the outside ones are pretty tricky. Last Monday I fell pretty hard on a left outside bracket and I am a little spooked on those ones now. The inside ones are actually decent and I worked up the nerve to do them with a little speed. They're almost fun! But not nearly as effortless as 3-turns. Anyway I checked the tracings and some of them really look bracket-shaped. I'm amazed! I never learned these before and figured that it was a distinct possibility that they would just be too hard to learn.

I also practiced back outside pivots because they are also in the Sr. Bronze Skills patterns. The RBO pivot is not too bad probably because of more familiarity with the RBO edge because of jumps. The LBO pivot is much harder but I found that deeper knee bend and patience were very helpful. I have learned some bits and piece of the Sr. Bronze patterns and worked on what I could remember. I should be learning the patterns in full soon especially once I get the hang of the brackets and the pivots.

No skating until Saturday - which is probably good for my knees.

I passed my Jr. Bronze Skills test!

I have been devoting a decent piece of each practice to my Jr. Bronze skills ever since my skills coach convinced me to test them. It paid off yesterday when I passed my test! I didn't skate them perfectly (had a few wobbles) but I thought they were pretty good considering the circumstances. Apparently they were good enough to pass but only with 'Satisfactory' ratings. The judge told me that one of my 3-turns was flat which I completely did not believe because my coach always tells me my turns are too curvy. She has spent all this time with me trying to get the 3-turn into my flip more flat and it ALWAYS curves. I also felt that I had strong edges and good control thoughout the patterns and figured I should have had at least one 'Good' rating....but you never can tell with judges, maybe she was picking up on those wobbles that I had. No comments on the wobbles though.

Today was the last day of our club ice and we had our year-end show. All the skaters in all the levels got to skate and there were a couple of solos from our higher-level skaters. It was fun! There were awards given out at the end and I didn't get one but I privately felt that if there were a 'Most Improved' award, I would have earned it. In July when I stepped on the ice I could hardly even skate. I couldn't do a crossover or a 3-turn. Now I have won a competition and passed two tests. I'm learning stroking and skills at the Sr. Bronze level and sometimes I have a fierce camel spin. I learned how to do jumps all over again. Except for the Lutz, I think all my elements are better than they were when I was a child and I've even learned some new ones. So I don't want to sound stuck-up but I think it is a big progression in only 8 months and even if nobody else have noticed, I have noticed, and I feel proud :)

I am sorry to see the end of the season but I will still be able to skate on Mondays and Saturdays at private rinks at least for the spring. Then we will have to see what the summer holds.

Today I picked up some fabric to make practice outfits. I think I am entitled to indulge myself!

The A-word

It's been a busy week in ice sports again. On Sunday I had another great hockey game. We actually won it! First game in quite a while. I had one cool rush where I came around my net, swooshed around a forechecker, managed to hang on to the puck through the neutral zone, and get a weak shot somewhere in the vicinity of the net. I don't remember if it was on goal or not...funny how it's always a blur.

On Monday I had another dreaded jump lesson! I really hate doing 2 in a row. That is what I get for not having any ideas for what to work on, my coach will always pick jumps! My coach was really not pleased with any of my jumps, some days she is like that. She had me try toe-toe and loop-loop combinations; the second jump is always the better one. Not sure if this is typical. Otherwise the rest of the hour was pretty routine, nothing remarkable happened just more good practice. It always feels so lame to skate for only an hour.

This morning coach surprised me by talking about stroking. We haven't done a stroking lesson in ages, and I don't know if that is because I've improved so much or because she is obsessed with jumps, haha. She wants to teach me all the stroking patterns that are on the freeskate tests! This is great and will help me be a better overall skater. It was just surprising because she didn't want to teach skating skills but it's optional for freestyle skaters and stroking isn't so maybe that's why. We started in on some of the Jr. Bronze patterns which involve edges down the long sides of the rink and crossovers around the ends. For someone who did patch I thought it would be a breeze but it's a different beast going fast! My forward outside edges are fine but we did forward and backward inside and they need a LOT of work. But this is exactly the type of thing I'm happy to practice.

Because we were talking about freeskating tests we got on to the dreaded 4-letter word: AXEL. Dum dum dum. She asked if I want to learn it and I admitted that I want to be able to do the Axel but without all that hard work and falling. She pointed out that with her technique most of her kids don't fall that much. As if on cue, a girl beside us wiped out on a wonky Axel attempt. She wasn't helping! Strangely, Coach says that I'm ready to try it, this is weird because she seemed so displeased with my jumps this week. I'm sure that my waltz jumps need to be 1000 times better first. Who knows?

I filled out the rest of the hour practicing my Skills patterns and just a few of all my spins and jumps. One hour is just not enough time to skate!

Just more good Saturday ice

Yesterday morning I had a good skate. I always like Saturdays :) I arrived early enough to warm up a bit and do my jumps on the floor.

• Skills lesson: We did run-throughs of all 3 patterns with the music and did some fine tuning especially of the pattern with all the 3-turns. My coach fixed a spot where I was keeping the free foot behind instead of bringing it in front. On the LBO 3-turn I am on too deep of a forward edge after the turn and have a hard time holding it for the required 4 counts without falling over! I need to practice that one. My coach says the power circles are a lot better but I should probably make the circles a bit bigger, there was one time I got too far around and messed up the transition to the next circle. She also fixed another problem with my free leg in this one. The change 3's pattern is pretty good I just need to clean up the first backward change edge a bit, and I think it will be ok.
• Group lesson: My toes are always frozen when we start this from the 45-minute CanSkate lessons we run between these two segments. We practiced the routine we are going to run for the year-end show in March. So far it's not nearly as long as the one we did at Christmas, I'm not sure if we're going to make it longer or what. The coaches weren't too happy with our spirals and leg pulls from the routine so we practiced them after that a bit more.
• Spin patch: My toes were still frozen so spinning was hard! Sometimes in spin patch we focus on one spin and other times we practice a lot of spins. Today we did a lot of different ones but because we kept moving on I didn't really get to practice making corrections. We did upright backspins and backsits. I had 2 bad falls on the backsits. Too much attack and when I hook the spin I can't control the spin with so much energy involved. After that I didn't much feel like doing any more of them. We also did sit-change-sit, back camels, and flying camels. My coach says that I have the timing right on when to 'fly' the camel, but the rest of it is not very good yet.
• Freeskate: I didn't get a private lesson today because my coach is prepping her other skaters for a competition coming soon. This was fine because I had a long jump lesson the previous day (usually my lessons are only 20 minutes). That meant I had a whole hour to practice anything I wanted, and my toes were finally thawed! I practiced my jumps just like Coach wants. She insists that I just need to get in more repetitions and then I will be able to make the nanosecond corrections that she wants. So I did at least 5 of each jump although I probably scrimped on the toe loop, I prefer to do them in combination. I even practiced my Lutz. It's hard to do the jump without disrupting the flow of momentum from the original direction. What an awkward jump, blech. After jumps I did a whole lot of spins, including going back to that backsit and they are tentative but ok. I practiced really whipping into my camel spin with a tight spiraling edge and it is really working for me! Sometimes it is just ok but other times I really get everything right and when I hook the spin I can also feel that it's centred and then it's much easier to hold the spin. It's also faster, I think I had a couple that were 3 revolutions. That used to be extremely rare! I didn't fall out of any of them :) After that I practiced some spirals and leg pulls, power pulls and cross rolls. Nobody was using the music so I practiced 2 of my Skills patterns again but I had to modify them a bit to keep from crashing into other skaters.
• Spin competition: today's spin was....dum dum dum, the stupid backsit. We practiced them a bit more and I had a couple of good ones, but I also fell some more. When it was time to do them one at a time, mine was pretty good but Coach pointed out that it's not low enough, and the free leg is too bent. After that we practiced them again so she could pick a winner. I did one really good one right off the bat! I tried to get lower and straighten the free leg and it felt like it must have looked fantastic. Then after that I fell about 3 times in a row. I probably fell 10 times today on that stupid backsit! After 3 hours on the ice I think I was just getting tired and losing focus that's all. Anyway I didn't get picked as the winner although the coach said that I had had some good ones. For next week we will do the flying camel spin and we had a 5-minute tutorial on it. The coach drew a diagram on the ice and showed us that the jump has to keep spinning, you can't jump straight out. She had a Sr. Bronze girl show us her flying camel (it is beautiful). She whips around on her toepick on the jump so that when she lands she is still spinning. Then it was our turn. My parents happened to be in town and came to watch part of my skate, and my fabulous Dad captured a nice piece of learning that went on. When I tried my flying camel, I jumped straight out instead of around. The coach saw it and pointed out my mistake. Then she encouraged me to try it again with more whipping action. The one I did after that is my best one ever and I partially corrected the mistake. Awesome! Unfortunately we were out of time after that but I can't wait to practice them again.

30 minutes of annoying jump exercises

So I've been on a bit of a cloud with all the excitement and positive vibes in the last week. This morning my coach burst my bubble a bit by reminding me that my jumps are still crummy and put me through 30 minutes of those dreaded jump exercises. I hate to get all negative but I really despise doing annoying jump exercises. No matter how many times I do slo-mo jumps at the boards, I just can't translate them into the nanosecond movements that need to be made in the actual jump. Maybe you just can't teach an old dog new tricks? We didn't even get to my new Lutz in 30 minutes which was a bit of a drag. After that I didn't even feel like practicing any more jumps on my own. >:(

Once my lesson was over I cleared my head a bit with some skills practice. My 3-turns are really skidding a lot lately which doesn't bother me anymore because I'm getting used to it but I should probably try to fix that for my test which includes copious amounts of 3-turns. Two of my skills patterns are fine. The third one (Power Circles) is still a dog's breakfast so I made sure to practice it several times this morning. I figured out how hard I have to push on the first circle to make it all the way around the required 2 times. Then I figured out that after that I hardly need to push at all. Furthermore, I learned that the worst part now is the single count back crossovers. They build speed ridiculously quickly, and it's spooky when you come close to the boards. It doesn't help that I get more into my toes when I get spooked, then the crossovers get even scratchier and it will drive the judge crazy for sure. The tempo is so quick there isn't really time to fully extend each one and point the toe. That would drive my group enhancement coach crazy too! Despite these problems, I feel much more confident in the pattern and have the hang of how hard to push, the freaky swing Choctaw at top speed, and the light-speed tango stop. I figured out that I have to stay into my knees and get my weight balanced properly as soon as possible at the start of each new circle. Now I just need more confidence on those back crossovers and I'll be ready to conquer this test and move on to some delicious bracket turns.

Next I worked on my spins and spirals, focusing on more 'attack' in the spins. I'm definitely attacking more and occasionally it's rewarding; I get a really fast (for me) spin out of it. However I noticed today that my centring really goes to hell when I do this, and it had been getting better so I don't want to undo everything I've achieved in that department. So I need to remember that 'attack' doesn't mean 'rush'. IT'S NEVER OK TO RUSH. Right? Then I attacked the crap out of a backsit and fell down hard. Oops! I think that I didn't get enough 'snap and square' on that one, my right arm was still out in la-la land and it threw off my balance. Well it was good to have a fall, it means that I'm pushing myself out of my comfort zone and I haven't had that many falls lately doing freestyle elements. They've all been from dumb stuff like trying to show off doing a tango stop from top speed.

Three pieces of good news

1. My skills coach says that I am ready to test my Jr. Bronze skills
2. There's spring ice available and some of it even fits my schedule
3. The adult synchro club is having an Open House in April, so I get to go skate with them
   

Monday practice

Yesterday I had my first practice after competition.

After watching my performance, I decided on a few goals for my skating:

• More 'attack' especially in spins; spin faster
  
• More height on jumps
• Skate faster
• Be more precise in my movements
• Learn more elements/moves

With these goals in mind I tried to bring a little more attack into my practice. I tried really launching myself into my spins the way my coach recently showed me. It actually worked better than I was expecting and I managed one really sweet camel spin! Didn't get any more rotations on it though, hmm. I had good luck with this in my sit spins too. I made sure to practice all my spins including the dreaded backsit (makes me fall on my butt more than anything else) and my crappy proto-layback spin. I even tried to reach back and grab my blade in a couple of camel spins but a) it pulls my hamstring and b) I can't reach it. Boo!

For my jumps I also tried to give them more spring but usually my technique ends up going out the window when I do this. I get especially chicken in the waltz jump. I feel good on the entry edge, all coiled up like Tigger, ready to jump. Then when I jump, something feels funny in the way my weight is rocking through the blade and I don't kick out as much as I want to. So I think it's a matter of making sure not to rock up onto the toe too quickly. And being less chicken. Anyway my jumps were ok and no problems with the flip.

For my lesson my coach was also feeling like it was time to learn some new things so we worked on the Lutz jump. We had gotten to this jump before but haven't worked on it since we got tunnel vision over my program. We basically started over from the beginning. There is a lot to think about in this jump and I commented that if I thought the other ones were bad, they were nothing compared to the Lutz. I did squeak out a couple of them at a crawl, and my coach said they were good. Wow! After that I wanted to work on back camel spins but we were running out of time so I only got to show her one. I had to hop in my toe a couple of times to keep from falling. Coach says the technique is basically there, but -- get this -- I'm not pressing into the ball of my foot. That's why I end up on the toe pick. She suggested practicing a spiral position at the boards with a bent skating knee and then gradually straighten it. And then we were out of time!

In group lesson, we worked on some assorted cross rolls and twizzles. The coach was really into the twizzles. We did them forwards, backwards, in singles, doubles, and triples. I was feeling dizzy by the end of it! Not surprisingly, I have the classic problem of being able to reasonably pull them off on the versions that resemble a backspin (same foot and direction) but on the other foot and direction are quite hopeless. I sense much practice on my bad side/direction in my future!

Erin's first competition in 17 years

Yesterday was finally competition day! I was actually relieved that it had finally arrived. I did about half of my usual practice time in the morning; enough to get my feet underneath me but not so much that I would be worn out. My event wasn't until the evening but we got to the rink plenty early to watch some of the other events. I wish I could have watched more of them. Anyway everything went pretty much as I expected and according to plan. I'm glad that I did the simulation last month and also the test day in December helped me get an idea of what to expect in terms of nervousness.

I was definitely nervous and felt really shaky in my warmup. This is about what I expected as well. Mostly I tried to remember to have fun and show everyone how much I love skating. When I skated my routine it actually went pretty well. The shakiness caused me some wobbles in a few places, like in my sit-spin entry and in a footwork section. It threw off my jumps a little bit but nothing major. Watching the recording, I could actually only see the effect in a couple of places. I was most worried about two elements: my flip and my camel spin, and both of them were ok. Not the best I've ever done (nerves) but certainly adequate. At the end of the routine I was so relieved!!! And also a bit disappointed that it was all over so fast. What a paradox.

Of course this competition for me was about the experience and challenge rather than winning or anything like that. With only two other competitors in my event, and such a casual feeling, I wasn't too worked up about the results. The other two girls were doing elements that I can't do, like Lutzes and back camels, so I was surprised to hear that I won!! We stood on a little podium and got medals and everything. I'll post some photos when I can figure out how!


What I learned from going to competition:

• Enter every event you can qualify for. I could have entered interpretive and solo dance events in addition to freeskate, I saw a lot of people do this. Makes it a bit more worthwhile especially if you are traveling.
• It's not how good you are, it's who you know. Bring your friends if you want to hear applause!
• Bring your coach.
  
• Don't rush the packing process. I thought I was clever in remembering to bring a needle and thread in case my homemade dress needed repairs. When I noticed that my applique was starting to come off, I reached for the sewing supplies I had brought and saw that I had remembered everything except a needle. I also remembered my headphones but not my iPod. Duh!
• Bring an extra pair of hard guards. After your skate, dry off your blades and put on the dry guards if you're not taking your skates off right away.
• Print out the schedule, bring it with you, and pick up a program. Not only is a program handy, it would have been a good souvenir, but I didn't get one for some reason.
  
• Remember to pick up your music afterwards! I left both of my cd's there. My coach won't be happy about this because she uses high-quality cd's.
  

Mediocrity in the Morning

This morning I had my last practice before competition. Overall I did much better than last Friday morning; I warmed up my jumps off the ice, did plenty of skating and stretching and warmed up my elements before my lesson. Part of the problem last Friday is that I got the first lesson of the morning when I was all stiff and cold. Usually I get the last 20 minutes out of the hour.

Anyway I was feeling pretty good so I asked to do a run-through first thing. I hadn't got too far when the CD skipped, but I thought my coach had stopped the music to correct something (I don't know why, she never does that) so I stopped skating. When I realized it had only skipped I tried to pick it up again but it really threw me off and I made some more mistakes. Meh.

After that we worked on the flip-toe because I had missed that one in the run-through. I didn't chicken out on any of them but I am still pre-rotating my shoulders and my coach is trying to get rid of that. Then we worked on my loop but I was really messing them up, like not wanting to actually leave the ice, and we were running out of time so I asked for another run-through. This time the CD started skipping horribly but I could hear my coach shouting "Keep going!" so I kept going like nothing had happened. It kept skipping like crazy and finally my coach turned it off thank goodness. I tried to just skate it through as best I could without the music. It actually went decently but timing was one of the things I wanted to work on! So, that was my final run-thru before competition, sheesh. Not really what I had wanted.

I spent some time going over it in my living room this evening. I realized I had forgotten some of the arm movements and tried to work on some of the sloppy sections. It's not nearly the same as skating but it is good for working on timing and boosts my confidence a bit!

My coach and I had a bit of a mix-up about the competition. She assumed she would go, and I assumed she would NOT! I hadn't even thought about it. It's a bit of a drive and it's not like I need my coach there at the boards to give me important advice about my triple-triple combination before I go skate. Of course how could I have known that she always goes to the competitions of her skaters and was fully prepared to go to mine? Oops! The longer I skate the more I learn these unspoken rules, heheh.

Tomorrow I usually skate for 3 hours but I don't want to wear myself out so I will probably just go in and do my Skills lesson (hopefully no big wipeouts), maybe teach CanSkate and warm up my elements a bit and then go home. Maybe not even that much. Then at the competition I'll make sure I'm super warm and super stretched out before it's time to get on the ice. Also I have to remember to do my jumps off-ice!

The run-through that wasn't horrible

Yesterday I finally had a program run through that got the 'OK' stamp of approval! There were still moments that were not great, and silly things like almost falling on a swing roll and some sloppiness but overall I was pretty pleased with it. After the run-through we tried to work on my elements a bit and my coach keeps repeating the things I'm not doing properly. Her latest bits of advice are to 'press down on the hands' and 'spin faster'. I'm just happy I didn't give up on my flips :)

I actually missed about 10 minutes of ice time because my bus left early (without me). I had go another way and do a bit of extra walking/running and got to the rink when it was time to get on the ice. Grrr! Well that's the first time that's happened to me getting to this ice time and I guess I will make sure I'm early from now on!

Getting ready to compete

I have been really busy time lately, and haven't made the commitment to blog about my adventures. Overall the main focus on my skating in the last 6 weeks has been on my program for the upcoming Adult Regional competition next week. I'm skating to a selection from "Mario takes a walk" by Jesse Cook. Armin Mahbanoozadeh has used it in his short program this season and I really like it. Unfortunately, I can't skate as well as he can, but I think my coach and I have done a decent job of drafting a nice program to it that showcases my better elements. It has taken us a long time to fully choreograph it (and it's still not 100% complete) but it's more complex than the programs she usually puts together (almost 1 minute longer, but fewer elements, so it's got lots of transitions, etc.) Some days I do a decent run-through and other days it's a big ol' mess, but the good run-throughs get better each time, so that's positive. Right now the biggest issues are working out the timing of some of the sections and sloppiness in transitions, along with getting 2 full rotations in the camel position for my combination spin. My sit-spin is better than ever by a mile. But I'm a little spooked that there is so little prep time left. My dress is almost finished, I'm just sewing on the last bit of trim around the hem.

While my good days on the ice are getting better and better, the bad ones still occasionally happen and are starting to worry me a bit. Lately I have been getting chicken about jumps and getting sloppy when I try to do them with more speed. The most irritating situation is with my flip; sometimes I just get a mental block and simply can't execute the jump. This especially bothers me because it used to be my favourite jump, just pure fun; then we tried to improve it and now I think about it too much and try to bail out if I don't set it up just so. I've had a couple of frustrating practices as well where nothing seemed to go right and then the next day I have a wonderful skate so it can be really baffling. Yesterday I had a crappy skate, just a big waste of time. So this morning before I got on the ice I practiced my jumps in my shoes, in the lobby, and that gave me a lot of confidence. Once it was time to warm up my jumps on the ice they were stronger and better than they usually are at first. I was kicking out further in my waltz jump, more confident in my Salchow and loop, and didn't have any aborted flips. I was better about not pre-rotating my shoulders. I didn't give up on any of my jumps. This was great for my confidence so I plan to warm up my jumps off the ice before I skate from now on. Especially at competition next week. Yikes! After my skate yesterday morning I was considering withdrawing. But after a great skate today with 2 acceptable run-throughs, I feel more optimistic about it. Skating can be so weird.

Aside from my program, I have been dabbling a bit in Skating Skills for 30 minutes a week, just one lesson a week. For the Jr. Bronze level there are again three patterns to learn:

• "Threes & Power Mohawks"
• "Power Circles 1"
• "Change Threes"

The moves at this level that were not in the Preliminary level are backward 3-turns, swing rolls, changes of edge, and tango stops (T-stops, foot in front, on outside edge). Also speed, power and control are more important.

For the first pattern I mostly struggle with checking the backward 3-turns and getting the right timing on the Mohawk/Choctaw section, but I can get through it without any major mistakes. The third pattern is my favourite, the swing roll/edge change combination is fun and I can really lean into my edges. Aside from the tango stop, it's my best of the lot. My worst is the power circles pattern. It's not complicated, just a pattern of crossovers around the hockey circles. But, it's done at full speed and the circles are tight enough that I am really deep on my edges so they are difficult to control. Last week I had a huge wipeout when I leaned too far into my backward crossovers, fell onto my hip and slid full speed across the ice. There was nothing I could do but put my feet out to let them hit the boards first and hope that the collision wouldn't damage my blades. Everyone came rushing to see if I was ok! It was a bit unnerving not to mention that it was within 5 minutes of stepping on the ice and not really the way I wanted to start the day. This morning's practice was a bit better, I didn't wipe out but I made my circles too large and couldn't get all the way around them in the prescribed number of steps. We didn't even complete a full run-through and it's been a while now since I have done one. Fortunately, I'm not too concerned about these at the moment because I'm distracted by my competition. It's definitely going to take longer before I'm able to test at this level than it did for the previous level. But if I can say it without sounding stuck-up, I am better at the other 2 patterns than the other 2 girls in my lesson, heheh. And I think they get 2 lessons a week!

In other news my foot is feeling better and ballet class has been a little bit more fun lately. It's not exactly what I expected but to practice good posture for 75 minutes once a week is not such a bad thing really.

Well, time to sign off for now. I hope to go back to more regular posting soon.

Back to Reality

I had an amazing weekend at the Canadian Championships! There were disappointments, surprises, and sensational thrills all around! I got to high-five the pairs medallists and got my picture taken with Asher Hill. I watched Weaver and Poje do a program run-through in their track pants. I saw Amelie Lacoste an Myriane Samson watch the first flight of their events from the stands. Most of the events delivered in the excitement category and it finished with thrilling back-to-back performances from Shawn Sawyer and Patrick Chan.

Yesterday it was back to reality for me as I came home and got back on the ice, only to recall that I can't skate nearly as well as the skaters I was admiring all weekend. Sigh.

With the Christmas holidays and the preparation for Canadians, I haven't done much blogging about my own skating. It's been up and down. I didn't get to skate much during the holiday and although the break was good for my joints it wasn't terribly good for my jumps and spins. I had some real inability to do camel spins and back sit spins there for a while, but they seem to have returned somewhat. I've been building back up my confidence in my jumps and working on better speed and technique. My spirals are not too bad and I can do pretty good leg pulls on forward or backward edges. My three turns are still a bit wobbly especially backward insides (I hate those ones). I started learning Jr. Bronze Skills and the coach teaches it a bit different than the pattern posted on the Skate Canada website.

My program is coming together although it has been a month since my coach cut the music and we still haven't finished choreographing it! 2:39 is actually a lot of time to fill. I'm registered in a competition in just under a month so I would like to get it finished. Although, I just found out there's only one other woman in my category so that's kind of taking the excitement out of it for me. I'm sewing my own dress and I just have to make some small tweaks here and there, then put some decorations on it and it will be done.

I signed up for an adult ballet class thinking it would be good for my posture and flexibility, but I hurt my foot in the second class and I'm not really enjoying it as much as I hoped I would. Good thing the instructor is a childhood friend of mine and such a good teacher, that I will stick it out. Plus I want my money's worth :P

On Thursday we are having a competition simulation that I will attend. It should be interesting because my dress and program are not finished! I hope it is not too embarrassing!

Canadian Championships Preview Part 4 : Dance Event

Let's Dance!

Well we all know now that Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir withdrew from the event. On the one hand I'm disappointed that I won't get to see them and whoever wins the competition will forever have an asterisk next to their name (figuratively speaking) that the top team didn't compete. On the other hand, nobody wants to watch Tessa and Scott come out on to the ice and suck because of all the time off of training they've had and if there is nothing at stake (is there? do they really need to qualify for worlds? anyone?) why compete before they are ready?

So, onward to the competition. Here are the top contenders:

'Rank' Pair GP best 2010
1 Vanessa Crone/ Paul Poirier 154.42
2 Kaitlyn Weaver/ Andrew Poje 142.32
3 Kharis Ralph/ Asher Hill 121.39
4 Sarah Arnold/ Justin Trojek 107.64
5 Alexandra Paul/ Mitchell Islam 138.16

I'll admit that I'm not such a great judge of dance at this level. I'm one of those people who thinks all the teams are exceptional skaters and I find it really hard to differentiate who deserves the highest scores. At least this makes it a delightful event to watch because every team does a great job unless they make an obvious mistake. Fortunately I have some past scores to go by!

Let's start with Crone and Poirier. These Olympians had a great GP season receiving all the colours of the podium rainbow at their three events. I've heard a lot of negative review of their short dance, but I actually quite like it. Not only does it start with a breathtaking upside-down lift, it features one single piece of music and not weird combinations of cheesy tunes or tangos like so many of the short dances have this season. In contrast, everyone seems to love their free dance to Elenor Rigby but I complain that it has too many crossovers, so go figure. Otherwise I like the program and it has some tough lifts. If they can avoid silly falls and stuff like that they will be fighting it out for top spot. Oh, and I'm not sure if it factors in to the judging but they're an attractive pair in my opinion!

Weaver and Poje also had a pretty good season and are probably the biggest threat to an easy gold for Crone/Poirier. They won a silver medal at NHK trophy this year and slipped to 4th at Skate America. They qualified for the GP final and finished less than 4 points behind Crone/Poirier. They've been on the podium the last 4 years at this event and while they've never won it, it should be an exciting battle.

Ralph and Hill are positively adorable in their short dance (which is totally cheesy) but bring a more elegant look to their free dance which is a unique rendition on 'Summertime' by Senie. Umm plus he's totally hot. Anyway as for their skating their scores indicate that they are a bit outclassed by the other teams but that's not too surprising because this was their first GP season at the senior level. They raked in 4 silver medals on the JGP circuit in two seasons and are the Canadian Junior champions in 2008, so they are a real team-of-the-future.

Arnold and Trojek: They competed at Skate Canada and while their scores weren't great I admit I am a real sucker for their Amelie free dance music and think the program is really nice. Looking at the Protocol sheet from Skate Canada, some of the difficulty levels are not that high and GOE's are mostly neutral. Also their components are low which I'm learning to interpret as the judges saying "you need to spend more time at the senior level before we will give you higher PC Scores!" And, just like many of our pair teams they are a new pairing. Last year was their first time at this event and they placed tenth.

Paul and Islam are nice to watch. They have a fun tango in their short dance (and yes, I'm sick of tangos). I think they are a good calibre team but just had some bad luck this GP season. A fall in their short dance at the Cup of Russia cost them big time and then they withdrew from the event. I don't know why, but if it was because of injury I hope they are recovered from it. Based on their score from Skate Canada though they will challenge for 3rd or even 2nd place. At Skate Canada they had a slip on the Golden Waltz and received only level 2 for it as well as negative GOE (harsh for one slip, no?) which really hurt them but they came back big time with the second-best free dance, a rather elegant one and they got a standing ovation. Watch for their unique arm movements in their synchronized twizzles!

And that's a wrap! I wish I had time to review all the competitors but there just aren't enough hours in the day. The competition starts tomorrow at 1:15 PST and I'll be there!

Canadian Championships Preview Part 3 : Pairs Event

Alright moving onward to Pairs. Without last year's two teams, the competition is wide open but not particularly strong in my opinion. There are only ten entries, I'm not sure why so few. Either that's just how many teams are actually good enough to compete at this level or they just don't want as many competitors. Anyway, according to the starting order here are our top 4:

'Rank' Pair Best GP Score this year
1 Mylene Brodeur/ John Mattatall 151.97 at NHK Trophy
2 Kirsten Moore-Toweres/ Dylan Moscovitch 175.48 at Skate America
3 Paige Lawrence/ Rudi Swiegers 161.15 at Skate Canada
4 Kaleigh Hole/ Adam Johnson 115.15 At Cup of China

But I'm not sure what Skate Canada is thinking because Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford are listed below this group in 6th but they are certainly better than Hole/Johnson so I will comment on them also.

Duhamel and Radford are a really new team, only together since spring of 2010. They scored 158.53 at Skate Canada and 166.76 at the East/West Challenge Qualifying event in December, and this definitely makes them podium material. For such a new team they look fabulous and are fun to watch especially when they nail their technical content (which is formidable). They were far and away the best team at the qualifier and you could tell just by watching them do crossovers. These two could really march in and take the title by surprise!

Brodeur and Mattatall had kind of an OK GP season. A disappointing 6th place finish was improved upon with a 4th place finish at Trophee Eric Bompard, but remember there were only 7 teams at that event and 3 of them had some pretty serious fails so take it with a grain of salt. However they have been at this event 4 times before and they were 3rd in 2009 so they are certainly a team to watch. I'm just not sure they deserve 'top ranking', if, in fact, that is what is meant by starting last. If I don't sound real jazzed about them I guess I should be fair and point out that I've only seen this year's GP skates and they weren't perfect, so if they bring their A-game, watch out.

Moore-Towers and Moscovitch are going to make it hard for the other teams to make a surprise splash though. This GP season they got great scores even when they made errors so maybe it is time for them to have their turn at being the judges' favourites. They haven't been together particularly long and this is only their second time at Nationals together (they were 5th last year). However they had an amazing GP season this year winning two silver medals and qualifying for the final (where they were at last seriously outclassed by the likes of the Germans and the Chinese). I might be the only one that isn't mesmerized by their Les Mis program but I do love their difficult lift at the end where he rises up from a lunge. Ouch! And you gotta love her infectious smile.

Now Lawrence and Swiegers are a pair actually going back to 2005 and they placed 2nd at the Junior Nationals in 2008. They scored a bronze medal at Skate Canada and have two very entertaining programs this year. The SP is a very silly/cute routine to City Slickers and the LP is to the Van Helsing soundtrack with some vampire stuff thrown in for kicks. They seem like kind of a sassy duo and I'd love to see them come on strong and make this a good competition.

Hole and Johnson represent a big step down in the competition in my opinion, and it probably drops off from there. OK to be fair it looks like they are ALSO a relatively fresh pairing with only one complete season as a pair under their belts apparently. But their Cup of China performance was wince-worthy and their East/West Challenge FS was...well....pretty much disastrous. (I'll spare you the gory details, just look up the detailed classification if you must know). They skate like they don't have confidence in themselves or eachother and it makes me uncomfortable watching them. Of course it's possible that they'll have a clean skate here but I might have to avert my eyes every time he goes to lift or throw her. Ummm so that was pretty harsh, I feel like I should say something good about them. They have good side-by-side spins and their death spiral is fine. Trust doesn't seem to be an issue on that one.

And that wraps up the Pairs analysis! Apologies if I missed a real contender, I haven't been able to watch as much pairs or dance as I did the singles, and I'm running out of time.

Stay tuned for the dance preview.

Canadian Championships Preview Part 2 : Women's Event

Here is a quick look at the Women's field at the Canadian Championship. As I did with the Men, I'm looking at 7 competitors: the final 6 competitors in the start order, plus one more notable entry. Unfortunately I am less familiar with these women but I can offer some personal impressions and some numbers. Here are the total scores I was able to look up for this season:
(Apologies for the weird formatting)

'Rank' Skater Best score I found this season

1 Cynthia Phaneuf 156.24 (At Skate Canada)
2 Myriane Samson 152.05 (At Skate Canada)
3 Amelie Lacoste 157.26 (At Skate Canada)
4 Vanessa Grenier 135.84 At East/West Qualifier
5 Alexandra Najarro 135.15 At East/West Qualifier
6 Adriana DeSanctis 131.39 At East/West Qualifer
10 Jessica Dube 122.23 At East/West Qualifer

Notably absent from the list is Dianne Szmiett, who has finished 4th at this event the last two years running, but I haven't seen any articles about why she is not listed. Maybe it has something to do with her two last-place finishes on the GP circuit this year?

Cynthia Phaneuf is the highest ranked and probably the favourite to win the event. She has a good competitive record, including a win at this event in 2004 and a 5th place finish at the 2010 Worlds. She has finished in the top 4 at Canadians all 5 times she has competed in it since her win. This year she has been inconsistent with 4th place finishes and both GP events she was in. However, the judges seem to like her because she got good components scores at both events. She even out-PCS-ed Alissa Czisny in the Skate Canada short program, and won it. If Phaneuf can keep it together technically, she should be able to win here.

Myriane Samson placed third at this event last year, which is her best placement so far. Twice she has been fifth. Her GP season this year was not amazing with a 7th place finish at Skate Canada and an 8th place finish at the Cup of Russia. Aside from that awful screechy-violin version of Bohemian Rhapsody that she is skating to, I like her skating but her component scores have not been that great this year so apparently there is something lacking besides jumps. Maybe it's just the international judges that think so, because this will be her 7th time at Canadians at the Senior level.

Amelie Lacoste was a surprise bronze medallist this year at Skate Canada. She won this event as a Junior in 2005, and as a Senior has placed 3rd once and 5th twice. I like the choreography in both of her programs this year and generally enjoy watching her skate. She might be bringing a triple loop-triple loop combination in her bag of tricks. She can really make things interesting if she skates clean!

Vanessa Grenier is the youngest so far at 18, with only 3 years of Junior GP experience. She was 2nd at this event at the Junior level in 2008 and in her two appearances at this event at the Senior level she was 8th. She competed at a JGP event this season where she placed 12th. In watching sectionals I could really see that she has a great presence on the ice and she easily won the free skate portion of the East/West Challenge and won the event even though she did not win the short program. She has a fun (if cheesy) music selection in her SP and watch for her great layback spin (it gets positive GOE). Vanessa will be a real contender to watch in the future.

Alexandra Najarro is also another champion-in-the-making. She's got presence, extension, huge jumps, and a yummy-looking donut spin. There won't be that many donut spins at this event so make sure not to miss Alexandra. This is only her second time at this event at the Senior level and while she placed 15th last year her ranking seems to indicate that she has the potential to place much higher this year. She competed in the JGP this season as well with 10th and 7th place finishes at her two events. While she nailed her SP at sectionals, her free skate included a camel spin fail, jump error, and a singled jump leaving her in second place behind Grenier. Her lack of Lutz and loop jumps won't help her either.

Adriana DeSanctis has no ISU biography which I assume means that she hasn't competed in a high-level international event or something like that. She skates nice and fast and has a presence on the ice. Watch for her interesting entrance into her back camel spin and fabulous spirals.

Jessica Dube is not ranked particularly high here but she's notable because she's an Olympian! Dube is actually a pairs skater and National Champion with her partner Bryce Davison last year. Since Davison is out with an injury this year, Dube is keeping her competitive fire going by skating singles this season. She skated at the East/West Challenge and has a really simple but lovely SP to Amelie music. I'm not sure what was going on with her but she made quite a few serious errors on her jumps in both programs. She racked up big points on PCS scores and spins though, and don't miss her spins and spirals they are fabulous. She had the top PCS scores by a mile and you clearly see the Olympian quality in her skating.

Other skaters to watch for:

• Izabel Valiquette, who has incredible spirals, a nice split-spin and split jump
• Dallas Daniel, who has exciting choreography, skates fast, and also has that interesting back camel entrance. Member of triple Lutz club.
• Daneila-Bella Favot, watch for spirals, Beillmann, split-spin
• Devon Neuls, who I will be cheering for because she is from my province, also she's built like She-Ra and brings a triple Lutz with her
• Kate Charbonneau, who has a fun program to Malaguena and brings some serious flexibility and extension. She just might have the only level 4 layback of the competition, so don't miss it!

Canadian Championships Preview Part 1 : Men's Event

Ok, this is my first crack at doing a preview for a figure skating event. I did some research on the web to get the numbers, but the rest is mostly opinion, haha!

Let's take a look at the Men's field at the upcoming Canadian Championship. One of the major contenders, Jeremy Ten, has withdrawn because he just had surgery on his ankle, so that waters down the competition a little bit. I was actually looking forward to seeing him.

I took the starting order from the Skate Canada website and assumed it was reverse ordered by some kind of ranking and took a look at the top 7 in the field. Then I looked up some of their scores over this season to estimate their seasons' bests for the year. Since I didn't look up every possible competition it's possible that I've missed some better score, so I don't guarantee that this list is accurate, but it should give us an idea.

'Rank' Skater Best total score this season that I found

1 Patrick Chan 259.75 (at the GP Final)
2 Kevin Reynolds 218.65 (at Skate Canada)
3 Shawn Sawyer 193.80 (At NHK Trophy)
4 Andrei Rogozine 188.60 (At JGP SBC Cup)
5 Ian Martinez 194.71 (At East/West Challenge Qualifier)
6 Marc-Andre Craig 193.19 (At East/West Challenge Qualifer)
7 Joey Russell 186.37 (At Nebelhorn Trophy)

Obviously Patrick Chan should have no trouble winning this one unless he has an injury or a total meltdown. This GP season showed that he can fall at least 3 times and still win because he will always get high component scores.

Kevin Reynolds may represent the biggest challenge for Chan. Reynolds actually outscored Chan in the SP at Skate Canada by landing two quads. But Reynolds tends to get low component scores and he was hurt with downgrades in the rest of his GP programs as far as I can tell. He lacks the polish that is required to do well on the GP circuit but chances are good that if he skates clean without downgrades he could come away with the silver.

Don't count out Shawn Sawyer though. While his season's best total score of the year is over 25 points below Reynolds', we all know that he is capable of so much more. If you combine his best SP of this year and personal best LP, it comes in at a respectable 214.13. His FS this year is really cool and he's a wonderful performer so he should make things interesting in the battle for silver. Watch for his unique upright split position spin, it should make you say 'OW!'

Andrei Rogozine is coming off a successful season on the Junior GP. He won two events and was third in the final. He was Canadian Junior champion in 2009 and was 11th at last year's Canadian Championship in his Senior debut. I'm not really an expert here but I doubt that the judges will really give him top-notch scores because he's been at the Senior level for such a short time. But it's figure skating, so anything can happen!

Unfortunately I don't know too much about the other three but Martinez and Craig seem to have a good rivalry going based on their results from the qualifying events and are the highest-ranked competitors that did not get a bye, And Russell's Nebelhorn performances featured errors, so he's probably capable of achieving a higher score than what's listed above.

So, to do them justice I'll take a look at Martinez' and Craig's performances from East/West Challenge along with any of the other top qualifiers and see how they did.

All in all it should be an exciting competition and I'm looking forward to seeing quads and triple-triple combinations in person for the first time!


UPDATE: I took a look at Martinez and Craig, as promised. Wow, don't miss Ian Martinez! He's got personality and really brings it to his footwork, I think the crowd will like him. Unfortunately I thought Marc-Andre Craig seemed really robotic and expressionless by comparison especially in his short. But to give him credit his long is a little more interesting, there's a bit of pantomime here and there which doesn't do a lot for me but it's better than his short. Craig gets better PCS scores than Martinez though especially in the long so I guess the judges like him. On the plus side he skates really fast and has big jumps and fast spins. Side note: Russell has fun footwork but pretty awful camel spins. Somehow he still got positive GOE on those camel spins though, huh. I'll never understand the judging in this sport.

UPDATE 2: Somehow the formatting on that table isn't working out, ugh.

2011 BMO Canadian Figure Skating Championships

Happy New Year!

Skate Canada has finally posted the starting orders for the Canadian Championships on Jan 21-23. They can be found here:

Canadian Championships Starting Orders

Good news, Virtue and Moir are on the starting list! At least for now, Skate Canada makes sure to point out that the list can change up to the week of the event. Fingers crossed. As expected, Joannie Rochette will not be competing, same with Dube/Davison. Jessica Dube will be the 9th skater in the Women's short though. The Men's field looks strong as does Dance; otherwise I'll have to check out the performances from Sectionals to really see how deep the field is in Women's and Pairs. I am especially excited this year because I will be attending in person!

Unfortunately they didn't post the competitors' planned elements or season's best scores or anything like that. If I feel up to it, I might dig through the results from sectionals for their scores and watch their performances form the East and West Challenge last month to estimate their planned elements. That will take a while though so I will probably only get around to the latter option for the top competitors.