Monday Morning Skating Video

Nicole Bobek got  5 years probation for her role in a meth ring.  She was damned lucky.  I have a soft spot for Nicole.  She was always my favorite skater.  She always broke my heart.  Here she is skating to one of my favorite programs.  It's her tribute to Carlo Fassi, the coach that helped her get back on track and then died during the 1997 World Championships.

It says she did this in 1995 but I believe this is from a 1998 Tribute.

Monday Morning Skating Video

A cool winter song for the summer - Michelle Kwan skating in  Olympic Medalist YuNa Kim's 2009 show in Korea. 

The end of Compulsory Ice Dance

It wasn't the most exciting TV and even the most diehard fan could get tired of hearing the same music over and over but the compulsory dance is the foundation of the ice dance competition.  The compulsories let the judges compare apples to apples and see the basic skating skills of the dancers aside from the emotion and entertainment value of the free dance.

Here's a great example of the two top contestants doing the Golden Waltz



My daughter and I went to the US Nationals in St. Paul and got to see the compuslory competition live- that's really where you see the wheat separate from the chaff --as couples do the exact same dance but the more skilled and experienced dancers would make you disbelieve it was the same dance.



Now in their infinite wisdom (read that stupidity) the Internatinal Skating Union (which includes hockey and speed skating and his headed by a speed skater) has decided compulsory dance is a waste of time.  ISU Abolishes Dance Compulsories

A compulsory dance is a dance on ice based on ball room dances - Waltzes, Tangos, Foxtrots, Blues, even the Paso Doble!  If you want to learn to ice dance, you learn a compulsory dance.  You don't learn a free dance.  You learn the difficult task of doing precise steps, on an edge, with pointed toes, straight back, exactly to the beat of the music.    Lots and lots of recreational adult skaters do nothing but the compulsory dances and I fear this move may be detrimental to social ice dancing.

I say that because of what happened to Figures.  Figures were the foundation of ice skating.  You used to have to pass figure tests before you could to on to free skating.  You used to have to compete in figures and if you couldn't master the figures --you wouldn't win, no matter how exciting a skater you were.  Well that made for bad television.  So first they took figures out of competition and made it a separate competition.  Then they took figures out of Nationals.  Then they no longer made testing them a requirement.  Now very few people do figures.  There is a whole new generation of coaches who learned figures and are not able to teach figures.  And a lot of people would say, and I agree, that skating has suffered for that lack of foundational skills.

It would be a terrible thing if the compulsory ice dance met the same fate.

Monday Morning Skating Video

This is 2006 Olympic gold medalist Shizuka Arakawa skating in this year's Stars on Ice Japan tour to Madonna's Frozen

Monday Morning Skating Video

Yuka Sato's Pure Skating to Clair de Lune at this year's Stars on Ice

Monday mid-morning Skating Video

This is John Zimmerman & Stephanie Stiegler from the 1997 Nationals. I still think it is one of the most creative and interesting pairs programs ever.  He is one of those rare pair skaters that you watch as much if not more than the lady.  The year after this she had a shoulder injury and he paired up with Kyoko Ina who had just finished 4th at the 98 Olympic with Jason Dungjen.  Jason now skates pairs professionally with Yuka Sato.  Are following all of that?

Monday Skating Video

Synchronized skating is a team sport in which 8-20 skaters perform a program together.  The World Championships were last week.  US Team Haydenettes won the bronze.  Here they are at last year's worlds.

Monday Skating Video

Isabell Brassuer and Lloyd Eisler's "Patricia the Stripper"  - a classic from 1994.  Everyone loves a guy in drag.

Monday Morning Skating Video

To help me get back to blogging I'm reinstuting my Monday morning/afternoon Skating video- Today's selection is the "Red Hat" -  a  group number choreographed by Christopher Dean for the 1996-97 Stars on Ice Tour.  I saw this live.

This will make you smile - Dancing at the Assembly

This took place before I got there. I promise you if I had been there, I'd be on there.

Monday Afternoon Skating Video - a little late

I love Johnny Weir. He's a drama queen and the reason why straight men hate figure skating. He drives his fans crazy because he's sooo very talented but lately there's always something that keeps him from the podium. I follow him on twitter and he's got these great tweets like:

"Practice makes perfect. Trying to style myself for the premiere. I can't decide what to wear. The tribulations of Johnny Weir..." and
"Ugh...a tiring day already and still two more hours on the ice and pilates. Plus I ran out of FF shampoo. Does the madness ever end?"

I mean really, how can you not love someone like that?

Here is his 2006 short program at the Olympics. It was brilliant and put him second behind Plushenko (who nobody could beat because that man is a jumping machine) Then he fell apart in the free skate. Ugh. Shades of Nicole Bobeck. I like Evan Evan Lysacek too, but Johnny is an artist.

Monday Afternoon Skating Video

My favorite - Scott Hamilton - in 1994 - when he was at his best as pro

Monday Morning Skating Video

So I was talking about little little girls on the ice.

I don't know this just doesn't seem evil like beauty pageants. It's cute!

Monday Afternoon Skating Video - a little early

Michelle Kwan announced Friday that she would not return to skating, putting an end to hopes and speculation that she might come back and try again for that elusive Olympic Gold Medal. She has another life now. Skating will always be a part of me,” Kwan said.

“But, in the bigger picture of my life, I have always wanted to find a career that will allow me to make a positive contribution and difference in the world. Representing the United States as an American Public Diplomacy Envoy the past three years has been very rewarding, and I want to do more. Furthering my education will bring me closer to that goal, and I don't want to wait any longer to continue the journey.”

This is a young woman with a good head on her shoulder and she's not living in the past and wasting her life chasing some elusive dream which just isn't that meaningful in the long run.

This is a very poignant number skated to Eva Cassidy's version of "Fields of Gold" My daughter skated to this for her Senior Solo at our Ice show in 2008. It still makes me cry.

Monday Afternoon Skating Video

I saw this in person. It's hard to be a straight male figure skater. I couldn't find it this time but the first time I found this clip is was posted by a gay guy who obviously enjoyed these guys as much as the ladies did. Which I found ironic since I think the idea of this whole number was to prove how macho these guys are.

Whatever. It's fun to watch.

Monday Afternoon Skating Video - Nicole Bobek

Nicole Bobek is the figure skater that broke a lot of skating fans' hearts. She had it all. Big jumps. Amazing fast, centered and beautiful spins. She was the first one with the full split spiral position, held across the entire rink that made you stop breathing and is the reason that position is now practically required of all ladies.

But it was the way she interpreted the music and poured soul into every performance that made you fall in love with her. She could have won it all. But something about the way her vulnerability spilled out made you cringe because you knew there was just not going to be a happy ending for her.

She had an unstable childhood. (Although if you knew anything about how figure skating prodigies are raised, none of them are "normal") She was taken from one coach to another. She was known for her lack of discipline and her "wild" teenage ways.

This is her 1995 short program at the Worlds. There's a bit of fluff before it but it does explain a bit about her. She went in as National Champion and this brilliant performance set her on course for winning the World Championships. But she fell apart in the long program. Chen Lu from China won, Michelle Kwan took silver. Kwan became the next Figure Skating Princess and won nine national championships and except for one comeback in 1998 that got her on the Olympic team, Bobeck never was much of a contender again.

Lots of fans were infuriated with her because she didn't seem to live up to her potential.
But maybe she did. Maybe she really did the best she could and from what little we know of her upbringing she did mighty fine for herself. She turned out much better than Tonya Harding for sure. I hear she's still skating professionally here and there.

I couldn't find it on Youtube but if you ever get a chance to see her skating to "No Sacrifice" - that performance could make you weep it was so beautiful. She had a presence on that defies explanation.

Monday Afternoon Skating Video

Known affectionately to their fans as "G & G" - two time Olympic Gold Pairs Medalists Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov were possibly the greatest pairs skaters ever. You just loved watching them together. Grinkov died suddenly of a massive heart attack during a Stars on Ice rehearsal. He was 28 years old.

Monday Afternoon Skating Video

The mid-90s was the hey day of Figure Skating on TV. It was wonderful. Lots of fans complained about "Cheesy fake" pro competitions like this one - The Rock and Roll Championships. I love them. Here is a very sexy Kurt Browning skating to "Lightening Crashes"

Monday Afternoon Skating Video

This was a great number by Josee Chouinard - "The Sweater" 1997 Check out her amazing huge triple lutz - taken off a nice deep outside edge.

Memorial Day Skating Video

Scott Hamilton skating to "Battle Hymn of the Republic" - It doesn't say but I think this is the 1986 World Professional Figure Skating Competition.

Scott dedicated this number in 1985 to the 1961 to the US World Figure Skating Team who were all tragically lost in a plane crash.