This is How Olympic Athletes Think

OK, so this is how Olympic-caliber athletes think. It’s a warmup before a Canadian Stars on Ice show. Vancouver bronze medalist Joannie Rochette, sorta done practicing, or maybe just taking a break, sits near the ice. Two other Olympic-eligible skaters land triple jumps, in sync, at opposite ends of rink. JoRo gets up, goes back on the ice, lands a triple-triple jump, sits back down. Just like that. As if to say, hello, I'm a frickin' Olympic medalist. I’ll see your solo triple and raise you a triple.

That is how Olympic athletes think. Even at an ice show practice.

Sneaking a Peek at Athletes at Their Peak

Life is mainly regular old stuff, stuff you have to do, stuff you really don't want to do, stuff you just do. Then every once in awhile, you get a treat. Like for me, it's spending warm nights in cool rinks, watching people who can race around on ice skates like Horowitz used to race around the keyboard. It's watching people who are my stars on ice, in places like this arena, from center ice 10 rows up.

Good thing I saw the warmup, 'cos my show seat was way over at rink's end, up top. The kind of low-rent seat that can distance you from the performances. (Of course, I’m someone who’s been spoiled rotten, able to watch top skaters close up at these kinds of practies many other times. How you gonna keep 'em up in the peanut gallery once they've sat downtown?)

The Main Show

Among the actual show highlights for me at this 2010 edition of Stars on Ice, Canada, were Rochette's “Summertime” followed by Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir's adaptation of the Mahler program that won them World and Olympic gold this year. Just magnificent performances by skaters at the peak of the power.


Another fave - the “Intermission” program, skated by three of the guys and Ms. Rochette. This cast meshes well. If they secretly hate each others’ guts, they’re faking friendship superbly.


Of Course, I'd Be Charmed if They Just Sat There Texting
Informal practices are always fun to watch. Saw lots of cute stuff, like when Kurt Browning was practicing footwork, and Rochette started to playfully imitate him. I just wanted to pick them both up, put them in my purse and have them with me to do charming things like that all day. (BTW Dear AllSkatersEverywhere: Mr. Browning is a good person to try to imitate footwork-wise.)


It took me awhile to realize some skaters were running through parts of programs, not skating to random warmup songs. Duh. (I had been secretly giving props to former world champ Jeff Buttle for what I thought was a brilliant ad-libbing to Stones music.)


Illegal Geese

Later in the practice Tessa and Scott - that's Virtue and Moir to you non-obssessed - practiced their signature move, the Goose, with a fantastic (but deemed “illegal” for competition) dismount.  And some of their elaborate lifts. (TBH, who’d just put her eyes back in her head from the eligible skaters’ JumpFest, was all *eek* again.)

And then the hubby/wife dance team of Dubreil and Lauzon ran through a bit of their “newspaper” program, all slinky and everything, as if to say, “No one even has to ask US if we’re sleeping together.”

Javier Fernandez - Will He Reign From Spain or Mainly Stay Kind of Plain?
Of course, being an obsessed fan also mean the joy of discovering new talent. (Once upon a time JoRo and V/M were my new little finds.)


Here's another one who might make a big splash (by not splatting) someday. A kid from that hotbed of ice sports, Spain. Javier Fernandez. I don’t know when he got on my radar within the past several months, but he did.

I was looking at this drunken pirate’s website/ wiki entries (his long program was a wacky routine to Pirates of the Caribbean). Not a lot of detail yet. Because again - Spain?!? (A few weeks ago I was reading some condolences posted at Joannie Rochette’s website. It popped out at me that one of them began, “I’m from Spain - ice skating isn’t very big here …” It’d be interesting to see if that would change much if this young man progresses to a high level.)


It’s just always fascinating how people get into something, no matter what their circumstances, as if they’re just destined to do it.


And you know who that kind of person is? The kind of person who gets up in the middle of an ice show practice and throws down a damn hard old jump combo. Just for the hell of it.

The Olympics: How I Mostly Love Being Half-Canadian

Croooosby! [Shakes Fist.]  I - living in Detroit of all places - have been a fan of yours for two or three years. But maybe a little less today.  Because I did want the boys from this side of the border to win. The way I figure it, you folks have clean, safe cities and great healthcare. You could've thrown us the bone of one little hockey game.

But mostly, I do love Canada and Canadians. And although I haven't spent much time there, I'm proud of my Canadian ancestry. (My dad's side came across Lake Huron from Ontario and from way on up in Beauharnois, Quebec.)

And I especially have adored Canadian figure skaters. Brian O. Kurt. Jamie & David. Virtue and Moir. Joannie.

I've been a fan of the latter since well before the Torino games. Like so many others, how  long I had waited for the times she would pull it together at a big event.

And in the meanwhile, I too have faced my share of hardships over the years.

So how much more personal did this second week of the Vancouver games seem to me.

I think I've handled my challenges as well as I could. But if there's ever a day I feel myself faltering, I will look back on the way that beautiful (on the inside and out) young woman acquitted herself in the face of tragedy and with the eyes of half a billion on her. And pulled out two of the performances of her life. Merci, ma petite.

And Tessa and Scott. Temporary transplants to my state. The millennial Torvill and Dean. How special, how ethereal, yet how down-to-earth. I'm thrilled to witness the gift of your talent.

Thank you, Canada. Ya got some good kids there. Even the one who scored the OT goal. I'm fully proud to be half Canadian.

The Weekend of Weird Outfits & Who Got What? Golden Globes & Figure Skating Championships

Bling, Bling, Bling
This weekend I was overwhelmingly bedazzled - and sometimes due to actual performances. Let's put it this way - any actress who's being panned for her choice of high or low coture at the Golden Globes need only check out Johnny Weir's free skate outfit. She will feel much better about herself.

Gold Medals and Golden Globes
These strange few days included trying to monitor:

Two sets of figure skating national championships - the prelude to the Winter Olympics, and

That fluffiest of Hollywood self-congratulatory events - the Golden Globes. Which are supposedly a prelude to the Oscars. Yawn.

It's all a blur at this point. Did Ryan Bradley win the Best Supporting Actor in a Musical or Comedy? Did Drew Barrymore and Justin Long win the Pairs event? 


 I do know this - the Golden Globes broadcast did not win best Short Program. Gawd.


Some Globes You Got

The movie-star laden Globes also tosses a few bones to the supposedly lesser (but often greater) TV lineup. My primary interest.  (And by the way, feck you, movie stars who couldn't be bothered to even applaud for the TV show nominees and winners. We saw you, and we took names.)

As an event, it's the Hostess Twinkies of television. Occasionally you like to indulge in something so frothy and unfullfilling. But after awhile you get a little sick.

But I'm glad Ricky Gervais thinks he's so funny -that makes one of us with that opinion.

Making the Team
When the GGs rolled around Sunday evening I was still recuperating from three days of US and Canadian skating events.


Miracle of miracles, a few standout performances revived my sadly flagging interest in the art/sport/occasional farce of skating. I'm back on Team Jeremy and Team Joannie (Rochette) for their work in winning the US Men's and Canadian Ladies crown, respectively.


Jeremy Abbott's 2010 Nationals Freeskate

And then there are the incomparable Virtue and Moir. You could OD on this OD, feel compelled to watch their Compulsory and freely watch the Free Skate for hours.They Are Magic. The Best. The End.

Abbott and Tessa and Scott grew up elsewhere but now train in Detroit. We are happy to take credit for them.

And now a couple days rest before more rich people patting themselves on the back (the Screen Actors Guild awards) and the divas of American dance and lady skaters take the ice for U.S. Nationals, Part the Second.