We are all witnesses
January 23, 2009
Yesterday certainly brought some surprises in competition, mostly pleasant ones. I admit I missed the Junior free dance, being in desperate need of both posting time and rest. (If I miss any of the Junior Men’s freeskate, it will be for the same reason.) Of course, my punishment for then taking that posting time and rest was to ride on a sardine can of a surburban bus (it was already jampacked by the time it got to me, and it kept adding people after that) on a looooong trip downtown. Sometimes I wonder if staying in a hotel isn’t better.
Castile & Okolski unfortunately proved themselves not up to the task in Championship Pairs short program this time out, but Inoue & Baldwin sent notice right off the top that they were not to be forgotten. When McLaughlin & Brubaker’s performance turned out to be less than strong and put them only a tenth of a point over Inoue & Baldwin, it looked as if they were going to finish 1-2. But then Caydee Denney & Jeremy Barrett came along and upset the chessboard with a solid performance that included the most unified side-by-side spins I’ve seen all week. Now senior pairs is a real contest and not at all lacking in suspense.
No similar suspense in Championship Dance OD, just fun stuff to watch. All the top teams performed well, and Davis & White pulled off another masterpiece. One team I circled for notable choreography: Emma Cyders & Ievgenii Krasniak, who dressed in old-fashioned ’20s-style bathing costumes and remained in character throughout their time on the ice — including him trying to smack “water” out of his ears and her brush “sand” off her legs after the performance.
The suspense picked up again for Championship Ladies short, where Katrina Hacker was first among the larger pool of contenders to lay down a nice program. But Alissa Czisny…ah, Alissa Czisny! She had one of those programs she has sometimes where it all just comes together. Delicate in presentation yet strong in skating power (she had to beware of the boards at one point). It was a joy to see.
Caroline Zhang’s only big flaw was a foot down on double axel, while Mirai Nagasu and her growing body seemed to be suffering from Midori Ito Syndrome — as in “Your puny rink is too small for my amazing jumping power!” (only she didn’t know it, to her downfall). Ashley Wagner had her troubles and so did Bebe Liang. Finally, Rachael Flatt came through with a lovely skate to “Moon River” (I doubt she knows Henry Mancini was a Cleveland boy, but it helps) and slotted herself in at #2, with Zhang third.
The nice thing was that while there were plenty of spills and mishaps, even among bigger names, the senior ladies’ short was not a splatfest. Lesser-knowns gave wonderful performances, including Brittney Rizo, Kristine Musademba and Joelle Forte.
No skating competition is complete without its off-ice weirdnesses, whether provided by mere audience members or the skaters themselves. I remember the atmosphere in the stands just before the senior men’s long program at the 1993 Canadians in Hamilton, Ontario, when Kurt Browning was trying to bounce back from a rotten Albertville Olympics and Elvis Stojko was starting to really come into his own. Everyone knew the freeskate would be down to the two of them. The crowd was riled up enough as it was, but the presence of a man dressed as the other Elvis — The King — in white spangled jumpsuit, black wig, and sunglasses, traveling the stands, whipping a scarf around with glee — just made things wilder. That was what a Saturday night in Hamilton was like when the two best eligible men’s skaters competed head-to-head at their own nationals.
Years later, same country, different city, the 2001 World Championships in Vancouver. One of the sponsors is MasterCard, and the ad in their famous “Priceless” series that all Canadians now know by heart (it even runs on the Jumbotron) is one in which two guys make a cross-country road trip (all expenses itemized in ad) just for the experience of cheering on their favorite pairs team, Sale & Pelletier (who appear at the end). The hook? The guys are dressed in giant red foam maple-leaf costumes throughout the entire trip.
Well, I can’t remember exactly which day of Worlds it was, but I go to the arena and am walking along the concourse one day, and damned if I don’t see…a kid wearing a red maple-leaf costume!! His mom made it for him, he says, after they saw the commercial. Before long, he’s a minor celebrity, with people asking him to pose for pictures with them.
Fast-forward to 2009, Cleveland…where Junior ice dancers Tim McKernan and Dean Copley, deciding they wanted to do something special to cheer on the Championship Pairs after completing their own event, had made sure to pack their Halloween costumes for their trip to Nationals. Thus appeared in the audience during the competition none other than the legendary pair team of Jimmy McElroy & Chazz Michael Michaels from the movie Blades of Glory, holding aloft a giant sign reading “CAPTURE THE DREAM.”
No word yet on whether Jimmy and Chazz will show up for the pairs freeskate, but I hope they do.
Other notes: I moved up to club level, where my actual seat is, for the first time yesterday afternoon, out of fear that if I didn’t, I’d end up being kicked out of someone else’s seats in mid-performance, so I might as well just go to my own. (It wasn’t really necessary, though; maybe 5,000 people tops showed up even for ladies’ short, and not for all of that.) Club level was fairly pleasant, peaceful and quiet at first compared to concourse level, but if you wanted any decent food, you had to bring it up from the concourse! Only one stand was open — the one selling the bottom-of-the line concession food like hot dogs, popcorn, pretzels, nachos, peanuts and candy — this one didn’t even sell soup like the equivalent on the concourse — and the grill concession was never opened at all. No, if you wanted to get grill food, salad, wraps, ice cream, etc., you actually had to go back down to concourse. Ridiculous. Also, the Q staff, while ever-vigilant about ensuring that nobody sat in anyone else’s seat, thought nothing of seating people during programs, forcing everyone in their row to get up to accommodate them. Rude, rude, rude.
I had one group of 5 people a couple of rows in front of me who were constantly traipsing in and out and up and down the stairs during performances. One was visibling tottering towards the end, due to imbibing a vast quantity of beer. Sheesh!
Know what you mean, Patti. I’ve decided there are both advantages and disadvantages to being at club level (but not in a luxury box) at this event. Advantages: Not usually as crowded, peaceful and quiet, elevator operators treat you like royalty (they don’t know you’re not one of the high rollers in a luxury suite), ushers ready to kick out anyone occupying your seat in an instant. Disadvantages: Not enough food options (at least not this early in the competition), ushers so eager to please that they guide people to their seats immediately upon arrival (even if it means dislodging everyone else in the row and obstructing the view of the people in the rows behind), and a certain number of people who aren’t really there for the skating but merely because it’s an Event. They’re more likely to be drunk (in my experience) than the skate-junkies. (Drunk? Us? It can be hard enough to tell an incorrect lutz edge from a correct one when we’re sober.) Oh, and you can’t walk the hall for two seconds without an usher asking if he/she can help you, which unfortunately gives me not the impression that they’re eager to help so much as that they just don’t want me wandering in places they think I might not belong. Sort of like the store employee who follows your every move and is so eager to “help” you, whom you suspect is more likely concerned that you might be a shoplifter.
Yes, there’s a hierarchy on club level, once you get out of the elevators. People in the regular seats are treated well and politely…but there’s always an eye on you, as if at any second you might try to sneak into a suite, where You Most Decidedly Do Not Belong. And of course, they always want to see your ticket, because they damn well want to know which class you fit into; it tells them how to treat you.