Buntin, Chipeur Retire; Lysacek, Meissner... Um, Still "Contemplating"

I’m not sure how many of you are following along with my rerun reports this summer, and get kinda irritated when I interrupt them to mention tidbits of actual, current skating news… but here I go again, as I send along two articles having to do with decisions to retire, while two others involve skaters who remain undecided on the retirement thing:

1) Craig Buntin announced his retirement this week. Not much of a surprise here; the 30 year-old Buntin has competed pairs with two different partners (Valerie Marcoux and Meagan Duhamel), won three Canadian titles, and is a 2006 Olympian. If you go check the article at IceNetwork.com, you can read about some interesting business ventures he plans to pursue. “Teabean white coffee”? Hmmm… will Starbucks be calling soon?

2) Perhaps only slightly less surprising: Vaughn Chipeur announced HIS retirement just today. I say “less surprising” because Chipeur was notably absent from the 2010 Grand Prix schedule—perhaps his plans were already unofficially known. Or, perhaps it’s because he never really competed well in the GP. Hard for someone like me to know for sure. Apparently his future plans involve skating on a Royal Caribbean Cruise ship…

3) How about Evan Lysacek? Retirement? Taking a break a la Johnny? Ah, still not really saying… but from the looks of this article from ESPN, he might be starting to lean one way over the other…

4) Finally, I happened to see Kimmie Meissner post a link to this article on “how I feel my faith and skating are related,” as she says. It’s a nice piece, though I wish they’d spent a little bit of time on how her faith is helping her “contemplate” her future with regards to competition. The only time they alluded to her future was to use that word—contemplate. But maybe that’s all she really wants to say about it right now.

For the Clip of the Day – I apologize, for I know I’ve featured this at least once before… this is Buntin & Duhamel’s free skate from the 2008 Trophee Eric Bompard; the one where Buntin’s hand got sliced open midway through and they STILL manage to finish the program, although in two parts, and with his bandaged hand looking like a miniature Japanese Flag by the end. I'll always be terribly impressed with that!