The 2010 ISU Grand Prix Final: Airdates and Predictions

… make that SIX sets of bloggers’ predictions! You see, Tony Wheeler over at Flutzing Around corralled the opinions of six different skating bloggers (including Yours Truly), and arranged them into a lovely chart that (hopefully) will post nicely for y’all to see. (Double click to see it bigger...)

P.S. Takahashi and Kozuka had a nasty crash on practice ice this week; if Dice-K skates without pain this weekend (particularly back pain), it will be a holiday miracle.

UPDATE: Here's a clip of that collision that's now on You Tube.

The IceNetwork streaming times are…

Friday, Dec. 10
4:15 a.m.: Short dance
5:25 a.m.: Men's short program
6:30 a.m.: Ladies short program
7:35 a.m.: Pairs short program

Saturday, Dec. 11
3:55 a.m.: Men's free skate
5:10 a.m.: Ladies free skate
6:20 a.m.: Free dance
7:40 a.m.: Pairs free skate

The Universal Sports schedule is as follows…

Friday, Dec. 10
4:30-5:30 p.m.: Ladies Short and Short Dance (repeats at 10:30 p.m.; second airing is slated for 90 minutes )
8-9:30 p.m.: Men’s and Pairs Short Program (repeats at 1a.m. Saturday)

Saturday, Dec. 11
7-9 p.m.: Men’s Free Skate and Free Dance (repeats at 1 a.m. Sunday.)
10-11 p.m.: Pairs Free Skate

Sunday, Dec. 12
4-6 p.m.: Ladies Free Skate (which can first be seen from NOON-2PM on NBC)

Skating w/The Stars Week 3: Blood, Sweat, and (Keauna's) Tears

For all the ABC execs who were hoping the “danger factor” would play a substantial role in Skating with the Stars… week three was the week they’d been waiting for. Slashed hands, swollen wrists—even vomiting! (But since the show's still losing viewers, I'm not sure it was worth the ABC execs' wait.) Here’s the quick recap, if you can stomach it:

FIVE couples are left. The performance this week is supposed to tell “a romantic story”, and has to include a jump of some kind on the part of the “star” (single revolutions of course).

Rebecca & Fred— skate to Katy Perry’s Hot & Cold… in the package they show that she’s injured her wrist to the point she’s supposed to be icing it and “taking it easy”, but we all know what that means… work harder!!! They still do a decent job. Her solo jump is a flip (my own fave).

Bethenny & Ethan—they skate to Halo…she remains pissed about the judging and how last week she was scored lower than those who fell down. She rants a lot and appears to be trying hard, but personally, I don’t see much improvement. Her jump is a toe loop—it’s OK. Laurie Ann (the clueless one) gives her a “7” at judgment time, and we never. Hear. The. End. Of. It.

Vince & Jennifer—In their fluff piece, Jennifer takes Vince to “basic training” with a pack of kids she teaches. They pretend to adore his tattoos… it’s very sweet. They skate to You’re Beautiful… ah, and as the song says, he indeed will never be with her. He manages a waltz jump. Laurie Ann gushes about his showmanship…and I notice Vernon Kay (the trying-hard-but-is-no-Tom-Bergeron-host) is starting to look like he’s passing a kidney stone when he’s dealing with Johnny. Vince’s back is apparently injured this week… but ah, no worries, he’s out of the running anyway. (They were voted out at the end of show.)

Brooke & Jonny—He’s taken 3 hard falls in the past couple days, and she got her hand sliced to ribbons via one of his blades earlier yesterday. Can they get this done? Well, sure they can. I’ve no idea what the music was, but they do well. I think their jump sequence was a flip/toe loop combo? Little rough (2-ft landings) but the ambition was clear. Last lift a little shaky but oh well… they’re in first anyway!

Keauna & Brandon—my daughter had to go to bed and watched just long enough to see the lovely footage of Brandon yakking en route to the hospital, and was dying to know… whatever was wrong with Brandon and would it keep him from doing more Sonny w/a Chance episodes?? They didn’t go into much detail, so we’ll say “severe flu symptoms” and leave it at that. The show has to play a rehearsal tape of the K & B performance (as they’ve done under similar circumstances at Dancing w/the Stars), and Keauna has to sniffle on the sidelines, glittery headband and all, and hope everyone got a sense of just how hard they worked this week. (The tape was fine; I don’t remember what Brandon’s jump was though.) Johnny got a jab in during his evaluation to basically call out Brandon for not having a “show must go on” mentality— in other words, calling him a wuss. Vernon jumped in with the friendly reminder that “Puke doesn’t look good on ice”, to which Johnny chirped “Been there, Vernon!” Nice.

So do we remind ourselves of the Disaster in Dallas ’03 where Johnny’s “show must go on” mentality was a little underdeveloped… as he gave up relatively early in his free skate and withdrew due to injury?

Or is that too dated a reference at this point?

Nah, of course it’s not. Here’s a peek at it for those who need (or maybe just want) a reminder. Sorry if that seems snarky, but of all people to come down on a performer for giving up too soon or for an illegitimate reason… let’s just say the pot was definitely calling the kettle—or perhaps the kettle’s “aura”—black. ;-)

And by the way, they also filled some time with an ensemble performance featuring co-host/commentator Tanith Belbin, who talked Ben Agosto into braving this show as well.

RATINGS NOTE: Unfortunately, all the other first-run programming of the night took its toll. The first 60 minutes appear to have brought in just under 5 million viewers; the last 30 kept only 4.5 million of them. We’ll have to see if the numbers keep dropping next week (when House might return with a new episode?), or if they can hold steady from here.

Are We There Yet? Questions on the Road to GP Finals and Beyond 2010

It’s so strange to have a little lull in the action, I hardly know what to post. How ‘bout if I post some fake, yet completely believable, Frequently Asked Questions of the week…

Is it GP Finals time yet? No; that’s next weekend. Come back later this week for airdates and predictions… and if you’ve got a prediction of your own, why not add a “Comment” and commit to it in writing? C’mon… heaven knows you’ll probably do much better with your guesses than I have thus far.

(And incidentally, the U.S. has NINE competitors in the Junior GP Final, also to be held in Beijing this coming weekend. It won’t be streaming live on IceNetwork, but I’ll try to get the word out as I hear it anyway.)

Has anyone withdrawn from GP Finals yet? Not that I’ve heard, but I suppose there’s still time for that to happen Monday or Tuesday? (If so, that means half the U.S. GP competitors are continuing to wonder if they’ll get “the call”)

Is Skating with the Stars cancelled yet? No, but this week it’ll face some still competition in the form of a) the regular CBS lineup, and b) the season premiere of The Sing Off, which NBC would probably call Real Live GLEE if it could do so without paying the folks at FOX. Anyway, if SWTS can get through Monday night with between 5 ½- 6 million viewers intact, it should probably be considered a serious victory. Check back on Tuesday for an update on all of this.

Have any of the “on a break” skaters announced their plans yet? Funny you should ask… Joannie Rochette, for one, officially opted out of Canadian Nationals several days ago. You can read more about it here, if you haven’t already. While we’re on the subject… anyone want to hedge their bets as to when Evan Lysacek will officially do the same with this season’s U.S. Nationals? Or is that just a bygone conclusion at this point?

Is this update done yet? As soon as I post this clip of the day from Dice-K’s 2009 GPF Gala performance. Will he run off with the title this year?

Dear 2010 Trophee Eric Bompard TV Production Staff...

...I write this at the risk of sounding ungrateful—though that is hardly the case. As with every home country of a Grand Prix event, you were responsible for producing the “World Feed” that was sent out to Universal, NBC, Canadian TV, Japanese TV, etc… and it was quite apparent that you folks were determined to go above and beyond what’s been done by all the 2010 GP countries ahead of you. Nothing wrong with that; some of them seemed quite challenged to bring us even the basics (show the skater, show the skating, show the scores) and it was refreshing to know you aimed higher. To that end, I’m sending a little Do’s and Don’ts list to help you plan for next year. Consider it my bouche de Noel to you this holiday season. You’re ever so welcome.

+ DO keep the guy that does artist’s renderings of skaters on the fly. I’ve seen him several times before; it’s a very nice touch, the way you work him into the action every now and again. (And livens up an event with very few standouts—such as this year’s ice dancing!)

+ DON’T feature aerial shots so high in the rafters you cannot tell what’s being done, let alone who’s doing it. Just because some poor soul has to watch it from that high up doesn’t mean we all want to suffering nosebleeds right alongside her.

+ DO continue to stay on the skater after they’ve finished, allowing us enough time to gauge their reaction to their own skating. It was a treat to see, for instance, Takahiko Kozuka’s charming and triumphant (but still characteristically subtle) double-fist pump at the completion of his winning free skate.

+ DON’T show shots of other people while a skater’s program is in progress. Why were we looking at a two-shot in the crowd when Kevin Reynolds’ free skate was just getting underway? And why, for the love of God, were we forced to watch Nikolai Morozov boogie along vicariously from the boards for what seemed like an eternity while his student (Florent Amodio) was in the thick of his fun-loving footwork? Show that stuff after the skate, s’il vous plait!! (Big thanks to Tracy Wilson for complaining about this particular shot on-air!)

+ DO get creative with the kiss-n-cry shots. As entertaining as it is to hear Frank Carroll’s random comments to Mirai Nagasu (this time I picked up “Good job out there; you weren’t chicken at all!”), it’s nice to see a little tilt-down from the TEB sign here, a slow pan from the left there…

+But DON’T give us tight shots of a skater’s feet while spinning. When Alissa Czisny is executing the hands-down most reliable, beautiful part of her skating talent, I want to see the positions she’s hitting... the lovely lines… I already KNOW her spin is perfectly centered.

+DO get even more artsy-fartsy, and put little sweeper girls in the foreground of those K&C shots (having them move out on cue, etc.). That, plus the piled-up stuffed toys obscuring Brian Joubert’s face after his SP scores went up, made his mediocre (and as it turned out, only) 2010 TEB appearance palatable.

+And finally… DON’T show us coach/skater split screens unless it’s in the warm-up. No offense, but that sort of “experimentation” is SO 1980s.

Don’t believe me? Check out this clip of the day from 1986 Worlds, about 1 minute in… while it’s not a split-screen, it’s a directing decision that ultimately got voted down for future use. Easy reason: it took away from the performance at hand. Attentionez, TEB producers! And never forget that sometimes the basics-- the skater, the skating, the scores-- are all you really need.

Merci beaucoup,
Kelli @ État de la raie

The Good, Bad, and "Spiffy": Skating with the Stars, Week 2

So now that Jennifer Grey is finally out of Baby’s “corner” and into the limelight that is Dancing with the Stars’ mirror-ball trophy glare… and DWTS has, subsequently, faded for now into winter hiatusland… it’s time for its pesky new kid sister, Skating with the Stars, to start flying solo. How’d it do? Well, there’s good news and bad news…

The Good News: So far, the numbers on Skating with the Stars are actually better than the numbers earned on the last prime-time, non-Olympic skating event (March’s 2-day show Thin Ice, also on ABC). That show averaged about 4.2 million viewers; SWTS pulled in around 6 million Monday night (about the same amount reported to have stuck with the show through its second hour last week). Incidentally, those numbers also put ABC in second place during those hours… not bad, except…

The Bad News: DWTS traditionally pulls down at least 24 million viewers… or 4 times more than SWTS has done thus far. Also, it must be noted that both CBS and FOX had some reruns happening… we’ll have to wait and see if the show is able to keep (and build?) on the 6 million, or if that number erodes when more first-run series return in December.

While I’m ill-prepared to give you the full-blown review that I gave last week, here are some of the SWTS needs-to-know as I see it (for Episode #2):

+ It’s still not DWTS, but that’s not for lack of trying. From the hyper-elaborate hair, makeup and costumes, to the presentation of the scores, to the dramatic, can’t-go-on fluff pieces (did everyone get that Bethenny is s-t-r-u-g-g-l-i-n-g?), to Tanith now hanging backstage in the “Brooke” role (Vernon did this in week 1), the show is terrified of doing anything that might have the nonchalant viewer rubbing their eyes, saying “Wait a minute… when did Brooke become a blonde?”)

+ But one look at the judges as the camera panned the studio en route back to Vernon told the story: the three sat very poised, not speaking, staring straight ahead. Maybe Carrie Ann, Len and Bruno used to do the exact same thing… I didn’t watch DWTS in its first couple seasons… but I hope everyone gets a chance to loosen up as this series progresses. The chemistry between Tom Bergeron and the other DWTS talents feels very genuine, and (I think) has as much to do with that show’s success as the dancing.

+ Also like DWTS, the competitors were assigned one of two “dances”… this time they either had the jive (Jonny/Brooke, Bethenny/Ethan, and Sean/Denis), or the tango (Vince/Jennifer, Brandon Mychal/Keauna, and Rebecca/Fred).

+ The apparently all-important FALLS that they like to show so much in the promos? Finally started happening here. Vince Neil went down once; Sean Young went down twice.

+ Ben Agosto and John Baldwin were among the recognizable faces in the crowd this week. (Recognizable to skating fans, anyway.)

+ The Johnny Weir Gushfest continued this week… is he genuinely surprised at how well some of these folks are picking up the moves, or just selling it all like crazy because that’s his job? Hard to tell. What do you think?

+ I had to wince when Vernon made a ham-handed comment about one of Dick Button’s use of “spiffy” dating back to the original ice age. Good Lord. If viewers can’t allow Dick his “spiffy” comments now and then, who needs ‘em? (Don’t answer that, ABC.)

+ As for the performances, some were better than others of course. The leaderboard had Rebecca/Fred in 1st, and Vince/Jennifer in last—just like last week.

+ Nonetheless, Sean Young was the one with the lowest combined total of judges’ scores and audience vote, so she was sent home. And was rather relieved, I think.

I’m including the Jonny/Brooke jive—which wasn’t terrible—as the Clip of the Day.

A closer look at last week’s Trophee Eric Bompard coming soon…

TEB and GPF 2010-11 Updates At-A-Glance

Here’s the thumbnail of TEB developments, and the Grand Prix Final assignments that were clarified as a result… my full report (complete with references to the oh-so-fancy directing that was taking place throughout the World Feed!) will likely come on Wednesday..

MEN
After Brian Joubert withdrew (“flu-like symptoms”) and French newcomer Chafik Besseghier suffered a case of RSO (rookie spaz-out), the stage was set for the top 3 to easily hold on to their podium places. Brandon Mroz laid down another solid, if not stellar, free skate to earn bronze… Florent Amodio easily supplanted Joubert as the home-country fave with another entertaining free skate that made up for the fact that it was quad-free… he took silver. Takahiko Kozuka hit another high point in his career by coming out right after Amodio brought the house down…and rebuilt it, and brought it down all over again with a technically packed, quietly brilliant free skate of his own. (I was 2 for 3 on the predictions.)

LADIES

It was a good weekend for the U.S. ladies, though not as good as it should have been. Alissa Czisny botched her triple lutz in the SP, then resorted to meltdown mode after making her initial mistake in the FS (a stepout on her triple loop)… still, she hung on to bronze when Haruka Imai tumbled out of 3rd place with a pretty sorry-looking free skate. Mirai Nagasu fared much better from 2nd place than she’s done from 1st, happily accepting the silver medal (her first medal in the GP). She lost gold—by less than 2 points—to Kiira Korpi, who I wouldn’t have put in first in either the SP or FS… but the judges were ready to hand it over after Nagasu under-rotated 2 of her jumps AND made mincemeat out of her own gorgeous layback spin. Sigh. (I had the people right in my podium predictions, but not the order.)

PAIRS

In what was essentially a 2-pair event as promised, Savchenko/Szolkowy built on their previous Pink Panther free skate to create another great, if not flawless, GP performance. It put them well enough ahead of Bazarova/Larionov, who came up very close in the SP and, I suspect, will be a team making a major move at this year’s Worlds (they were 8th this past year). My prediction for 3rd, Canada’s Brodeur/Mattatall, had consistent difficulties with side-by-side jumps and throws and settled for 4th behind the surprisingly strong Maylin Hausch/Daniel Wende of Germany. (I was 2 for 3 here.)

DANCE

Pechalat/Bourzat took gold with a pair of programs that topped their previous gold medal-winning work, looking very much like a team that could make a successful run for the Worlds podium this year. The U.S. team-on-a-roll Chock/Zuerlein managed a second bronze medal with their infectious Cabaret number (despite a fall on Chock’s part), leaving silver to Russian newcomers Ekaterina Riazanova/Ilia Tkachenko. (Meaning 1-for-3 for me)

With these results, the GP Finalists were able to be determined:

Men: Kozuka, Takahashi, Chan, Verner, Oda, Amodio (ALT: Abbott, Mroz, Rippon)
P.S. It’s worth noting, I think, that 2 of these top 6 (Verner and Amodio) made it this far without having a quad in their repertoire so far this season.

Ladies: Ando, Czisny, Kostner, Murakami, Suzuki, Flatt (ALT: Korpi, Nagasu, Wagner)

Pairs: Savchenko/Szolkowy, Pang/Tong, Bazarova/Larionov, Moore-Towers/Moscovitch, Iliushechkina/Maisuadze, Wenjing/Cong (ALT: Takahashi/Tran, Yankowskas/Coughlin, Lawrence/Sweigers)

Dance: Davis/White, Pechalat/Bourzat, Crone/Poirier, Bobrova/Soloviev, Weaver/Poje, Hoffman/Zavozin (ALT: Shibutanis, Chock/Zuerlein, Riazanova/Tkachenko)

As it currently stands, only 3 slots of the Final are occupied by U.S. skaters… oddly enough, 8 of the 12 “alternate” slots are occupied by them.

Look for a Skating with the Stars update tomorrow…

2010 Trophee Eric Bompard: Airdates and Predictions

Quick Skating with the Stars ratings update: in a word, they were mediocre. One report I saw had the show with less than 11 million viewers by 9:30 Eastern (compared to 23 million for the Dancing with the Stars which preceded it)… and less than 6 million one hour later. I want to check those numbers against a few others and try to put things more into perspective next week.

Hope my fellow Americans had a wonderful Thanksgiving… without further adieu, on we go with the streaming/air schedule for Trophee Eric Bompard!

On IceNetwork:

Friday, Nov. 26
9:25 a.m.: Pairs short program
10:50 a.m.: Men's short program
12:45 p.m.: Ladies short program
2:40 p.m.: Short dance

Saturday, Nov. 27
7:40 a.m.: Pairs free skate
9:25 a.m.: Men's free skate
12:25 p.m.: Ladies free skate
2:40 p.m.: Free dance

And as for Universal Sports:

Friday, Nov. 26
7-8:30 p.m.: Men’s and Pairs Short Program
9-10:30 p.m.: Ladies Short Program and Short Dance
11 p.m.-12:30 a.m.: Men’s and Pairs SP (rebroadcast)
1-2:30 a.m.: Ladies Short Program and Short Dance (rebroadcast)

Saturday, Nov. 27
4-6 p.m.: Men’s and Pairs Free Skate
8-9 p.m.: Free Dance
11 p.m. - 1 a.m.: Men’s and Pairs Free Skate (rebroadcast)

Sunday, Nov. 28
4-6 p.m.: Ladies Free Skate
8-10 p.m..: Ladies Free skate (rebroadcast)

And remember the Ladies Free Skate will first air on NBC from 2-4 p.m. Sunday, followed by Holiday Celebration on Ice from 4-6 p.m..

Let’s see if I can better my 6-for-12 from last week’s predictions…

For MEN:

Gold: Takahiko Kozuka (JPN)
Silver: Brian Joubert (FRA)
Bronze: Brandon Mroz (USA)

I don’t think Florent Amodio is a sure bet for this event, especially since he’s still hot/cold from event to event… plus doesn’t have a quad in a field where at least 5 other guys are sure bets to at least attempt one or two. Having said that, I’m not sure Kevin Reynolds can pull off his other elements well enough to make his numerous quads worth his while. And Joubert never seems to turn in a great TEB outing, so the silver position might be generous… but I’m not confident enough in Mroz’s back-to-back abilities to bring home another 2nd place, so there you go. Kozuka’s won once this season already, so I’m guessing that given the competition, he could pull it off again.

For PAIRS:

Gold: Savchenko/Szolkowy (GER)
Silver: Bazarova/Larionov (RUS)
Bronze: Brodeur/Mattatall (CAN)

Gold was easy for this one… so was silver… then came multiple reviews of the list of skaters (since Zhang/Zhang aren’t competing the GP this season) and thoughts of these are my choices?? So Brodeur/Mattatall ended up being my guess. Sorry…it’s about as un-scientific as that.


For LADIES:

Gold: Alissa Czisny (USA)
Silver: Kiira Korpi (FIN)
Bronze: Mirai Nagasu (USA)

So over here we have the likes of Nagasu and Cynthia Phaneuf, both of whom turned in top-flight SPs earlier in the season only to fall apart in the free skate. I’m thinking this time, both of them will have flawed SPs and Nagasu will be the one who skates well enough in the FS to bounce back and medal. Meanwhile…over here is Mao Asada, who is presumably still “re-learning” her jumps and, sorry to say, is no longer reliable for a medal (though I don’t rule it out). Barring a surprisingly strong debut from last season’s up-and-comer Sarah Hecken (Germany), that leaves Czisny and Korpi for 1 and 2—and while neither is a sure bet for great technicality (Czisny tends to implode; Korpi tends to dumb down her jumps), Czisny’s got the much better goods when it comes to all the other things that make skating beautiful.


For DANCE:

Gold: Pechalat/Bourzat (FRA)
Silver: Chock/Zuerlein (USA)
Bronze: Riazanova/Tkachenko(RUS)

Pechalat and Bourzat—no contest. Then…? Um… I’ll go with Chock/Zuerlein because a) it’s a pretty thin field, and b) they won bronze a few weeks ago, so it’s not an outrageous notion they could win silver. For the bronze, I’ll pick the Russians over the remaining French team (Carron/Jones), if only because I wasn’t crazy about the latter’s Rolling Stones-inspired dance when I saw it earlier in the season.

For a reminder of Riazanova/Tkanchenko’s skating, check out this Clip of the Day. Back with observations soon…