A Month-Plus of Unsatisfactory Skating News in Under 400 Words

Hey guys!

As usual, I’ve been much too absent since the Grand Prix Final over 6 weeks ago.

Given the string of upsetting (to say the least) events that have come to light in figure skating in that span of time, I’m not sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing to be off the blogging grid! In the interest of staying up-to-date with my information and any commentary to come off of it, I clearly could do better. But as I said about a year ago, when John Coughlin’ssuicide leaped into skating headlines and beyond… there’s plenty of places to gather the facts-as-we-know-them on any one athlete’s (or coach’s) troubling situation, and I don’t know that my thoughts about such situations is particularly helpful.

So instead, I’ll just point my best thoughts towards the people in figure skating that seem to need them the most these days:

--the youth involved in the Morgan Cipres incident

--His pairs partner, Vanessa James

--Alina Zagitova

--Maia Shibutani

--All the victims of the reversed decision on Richard Callaghan

--Lauren Lecavelier

--Anyone sniping back and forth on social media about Yuzuru Hanyu and/or Nathan Chen

Oh, and no, I’ve not yet seen a minute of Spinning Out on Netflix. Have you? Aside from the flurry of “things they got wrong” that seem to lie within any figure skating film, what did you think of it?

I AM reading Adam Rippon’s memoir, and it’s a pretty fun and interesting tale so far… as I figured it would be. Let me know if you’d like a review!

And… did you think I forgot?... U.S. Nationals are NEXT WEEK! So I plan to be back on the blog for as much of that as I can. Stay tuned. Plenty of interesting stuff sure to happen there in Greensboro.

But in the meantime, a heads-up that this here State of the Skate blog is about to loan out some of its space for a slightly different kind of TV coverage… if you happen to be a fan of the ABC drama The Good Doctor, you might find it interesting!

If not, well, hang in there… I’m writing all of it, and the skating posts will keep on coming… fear not!