JGP Linz, Austria: a Little Bitty Preview (Cowboys not included)

Missed my goal by a few hours, but I’ve still got a couple things to mention about Junior Grand Prix Austria (Linz) before it gets any older...


The first thing to know—unlike JGP USA (Lake Placid) a couple weeks ago, it is NOT streaming on Ice Network. But the ISU channel on You Tube (which you can access HERE) will once again feature each athlete’s performance shortly after it is completed.

Or, if you just want to track the results, go HERE.

The other thing(s) to mention, of course, are the U.S. competitors at the event...

BOYS: Nathan Chen & Jay Yastanto. Chen, if memory serves me right, has competed at the Novice level very successfully the past couple of years and is only now old enough to hang at the junior level! You may have seen him on TV a few years back when NBC presented the U.S. Nats exhibition and showcased Chen’s routine (he was dressed like a cowboy... a little bitty cowboy).

GIRLS: Samantha Cesario & Hannah Miller. Cesario was “the other” U.S. skater using Black Swan last season, but injury kept her from competing at Nationals.

PAIRS: Britney Simpson/Matthew Blackmer, Jessica Calalang/ Zach Sidhu, & Brianna De la Mora/ Taylor Wilson.

DANCE: Whitney Miller/Kyle MacMillan & Rachel Parsons/Michael Parsons

Enjoy the double dose of competition this weekend!

A Little of the Who/What/When/etc. of the Inaugural IFS Classic

There are not one, but two international competitive skating events taking place later this week. And if you’re like me, you got a quizzical look on your face when you first heard the name of one event: the 2012 US International Figure Skating Classic, taking place in Salt Lake City... the who? The WHAT? Since when??

This release, which has been up at Ice Network for a few weeks now, provides some details. My paraphrasing of it: the IFS Classic appears to be kind of like the Four Continents Championship (est. 1999) in that it’s an opportunity for primarily “lesser known” elite skaters to earn points competing at the international level. The main differences I see are just that a) it’s held at the opposite end of the skating season, and b) it allows for some European skaters in addition to those you might see at 4CC. I suppose calling it the “FIVE Continents Championship” would’ve been too confusing, so... here we are.

Oh, and Ice Network appears to hold the online rights to the IFS Classic. So kiss the delayed/ “on demand” video goodbye, if only for this event.

The LADIES will feature Gracie Gold (National Junior Gold Medalist) and Agnes Zawadzki (Senior Bronze Medalist) for the U.S. and Canadian champion Amelie Lacoste; other notable names include Elena Glebova of Estonia (13th at Worlds), Ireland’s Clara Peters (29th at Worlds), Mexico’s Ana Cantu Felix, and Melissa Bulanhagui (who formerly represented the U.S. but now skates for The Philippines).

The MEN will actually have four U.S. reps-- Max Aaron (8th at Nats), Timothy Dolensky (Junior Silver Medalist), Armin Mahbanoozadeh (4th at Nats), and Ross Miner (Bronze Medalist)—while Canada will send two: Jeremy Ten (Canadian Bronze Medalist) and Liam Firus (6th at Nats). Luis Hernandez of Mexico (4-time national champion), Denis Ten of Kazakhstan, and Christopher Caluza (another former U.S. rep now skating for The Philippines) are among the others scheduled to compete.

PAIRS will bring the international debut of the U.S.’s Lindsay Davis/Mark Ladwig (he formerly of the long-term Olympian team Evora/Ladwig), as well as Felicia Zhang/Nathan Bartholomay (8th at Nats). Canada will send two teams—Moore-Towers/Moscovitch (4th at Nats) and Lawrence/Swiegers (National Bronze Medalists)—while Great Britain’s Kemp/King (19th at Worlds) and Israel’s Montalbano/Krasnopolsky (17th at Worlds) round out the relatively small lineup.

ICE DANCING gives us three U.S. teams in Anastasia Cannuscio/Colin McManus (6th at Nats), Madison Chock/Evan Bates (5th at Nats), and Lynn Kriengkrairut/Logan Giulietti-Schmitt (4th at Nats, and whom I respectfully request to refer to as either Lynn K/Logan G-S or simply Lynn/Logan for the duration of the season. I enjoy their work, but my aging fingers have enough of a workout as it is.)

Canada is sending current National Bronze Medalists Piper Gilles (formerly of the U.S.)/Paul Poirier (formerly of Crone/Poirier) and Alexandra Paul/Mitchell Islam (5th at Nats)... and Australia is sending its top dance team, Danielle O’Brien/Gregory Merriman (20th at Worlds).

As for Ice Network streaming times, the seniors schedule looks like this (all times Eastern):

Thursday 9/13: Short dance at 2:15 PM; Men’s short at 4 PM

Friday 9/14: Ladies short at 2:45 PM; Pairs short at 5:45 PM

Saturday 9/15: Free dance at 3 PM; Men’s free at 4:45 PM

Sunday 9/16: Ladies free at 4:25 PM; Pairs free at 7:35 PM

So let’s see how this goes. Oh, and that OTHER international competitive skating event I mentioned is JGP Austria... the third stop on the Junior Grand Prix circuit this season. My goal is to preview that event before it actually gets going later this week... stay tuned!

Recapping the U.S. Love at Lake Placid

I’m going to take advantage of this tiny lull in the JGP action to do a few different posts over the next few days... catching up on recent finishes as well as upcoming events (both competitive and otherwise).


I’ll start with the JGP Lake Placid recap (from Labor Day weekend):

BOYS: If you only know Josh Farris’ skating from his disappointing results thus far at Senior Nationals—one time of which happened as the guy skated with AN ANKLE FRACTURE-- you don’t know his skating yet. With two successful triple axels and a successful, first-ever quad toe in his free skate, Farris ran away with the gold medal here. In silver was Keiji Tanaka (joining the vest-and-tie club for his FS to The Untouchables), and bronze went to the teeny tiny Canadian Roman Sadovsky (skating to Man (more like Boy) in the Iron Mask). Further down in the standings was the other U.S. rep James Schetelich, finishing 12th with his FS to The Mission.

GIRLS: All three U.S. girls did quite well here, with Courtney Hicks earning a silver for her interp of Concierto de Aranjuez, Angela Wang pulling all the way up to a bronze from down in 8th, and Kiri Baga holding down 5th. But none of them came close to stopping Satoko Miyahara of Japan, a tiny whisper of a girl who has the triple/triples (of course) AND showcases them in a lovely manner—currently using an all-piano Romeo & Juliet (the Rota version) as her free-skate vehicle. (By the way, if you’re curious how Baga’s pairing with Taylor Toth is going thus far, check out this link from the recently-held Detroit Open.

PAIRS: The Canadian team of Purdy/Marinaro were impressive enough in the FS to claim gold over SP winners Davankova/Deputat of Russia. Then came three of the four U.S. teams: Aaron/Settlage (skating to Carmen) for bronze, Denney/Frazier (using La Strada) for 4th, and Pfund/Reiss with 5th. Oltmanns/Santillan, the 4th U.S. team, finished 12th.

DANCE: U.S.’s Aldridge/Eaton used a Fiddler on the Roof FD to surpass the SD leaders, Russia’s Kosigina/ Moroshkin (brandishing an MJ medley). Canada’s Poulin/ Servant took bronze with a unique (retro) look, unique (retro?) music choices, and an FD that felt more “dancy” to me than the others. Further back, in 6th and 7th place, were U.S. teams Pogrebinsky/Gudis (to an FD which included Masquerade Waltz) and Heritage/Fast (who used a Beatles medley as their FD.)

Week Two of JGP: Back in the U.S.of A.

We are already into Week Two of the Junior Grand Prix! And better yet, this one is in the U.S. (Lake Placid) for the first time since 2009...

But first, a quick recap of last week’s opener in Courchevel:

BOYS (It occurs to me that 13-to-19 year olds are better suited to be called “boys/girls” rather than “Men/Ladies”):
U.S.’s Jason Brown turned out to be the only American medalist at this event, earning a silver with typically grand (but also typically triple axel-free) performances. China’s Boyang Jin had greater jump difficulty in his programs, which easily gave him the gold... Ryuju Hino of Japan took bronze. The other U.S. contender, Harrison Choate, finished 4th (and incidentally is using one of my favorites for his free skate—Slaughter on 10th Avenue).

GIRLS (See above explanation): Russia’s Elena Radionova is tiny but mighty; she and her 3lutz/3toe won this event handily over Japan’s Rika Hongo (silver) and Russia’s Uliana Titushkina. The U.S. brought in the runners-up with Vanessa Lam (4th) and Ashley Cain (5th)... though something they didn’t mention on the Ice Network summary was that one of the falls endured during Cain’s FS was brutal enough to cause her program to grind to a 3 minute, 45 second halt. She DID complete her program, by the way. I haven’t looked at protocols so I’m not sure what sort of a penalty she received for the program break.

DANCE: France’s Papadakis/Cizeron won gold, looking like worthy up-and-comers to reigning World Bronze Medalists Pechalat/Bourzat... Russia’s Zenkova/Sinitsin claimed silver (with Zenkova appearing to channel a bengal tiger via her FD unitard)... bronze went to Edwards/Pang from Canada. The U.S. teams of McNamara/Carpenter and Moore/Klaber finished 6th and 8th, respectively.


NOTE: There was no PAIRS competition at the Courchevel event. This will be the case at several JGP events, as it was last year.

And running through this weekend in JGP Lake Placid (go watch if you are in the vicinity, won’t you? The stands looked unbearably bare from what you can see on Ice Network)...

BOYS— Josh Ferris of the U.S. is the favorite; so far so good, he skated cleanly to take the lead in the SP yesterday. Also there on behalf of the “home team” is James Schetelich, making his international debut and in 16th after the SP. (The third U.S. competitor, Spencer Howe, withdrew due to injury.) The FS happens Friday night.

GIRLS—The big news here for the U.S. is the return of Courtney Hicks, the 2011 national junior champ who went down injured in a JGP event last fall and was subsequently out the rest of the season. She sits in 4th after the SP. Also present is  Kiri Baga and Angela Wang... Baga is in 5th; Wang in 8th.

PAIRS—Apparently since the ISU is trying to better promote the Pairs discipline (see the lack of Pairs competitions in events such as last week’s), the host country of each event is now permitted to enter as many teams as they like (rather than the 3-team max normally observed). So the U.S. has 4 teams here: Denney/Frazier (in 3rd after the SP), Aaron/Settlage (in 4th), Pfund/Reiss (in 5th), and Ottmanns/Santillan (in 9th).


DANCE—Current U.S. Junior champs Aldridge/Eaton are in 2nd after the SD, Pogrebinsky/Gudis sit in 5th, and Heritage/Fast are 8th.

All these performances and more are available at Ice Network for subscribers... and the You Tube ISU Channel for EVERYONE (for free). The free skates & dances continue tonight & tomorrow, so tune in—it’s the perfect antidote to those Labor Day plans that are sure to be rained out by the remnants of Hurricane Issac this weekend!

(Well, if you live in the Midwest U.S. that is.)

The Wild, wonky world of figure skating 2012 gets underway

I'm back in catch-up mode this week, and wouldn't you know it... just as so many newsworthy things are happening! Champs Camp in progress in the USA, Junior GP kicking off in France (half done by now), Mary Beth & Rockne splitting up (what??), Rockne reportedly trying out with "retired" Amanda Evora (what???)

But for now, I just wanted to let you know/remind you that even if you are unable to subscribe to Ice Network... the ISU is making all the JGP competition videos available at You Tube! This link should take you directly to the ISU channel... where, if you watch the SP of U.S. competitor Jason Brown, you'll see that he's still not doing a triple axel (though he IS doing some uncharacteristically wonky spins here). More soon...

Ice Network's 2012-13 Season Pass: Between a rock and a hard place

So you know that part in the previous post where, in discussing some of the trouble fans might have with Ice Network, I said Some have trouble getting a live stream from it...?

As you may have heard by now, just about ALL of us will have trouble getting a live stream from it—whether we subscribe or not.


Full disclosure here: while Ice Network only posted their official Season Pass invite to the website just today, the news actually came to me about a few days ago, since my particular subscription renews in mid-August. But as anyone with deadlines and work/family requirements is prone to do, I skimmed the first few lines of the email (to confirm what it basically is to me—a reminder to my husband that a Pass Renewal was on my birthday list again this year) and went on to other things, intending to read it in more detail later. So I never made it to those critical lines, now seen on IceNetwork.com as well:

Please note, 2012 Hilton HHonors Skate America will be shown live and on-demand; however, due to television rights holder restrictions, the remaining events of the Grand Prix Series will ONLY be available on-demand, seven days after the end of the event.

Aye, there’s the rub. And quite a wicked one at that!

Sorry I’ve been slow to realize this; I see it’s a predictably hot topic right now at FS Universe (among other forums, surely). But I guess in my “skimming” of the email I saw this line that preceded that line I just quoted—

Enjoy all the premier events you've enjoyed in the past, including the 2013 Prudential U.S. Figure Skating Championships, the 2012 Grand Prix Series and the 2013 U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships...

--And I stopped there. Why read on? It says “Enjoy... the 2012 Grand Prix Series.” I’d had a haunch that there might be more to the story than the Universal Sports access pass I mentioned last time, but hey, Ice Network was still covering the GP series for us, so all was fine.

I haven’t had a lot of time to process this yet... this seemingly helpless move from Ice Network, this outrageous slap in the face for fans just trying to keep up with the sport they used to watch regularly on glorious “free TV,” this agonizing setback on the broadcast/narrowcast/any-cast front. Are we back to passing on news of questionable-quality Turkish streaming video links via the Skatefans message boards? Are we left to scour YouTube as soon as we know the men’s SP at NHK is complete?

And what about the fact that Ice Network is still charging $39.95 despite the major change in schedule? For that discussion, I suggest you head to Peter Murray’s Blazing Blades website. He has posted a very thoughtful commentary on the situation, and why 40 bucks for what is clearly NOT “what we’ve enjoyed in the past” is still a deal that we, as fans, should get behind and support if we’re able. Please go read it... he’s articulated the matter quite well.

And I’ll add this one thought to the mix: Ice Network is probably in the quintessential rock-meets-hard-place dilemma right now. They need more (or at least the same number of) subscribers to stay afloat, but they know they can’t give them what they once did. They try to promote the new deal as honestly as they can, but to many of us it looks like they’re “burying the lead” as journalists say; taking the real story (about the rights issues and loss of live streaming) and hiding it within the copy in the link I posted above, and that makes us angry. The folks trying to make it all work surely have less than kind thoughts for The Powers That Be—be they at U-Sports, its parent company NBC, or the ISU, or all the above—that are monopolizing the rights. But Ice Network is a business, not a blog. If it comes out swinging at the sources with whom it’s trying to play nicely, it could make things worse... or at least make them bad for a longer period of time.

But if YOU want to “come out swinging” over this mess—be it anonymously or otherwise—my comments box is always open for business. Have at it!

One Step Forward, But Only For Dish and Direct TV Folks... Everyone Else, Two Steps Back

Have you noticed how, during NBC’s coverage of Olympic figure skating events, they almost never use dissolve transitions between cameras or when coming back from a feature (aka “fluff piece”)? Instead they use the more abrupt transitions that are simply called “cuts”?


The same thing is done with their coverage of Olympic gymnastics, which is what reminded me to bring it up. The reason for cuts-only? Both involve veteran producer/director David Michaels... who hates using them. In these particular cases, at least.

I spoke with him on several occasions while researching Skating on Air, and learned that Michaels is nothing if not determined to show that these are SPORTS. Nitty-gritty, pulse-pounding, all caps SPORTS that should never be mistaken for anything else just because sparkles may be involved in their execution. Whether it’s the carve of the blade into the ice or the thump-and-squeak of hands grasping wooden beams or bars, he wants you to hear their efforts. With cameras providing tight enough shots to witness the sweat beading on their faces, he wants you to see their yearning for perfection. And as for the aforementioned dissolve transitions... I sensed he sees them as too soft, too pretty, too easy to mislead people into thinking they’re watching video loops of music box dancers pirouetting endlessly out there.

Anyway, as someone with producer/director experience myself (albeit on a much, much smaller scale), the cuts-only thing bugs me. So I got on Facebook, asked if it bugged anyone else... and discovered that there were MANY things bugging my fellow Olympics-watchers in the USA. And much of it reminds me of “our” complaints about figure skating coverage during the Winter Games...

 Not enough coverage of sport of choice.

 Not enough complete coverage of sport of choice (too choppy).

 Eurosport’s coverage is better.

 Can’t stand the commentating.

So it would seem that across the board, niche sports—that is, most any sport that is NOT American football, baseball, or basketball—are difficult to present in a fanbase-pleasing manner. Ideally this is where online viewing options come in to pick up the slack, especially those that offer wall-to-wall, commentator-less coverage like they seem to do for all Olympic sports, for free, at NBCOlympics.com... and for a fee at hubs such as icenetwork.com... and, um, what was the other one?

Oh wait—there hardly appears to be another option at this point in the U.S. In the past several years, Universal Sports filled a lot of coverage gaps for those of us that were fortunate enough to have it on our cable system by way of an over-the-air NBC subchannel. But when the machinations of the network changed, taking U-Sports off the subchannels and putting it exclusively on cable and satellite providers (Direct TV and now Dish Network being its only two major carriers to date), some turned to the channel’s online subscription service for their skating fix.

Now, apparently, that’s gone away too: a look at U-sports’s current FAQ-Authentication page  indicates that (as of July 27, 2012) "all live streaming events and full event replays will only be available exclusively to DIRECTV and DISH customers with Universal Sports as part of their television package. These events will no longer be offered for sale online, but will be free to users who verify their subscriptions on our website.”

In other words, we’re now at a point where most of us can’t pay for skating coverage even if it’s available, and even if we wish to do so! And those that can are already able to access U-Sports on their TV!!

I’m not ignoring Ice Network in this equation; for the most part, it has served me well over the past few years and I welcome it in this post-ABC/ESPN era. But as I understand it, that’s not the case with everyone. Some have trouble getting a live stream from it. Some have blackout issues because of where they live. Some simply can’t afford it—the $40 it cost last year may be a good deal, but it could be needed much more for an electric bill or a bag of groceries for someone on a fixed (or unemployed) income.

Was UniversalSports.com a better deal in the past than IceNetwork.com? I honestly don’t recall, as I was already on IceNet when U-Sports started its subscription service. But unless you happen to be with DIRECTV and DISH (or another service that adds U-Sports in the near future), it’s a moot point for now. Just what figure skating needs at this point, right? Another reason for past and developing fans to give up and tune out.


How do YOU plan to follow along this fall? Were you counting on the U-Sports online service? Will Ice Network meet your needs? Let’s hope U.S. Figure Skating and the ISU can find the work-around necessary to get the audience growing again... the only thing more frustrating than “spotty” coverage of a beloved Olympic sport is no coverage at all.