Wow, Bristol Palin made it to the final week of Dancing With The Stars. If you're bummed about the end of DWTS this season, you can rejoice in the start of Skating With The Stars which kicks off next week!
Well, let's not get our hopes too high. The show will most likely be quite dorky with wobbly celebrities on ice.
The pro skaters have been announced:
Denis Petukhov
Keauna McLaughlin
Ethan Burgess
Jennifer Wester
Fred Palascak
Brooke Castile
All of the pros have strong partnering experience and have competed at Nationals within the past few years. I think that will help the wobbly celebrities. I had thought with it being a post-Olympic season we would see more of the just retired Olympians, but they might have overshadowed the D-List stars. Tanith Belbin will apparently be appearing in the Samantha Harris/Brooke Burke role as co-hostess. She'll be one of two Torino and Vancouver Olympians on the show.
Johnny Weir will be one of the judges after two Olympic appearances. Dick Button will be along side him in the judges booth because honestly, there has to be number of televised skating events with Dick Button. I think it's an FCC rule for broadcasts. Laurieann Gibson is the final judge. She is a choreographer, but I'm not familiar with her.
I checked out the promo for Skating With The Stars again, I recognized a few more of the pros:
Definitely Denis Petukhov, plus Keana McLaughlin and Brooke Castile. Anyone else recognize the others?
I've heard some buzz all along that Johnny Weir will be one of the judges. If so, that seems like an appropriate spot for him. I hope he can get some "vodka shot and a snort of coke" comments in. That will be fabulous.
So the D-list celebs get five weeks of practice prior to the show, but a requirement for participation was an ability to skate forward and backward according to the show's senior producer, Deena Katz.
Skating backgrounds uncovered: Vince Neil - Skated when he was twelve. Here's hoping we see pre-metal spandex on a pre-teen in pictures. Rebecca Budig - Brought her own skates to the first practice and took lessons as a kid. Is she an SP-Teri gal? Riedell? Harlicks maybe? Brandon Mychal Smith - Calls himself "Black Kwan," a.k.a. Michelle Kwan's black brother
It still may be a train wreck even with Michelle's black brother making his public debut, but I'll watch a few times. I like what Jimmy Kimmel says, "If you like Dancing With The Stars, imagine it with knives on their feet."
In between the election coverage, Dancing With The Stars will have their 200th results episode. Big whoop. I'm finding the election on ABC with Facebook's stats more interesting. However, while America votes on their leadership and celebrity dancers, the cast of Skating With The Stars will be announced.
Supposedly, Vince Neill of Motley Crue is one of the stars. Bethenny Frankel of one of the Real Housewives shows is also supposedly a star (gag me with a spoon on that one).
Who knows if either are true, but neither have a skating background to my knowledge. I'm still holding out for some entertainers with some skating chops. Obviously, not near-Olympic level skating backgrounds, but something skating related like hockey, speedskating or a distant competitive figure skating past. My wishlist is still Vera Wang, Keanu Reeves and Condoleeza Rice. I still think there may be a possibility of Levi Johnston popping in there as a bookend to Bristol Palin on DWTS. He was a high school hockey player too.
On the professional end, I'm curious if participating would mean a definite end to being Olympic-eligible. I'm not sure if the show is going to be ISU-sanctioned. If it's not that may limit some participation for skaters who are "taking a year off" and are not sure if they are coming back to Olympic-eligible competition. If it is ISU-sanctioned, I suspect Tanith Belbin, Johnny Weir and Evan Lysacek will be involved. I'm also guessing Kristi Yamaguchi will be in there somewhere, maybe as a judge. Other possible pros could be Sasha Cohen, Ryan Bradley, Dorothy Hamill, Josef Sabocik, or David Pelletier.
ABC announced recently that after this season's Dancing With The Stars ends, the network will debut Skating With the Stars. My first thought, "OK, this is cool, professional skating on TV that's not a Disson Skating Production." My second thought, "Yeah, but it's professionals skating with people who can't skate."
I painfully watched several shows of Skating With Celebrities on Fox four years ago. It came on just before the Torino games and by the opening ceremonies I gladly ditched Skating With Celebrities. The only teams that did well were those with a male pair skater as the pro who could lift the skater. The other teams basically showed how difficult it is to learn to skate. Plus, the celebrities were way below the D-list and when you've got the Olympics on, even casual fans and channel flippers are going to select the Olympics over Todd Bridges and Debbie Gibson doing swizzles in sequins. The show fizzled out with the swizzles and went to the place TV shows go to die.
However, skating with stars/celebrities and other shiny, happy people have been quite successful in other countries. Torvill and Dean have Dancing On Ice in Britain, Katarina Witt did a show in Germany, there's been one in France and Russia has had several seasons of a shiny, happy people paired with skating greats. From what I've read of the Russian show on blogs and forums, it's as big as Dancing With The Stars is on ABC in the US.
I think the coolest shiny, happy people and professional skater show is in Canada, Battle of the Blades. This show combines female figure skaters with male hockey players. I think it works by that dynamic of bringing hockey and figure skaters together with the benefit everyone can skate. Way more to watch great skaters do something new and fun instead of people trying to learn to not wobble on skates while trying to bust a move. This way, you get the lifts and get to see big, tough hockey dudes having to groove to the music. I think it would be even cooler if the Canadian show threw in some female hockey players like Manon Rheaume and Cammie Grannato with a male figure skater. That would rock and chicks can play hockey too!
So I'm curious how ABC will pull this off. If they will have pro skaters that can lift the chicks. Or if they will go more of a dancing route and not worry about overhead lifts and do more adagio pairs skating. Whatever the model I think they should try to pull from those shiny, happy people with skating backgrounds. Keanu Reeves was a hockey player, I think I've read Rachel McAdams was a figure skater. Wasn't there a Miss USA contestant recently that was a competitive skater? Oh, what about Vera Wang? How sweet would that be? Get some celebs that would be rusty with their skating skills in the mix that would make it more fun. Vera Vang and Keanu Reeves... on ice. Nice.
So this is NOT Vera Wang or Keanu Reeves skating. It's the lovely Katia Gordeeva who is as timeless, elegant and put together as any Vera Wang piece skating with Valeri Bure on this season's Battle of the Blades. You're welcome. =)
Anyone want to share their thoughts on the possible "Stars" as well as the skating pros?
About this time last night, Evan Lysacek made his DWTS debut with a Viennese Waltz. Watching him, I was reminded that he's never been that artistic of a skater, and his on artistry mostly consists of arms up, arms out straight and jazz hands around the face. I thought he looked a tiny bit nervous and stiff but overall he did a good job. He's in 2nd with the judges marks, but we'll see how the audience reacts a week from today.
During the rehearsal piece prior to his performance, he mentioned he was spinning the wrong way in the dance. I don't know if viewers picked up on that. In ice skating, skaters typically spin in a counter-clockwise direction. Perimeter skating is generally done counter-clockwise as well. Skaters who spin and rotate their jumps clockwise are often referred to as "opposite skaters". I would say for Evan, it's somewhat like driving on the right side of the road and then driving on the left side in Great Britain for a few days. It's executing similar movements to what moves are done everyday, but it feels way different. So different it makes you hesitate and hyper-aware of the awkwardness.
After enjoying the rest of DWTS, I nestled into bed until my alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. I stretched and found myself so at peace in dark and quiet with my dog and husband snuggled up to me. My brain hasn't felt that clear for awhile, I've been over thinking project plans at home and work so it was nice. Unfortunately, I kept too much of that quiet stillness with me at the rink. I could never really get warmed up so I ditched my plan to emulate the lovely Shae-Lynn Bourne with her ice dancer's Axel.
I got frustrated with the outside rockers in my junior moves instead. After checking the rocker, the hips are supposed to rotate underneath the shoulders to deepen the edge and cross in front. I've created an exercise of simply gliding on a back outside edge and rotating my hips. It's a good exercise for double loops too. I always feel a little stuck after the check - that my check isn't a true check, just a person stuck! I'm either good at rotating the hips or good at maintaining speed, I can't seem to combine both.
Much better skaters than I took to the ice in Torino, Italy today. I didn't get to watch any of the skaters who can properly check and skate with outside rockers. I followed the event via Twitter. (Most of the tweets related to the compulsory dance were "Woohoo! I skated my last compulsory!" I'll be so sad if the ISU votes compulsories out. That's another post.)
The ice dance event followed the Olympic results pretty closely. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are leading Meryl Davis and Charlie White. The Italians are in 3rd.
The US skaters did great in the short program, earning season's best scores. The leaders are Pang & Tong, Kavaguti & Smirnov and Savchenko & Szolkowy.
Ah, March, my favorite month! The month where the grass turns green and bulbs bloom. The weekends are filled with exciting basketball games and bracket analyzing during the work day. It's also a month that features the climax of the skating season with the world championships.
This year's worlds are probably a bit anticlimatic as the Olympics occured in February. Two of the Olympic gold medalists are competing at worlds this year, Virtue & Moir and the Queen, Yu-Na Kim. Since the mid-90's the Olympic medalists, particularly the golden winners have been ducking out of worlds. It will be a treat in Torino to have two of the Olympic champions competing.
While some skating fans are bemoaning the lack of TV coverage of the event, I'm excited that the ENTIRE event will be streamed on Universal Sports' site. Generally when it's on TV, they only show the top 6 skaters and the Americans. This way skate fans will get to enjoy all the performances, observe up and coming skaters, and see how the penultimate group impacts the final standings. I love seeing Chris Anderson's long tail theory working in accessing figure skating online! I'll be going to work early and hitting the Java Brewing Co. on the corner to watch before work.
This week got started with bonus skating on TV. The finale of Thin Ice rocked on Sunday. I totally want this to become a series in the fall. It was dorky but fun. It was a great show skating talent outside of a serious competition. Shae-Lynn Bourne skated to Lady Gaga with John Zimmerman and did an Axel! She's an ice dancer and she did an Axel! I'm so getting my 30-something behind to do an Axel this week. Screw the Junior Moves, it's all about Axels.
Tonight has skating related TV too, with Dancing With The Stars premiering with Evan Lysacek. I'm sure there will be plenty of goofy skating references and "pressure" hyped up with Kristi Yamaguchi's win. As long as Evan can balance DWTS and touring with Stars On Ice so he doesn't suffer a career-blowing injury more power to him. I just want to Buzz Aldrin do his version of a moonwalk and the original Octo-Mom, Kate Gosselin gone.
Evan Lysacek announced last week that he will not be competing at the World Championships in Torino to defend his title. He will instead spend his spring dancing, with stars.
Evan will be one of the "stars" on ABC's 10th season of Dancing With The Stars. Is there a mirrorball trophy in Evan's future ala other Olympic gold medalists Kristi Yamaguchi and Apolo Ohno? Will Vera Wang continue to design his performance wear? How will he wear his hair?
