Sunday, August 5, 2012

Where's the buzz?

Big Skate Canada doings this weekend. Skate Canada's CEO, William Thompson, departs, and Skate Canada president, Bernard Lavoie, releases a statement confirming there will be no replacement at this time.

On the ice, Kirsten Moore-Towers and Dylan Moscovitch, after winning Skate Detroit, blew the doors off the rink at Indy Challenge, earning a standing ovation from the USFSA officials present and a major headline and interview on icenetwork.com.


MTM, the pairs skaters that the "Ontario skating community" reputedly dismisses as a couple of no-hopers, the pairs skaters SC treated as an afterthought last season when they were assiduously propping up Jessica Dube. This is exciting news, the back-to-back successes at these summer competitions. The MTM 3 twist has become an effortless-looking stunner. The choreography and look are sophisticated, the content intricate and difficult.

Let's see how Skatebuzz covers this exciting news weekend:

IOW:

Skatebuzz's stale headline continues to remind us that Thomas Sabo has crawled on board as an actual sponsor, stepping in to lighten Kozy Shack's load. Thomas Sabo is a lifestyle brand, and has not bought in as a title sponsor, but it was so exciting for Skate Canada that SOMEONE was willing, they spiffed up Piper, Paul and Debbi and had an event to celebrate. When you actually do your job, it's hard not to brag.

Where's Barb? The lady on the spot to let icenetwork know the guest list at retired skaters' "summer weddings" last summer but AWOL on Skatebuzz when it comes to unimportant figure skaters like Moore-Towers Moscovitch or the interesting news announcement that William Thompson, SC CEO, has left the building. What's she doing this weekend instead?

Paul and Piper actually look non-clownish in the Sabo photo.

I have been wondering about why the hype for them in some quarters is so aggressive. Somebody on one of the message boards smacked down a critic who saw their recent programs and instead declared they were divine, sublime, and had the audience delighted. According to this expert, even the judges were overheard saying how "refreshing".  Where's "refreshing" in CoP?

They also noted that Vanessa was there, and with copious exclamation points, declared her presence and demeanor dismisses all "talk" that Paul dumping her was difficult. That "talk" comes from Vanessa herself, in her announcement about skating singles. Paul dumping her was shocking to her, and a blow. She still can't see herself skating with anyone but Paul - hence, singles. I'm glad to see that when her personal news release was briefly off line, it was back up again without whitewash.

The Paul and Piper hype machine, which looks like a huge Crest White Strip smile coming at me while wielding a sledgehammer with mega-hostility towards anyone who'd dare disagree, calls attention to itself. It's true they train in Canada. Canada's top two ice dance teams, VM and WP - train in the US. Their World champion trains in the US. As someone in the comment section mentioned - Skate Canada, your tax dollars at work - doing what? Well, if Scarborough can get itself into the first rank and SC can use what muscle it's got to encourage "appreciation" of Paul and Piper's refreshing qualities on the international scene, and if Paul can successfully spin his and Piper's lack of unison, gimmicky choreography and her sub-Poirier skating skills as a "different style", SC can commence to bragging that it has at least one world class training center in Canada, which, at present, it lacks (unless one counts Orser, but his biggest stars aren't Canadian).

2 comments:

  1. ^"(unless one counts Orser, but his biggest stars aren't Canadian)."

    He's also gay, so perhaps he doesn't count. Although Cynthia's there now, and SC seems to have an inexplicable fondness for her. Friend of JD perhaps.

    So glad MTM have seemed to use last year's bizarreness as motivation.

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  2. Orser is an avoidance personality type. When things got uncomfortable for him, he basically left. Don't look for any leadership from him. His protégé, Jeff Buttle, is a chameleon personality type. He becomes whatever environment he is exposed to, right or wrong, in the past 3 years, often wrong.

    I think Scott Moir is also an avoidance personality type.

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