It's Champs Camp!
The must-have twitter to follow:
Alex Shibutani
Eyes peeled for fun tweets from @adaripp and others too, but once you're keyed into Alex Shibutani you have the gateway to Champs Camp on twitter.
Get into the spirit and start practicing your second-rate imitations for Skate Canada's high performance camp straight from "Skate Canada"s* twitter account and blurry camera phone like last time. Because that's just as good.
You're welcome.
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* ;)
That was just embarrassing last year.
ReplyDeleteI agree, really embarrassing.
DeleteI think every year it's gotten worse, as far as how Skate Canada shares anything from High Performance Camp. It must be about those Skate Canada geniuses, getting better and better at their jobs every year. Sharpening their skills.
LOL
I swear, Skate Canada has no clue how to share anything about their skaters/skater events that looks normal, fun, and accessible-to-the-public.
ReplyDeleteI'll be shocked if this year is any different, where there's tons of photos and interesting stuff from the US Champs Camp, and very few photos or any other kind of engaging information from Skate Canada's High Performance Camp.
It's a pleasure to look forward to what is shared from Champs Camp. I don't even expect anything from SC's Camp anymore. Barb might schedule a scrum. Get some reporters in a fake-looking setting so as usual, the public's only interaction with the skaters is through someone's mic, with pompous questions and answers. Everyone looking and sounding like they'd rather be anywhere else. Maybe...maybe a few photos, none of them really telling us what's happening over there at HPC. A few years ago they exerted themselves so far as to share some photos that looked like they had let loose a child with a camera to give the public a bunch of meaningless blurry photos, spanning a time-period of about one hour of Champs Camp. *rolleyes*
But oh yeah, we'll probably see and hear a lot of Barb and Debi.
She "might" schedule a scrum? I think it's a given that there will be a scrum.
DeleteHell yeah there will be a scrum. What am I saying? Scrums for everyone!
DeleteMaybe they'll spend five minutes on that bizarre disconnect between the USFSA's economic success and Skate Canada's, despite identical circumstances on the domestic front in each country. What, WHAT could be making the difference?
Not to change the subject or anything, but I feel Tessa & Scott have got to go. I wish Tessa was with a different partner. She is such class. Scott is an a-hole. He insults everyone and by everyone I mean EVERYONE. He is too big for his britches now. I dunno why.. He is ugly, His nose has got to go. Kaitlyn and Andrew are the real face of what it means to be Canadian. Polite, Quiet, and just all-around nice people. Cocky does not work for me.
ReplyDeleteUS Figure Skating coverage makes their skaters look like Rock Stars. Skate Canada's make their skaters look like occasional candid shots from crowds at a flea market. It is beyond belief there are no "checks and balances" to stop this.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why the Canadian media doesn't step in and stop it. Isn't Figure Skating suppose to be a national pride thing? Doesn't the Canadian media have a responsibility to protect that? It is not just Champs Camp coverage, it is everything, all year. I am beginning to think that the national media has written Skate Canada off and doesn't care anymore. I mean, how long to you put up with the clowns?
Skate Canada is 100% responsible for lack of Corporate sponsors, not just Skate Canada sponsors, but sponsors for Patrick Chan and Scott & Tessa. This incompetence would never be allowed in the USA, or Germany, England, Japan, Korea, France.... maybe in Russia or China though.
I just think it's the nature of entertainment media crossed with figure skating not being a big money sport. Those who cover Canadian figure skating are essentially groupies OR know nothings (about figure skating, and therefore at the mercy of those they cover) - or both.
DeleteIt is concerning, I agree, that the level of incompetence displayed by this regime has gone unaddressed, especially when compared to their bluster upon assuming their jobs. I just think there's a perfect storm at work that enables everything.
Skate Canada has moved all their skaters to US training facilities, so maybe they should move their marketing and promotion to the US too. Heck, why not just shut down the offices in Ottawa and move to Colorado Springs now.
ReplyDeleteAnon 7:07. Sure, it's easy to be sarcastic but how does that make Skate Canada's glaring lack of skater-accessability& promotion excusable? It's easy to negatively compare to the US since they're neighbors and share similar circumstances. Imo, the USFSA has plenty issues of its own, but geez, compared to SC, they're doing wonderful.
ReplyDeleteJust look at all the very positive PR that's already come out of Champs Camp. SC never shares. And SC skaters share photos like this? Never. It's as if SC has total control and even the skaters don't dare get too interesting or open on their own social media sites.
Skate Canada sucks.
People take aim at the USFSA all the time and often for good reasons, but compared to those who want to root for Canadian Skaters, supporters of USFSA figure skaters have champagne problems, that's for sure.
DeleteI think it's really obvious that both Debbi and Barb's primary interest in their individual director jobs is self-promotion. So they hold skater accessibility hostage. If you want skater accessibility, it has to come through Barb or Debbi. Debbi gets her face on camera and interprets the figure skaters. Barb speaks for the figure skaters and then markets Barb as a high performance sports media manager. The more she can speak for the skaters, the better for her cv, or so she thinks.
DeleteI've actually become really curious as to what motivated William Thompson to hire two such similar women as Barb MacDonald and Debbi Wilkes, with similar incompetencies and motivation. What was the up side for him? That he'd camera hog and mike hog at all important media events, while Debbi got skatebuzz, a minor internet showcase and Barb got to basically make an idiot of herself, making Bill's public profile more important? I still can't believe Barb attempted to market, on twitter, the death of Joanne Rochette's mother as a competency not just for high level sports communications, but for "crisis communications." You'd think the Olympics weren't a high profile event, and that media interest constituted a crisis. That's how Barb tried to play it. But I think I was most revolted by how she tried to pass off phone calls from the p.r. people of Celine Dion and Wayne Gretsky as a "crisis" requiring high level management.
DeleteI root for Canadian skaters but I'm disgusted at the way their Federation markets skating and their skaters. It's depressing that we can easily guess how Skate Canada will graciously bestow on the public any tidbits from HPC:
DeleteBlurry or tiny group shots that look exactly how Anon 6:46 described - candid shots from crowds at a flea market - and half of the people in these photos will have their back to the camera; or Team Canada lined up like soldiers, sometimes in matching jackets (Yay!)
They will tell us all about how some professional photographer is taking *amazing* photos of the skaters, of which they will share only ONE shot per skater, and the rest are shared one.by.one throughout the coming year - that is, IF they share them at all. (WHY do they hold on to those photos like that? They just recently shared another V/M professional photo from last year's HPC. It's ridiculous.)
There will be the scrum, of course, plus perhaps a couple-seconds video clip of each skater/skating team answering something dumb, like "What's your favorite food?" "What do you watch on TV?" Try as they might, it all feels contrived, and I'm sorry, no one acts natural. It all has that air of, "Now do this/now do that/now say such-such..."
And yet from what I read on the message boards, a lot of the Canadian skating fans seem to be very happy with how SC is running things. If the public is happy and grateful for anything SC deigns to share, why should they change anything? Whoever or whatever provides oversight must agree. I don't see how else they get away with this kind of amateurish management.
"two such similar women as Barb MacDonald and Debbi Wilkes, with similar incompetencies and motivation."
DeleteIt's interesting that Thompson is out but these two are still in. They all look equally incompetent and the loss of corporate sponsors is also on them. Why keep them on?
Skate Canada has tweeted a photo of Scott and Tessa from HPC two whole years ago, and btw, any V/M fan has already seen this:
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/SkateCanada/status/239017855180496896/photo/1
Is that the norm or do they just not have anything recent?
It's the norm for Skate Canada. They were using Mahler photos to promote 2011-2012 results. They're lazy, lazy, lazy.
Delete