Intermediates Feng and Ponomarenko back in 2012. A bit out of sync, but as that's now the established criteria for +3 in twizzles, it shouldn't hold them back. Nitpick: the "dance jump" entrance should jerk more. These two appear to enter it on a nice, smooth, forward outside edge, which will only hurt them.

The dance jump above resembles the entrance to an axel jump. Jumps rotate. Nevertheless, this entrance doesn't create angular momentum. If it did, it would actually be an easier way to do twizzles, and not merit Level 4. Besides, very low level adult skaters on fsuniverse.com find they have trouble staying on their feet after a hop.What further proof do we need?

*****

I thought the blog may as well take a look at this article: Kickasscanadians.ca

To start, here's something about the author of the article, Amanda Sage: http://amandasage.ca/writing/.  Remember when Scott and Tessa were interviewed by that green journalist who live-tweeted while conducting the interview, and who linked to the subsequent article from his twitter about a bazillion times? Amanda Sage is also a free lancer. She's also done SEO copywriting. This article on Tessa & Scott is straight up SEO, larded with key words.

These are the people Virtue Moir recruit. People who need the credential.

The Scott & Tessa narrative is that the public has a consuming interest in their personal life. They've been putting that out for years. But when the fans want to discuss the skating, nobody, including Scott and Tessa, want fans to discuss the skating. Look at P.J. Kwong, who, on her twitter, had to fend off questions about Scott and Tessa's p.r., deflect questions about their social media behavior, and wax disingenuous about photos that popped up on instagram. She should be happy when fans want to talk skating. But, when fans started questioning the results in Sochi, Kwong tried to shame them into shutting up. Icenetwork's Lynn Rutherford also doesn't want to discuss the actual skating. Only the protocols. Don't even think of using the skating to audit the protocols. That's a sign of hysteria.

Those who write for mainstream media outlets direct us to think of the skaters as personalities and storylines. Then they scapegoat fans for their own choice to cover the skaters only as personalities and storylines.

I'm happy, though, that, more and more, fans aren't shutting up about the skating.

Here's the article's headline:

 

Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue, figure-skaters-champions-icons-great people

From Scott:

“People feel like they’ve been part of our journey, which is really special and we’re really grateful for that support.”

 

Scott often tries to be clever in the framing of his comments, with mixed results. Here, I wonder if saying, "people feel like" they've been part of his and Tessa's journey is deliberate. People have that impression, even though they really haven't been part of the journey, because we've lied, and promoted a fake story.

 

When they were interviewed by the Russian fans, Tessa said that what you did or said isn't remembered. How you made people feel is remembered. Under that umbrella, we can include, I guess, making people feel they're part of your story, even though you've really just lied to them, while instructing them about how honest you're being. How will people feel, though, when they become aware Virtue and Moir lied?

 

I recall that when Scott had his fan facebook page, he made people feel just great. Right from the start, when he announced that he was shutting down his "personal" facebook because he didn't want to leave anybody out, and proceeded to kick people off his personal facebook while keeping it going, in plain view of everyone he'd deleted.Then, on his fan page, making a rare appearance in order to solicit fan feedback about a profile photo, only to make a spectacle of how little their time and energy mattered.

Scott's lecturing fans on not friending a fake facebook account was also one for the memory books.

Paul Poirier explains

The week ended with another big surprise for us. Shortly before the beginning of the gala, we were asked to speak to the organizing committee about a problem… Due to illness, one of the teams was forced to withdraw from gala, but the slot still needed to be filled to keep the TV schedule consistent. We were asked to fill it, based on the reception our programs received. As I mentioned in the last paragraph, Piper and I were so pleased by all the positive feedback, and so honoured by the OC’s request.

I think this was like the big surprise when skatebug "malfunctioned" and Debbi Wilkes ended up enthroned next to the Kiss'n'Cry where, throughout the entire event, up to and including the medal ceremony, nobody in the entire arena could avoid looking at her nor escape her incessant, imbecilic bloviating.

Like Debbi, Paul and Piper are prepared for surprises. They'd packed two sets of gala costumes, as well as copies of two pieces of gala music, and brought them to Paris all the way from Canada having no idea there was such a big surprise in store or that their competition programs would be as well received as they were (finishing with 135.85 to the American dance team, Hubbell & Donohue, who finished two places ahead of Piper and Paul at 145.23).

Sixth place for Piper and Paul  = 3 gala slots for G&P, while finishing in fourth place, just off the podium = zero, zip, no available gala slots for H&D. 

Reminds me of reading in a Donald Trump bio about Marla Maples toting her wedding dress around with her from golf course to golf course from New York to Palm Beach in hopes she'd catch The Donald in a marrying mood between games. Is that how Piper and Paul roll?

Considering Paul and Piper say they were asked to fill the slot of a team that couldn't perform due to illness, what accounts for the 2.5 slots Paul and Piper ultimately skated? Gosh, poor Hubbell Donohue. They're nice skaters, but they're just not the instant crowd favorites Paul and Piper have become worldwide.

"Based on the reception our programs received"* - there's your humble brag and the chosen angle of spin. Last I checked, their positive feedback included a 51 in the short program while Hubbell Donohue cleaned their clocks in the long. But the audience knows what it likes, and they want Paul and Piper! 

Piper and Paul had packed these clothes to wear to dinner in Paris.
It was a big surprise they were then asked to skate in them.

Fortunately, Paul and Piper were able to swiftly download
and edit copies of their music on cds for the gala playlist.

Last minute group spot! The team with the illness wouldn't
have fit in nearly as well so it all worked out.

Paul and Piper are real troopers to be able to skate two gala programs and a brand new group spot on next to no notice.

Skate Canada has been as subtle as a brick in the face when it comes to promoting Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier. But surely even Skate Canada wouldn't arrange in advance of the competition for the TEB OC to invite Paul and Piper to skate in the gala, and then try to pass it off as an invitation by popular demand once some other team fell ill.** 
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*It also uses the old weasely, evasive passive voice, so conspicuous in Paul's explanation.
"Received" by whom? The crowd? The OC? Or received by Debbi Wilkes and Skate Canada? "Well" received, for that matter, since they didn't specify?

I think they're hoping to insinuate all good things without having to flat out say it and risk contradiction by others there who didn't have the same impression.

**We might want to keep an eye on some near-the-bottom French skater's gala appearance at London Worlds, or a French skater or team receiving an unusually generous p.r. boost or shout out from Skate Canada (or one of Barb's friends at icenetwork.com).

Withdrawal from the gala by another team or not, that would simply pad out Paul and Piper's gala participation, not make it possible in the first place. And even that pretext is suspicious. Give us a break. Two sets of gala costumes and two sets of gala music cuts in their luggage for a competition where they were sure to finish off the podium? What for? A team that wasn't on the podium - the sick team - was going to skate two exhibition programs?

Director of Business Development and Director of Corporate Communications

Look at Margo Channing and Eve Harrington up there, doing what they do best.*

Front and center with their star figure skaters.

Enjoying the benefits of Skate Canada's dime while doing nothing that benefits anyone besides its stars.

Avoiding real work or learning how to do their so-called jobs better; and, what makes it all run:

Shamelessness.

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*Meantime, much of the fandom had no idea who the USFSA officials on scene at the medal ceremonies might be. This must account for why the USFSA is run so poorly and Skate Canada is in fantastic shape.

But this is fine

For God knows what convoluted and clown-ass reasons, Skate Canada has determined that the public must not ever ever EVER believe not EVER that any of its figure skating partnerships are romantic. Lately they've resorted to tactics that are the marketing equivalent of a parent hiding nutrients in a vegetable-averse kid's omelet or lasagne. 

SC goes to quite a bit of facebook trouble also, to emphasize that within partnerships, sex ain't happening.

But this is fine for one of their figure skater's facebooks. (I read this last summer, so it  had remained visible on Jessica Dube's fb for over 3 years.)

No un-vetted photo of Tessa/Scott or Jessica/Bryce ever makes it onto anyone's fb, but this thing sits right there.

It was in the "boxes" section of her fb. This screen capture doesn't have her name, but it was sitting in her fb with her name all over it and comments from her friends below it.

Yes, she's French Canadian but she did the quiz in English and slapped in asterisks and said "as a joke!" so she was fairly well having it both ways here. She knows.

I think back then Jessica was in what she terms a "gangsta-girly" fashion phase with the head wrap bandana and she also sported puffy gold earrings at times, and so the favorite word to say may have been part of the package.

Yet she found it prudent to asterisk some key letters.* The rest of her possible favorite words are spelled out.

I took the quiz so I could see the answers. I scored about where her friends scored - except for Bryce, who crushed the field and commented that he thinks Jessica may have lied on her quiz.

During the Patrick Chan pseudo-brouhaha about China, where it later emerged it's entirely the fault of selfish, unpatriotic corporate Canada that Skate Canada has shit for sponsors, it turned out Patrick Chan didn't realize there were human rights violations in China. Then people jumped in to say you barely have a history requirement in Canadian high schools so it's not his fault. And then it's mentioned the USA is almost as bad.

Well shit, then how did I find out about it? Oh that's right - when I was in school they taught me to read.

And come to find out - since I was aware that China had been accused of human rights violations - this makes me a political scientist. According to an attorney/backer who spoke up for Chan.**

Maybe it's making more sense why Debbi Wilkes speaks to the public as if they learned the alphabet song only yesterday.

But it's okay! Who cares if our figure skaters haven't got no education (even those who've applied to the University of Colorado).  We not only don't care if everybody knows our skaters are ignorant - we'll defend it. He's a figure skater. Give him a break - Patrick didn't even know China was its own country til last week.***

Say this stuff loud and proud and Skate Canada has no problem. In fact, what could have been an - eh, there-goes-Patrick-again situation turned into crisis management (at last - Barb MacDonald had a crisis! You know that got added to her bullet-pointed credentials even before she sent her customary a.m. email to ice-network.com.) with Thompson talking and Barb talking and reporters who live in the SC tank prompted to get the SC spin out there. 

A 24-hour news cycle event turned into a week (it's figure skating, so 24-hour is a little generous - how about 25 minutes). They took a skater's whine and blew it up to a posturing, grand-standing clusterfuck with at least two SC officials getting their names in print. What SC does best. Your government funding at work.

In the category of other things SC and the "skating community" thinks is just fine to put out there, I recently went looking for a Dube Davison article I remembered reading, where somebody working with them felt it important to tell us explicitly that they used to be "lovers".  Not a "couple". "Lovers."  Try as I might, I couldn't un-read it.

So I took some pepto-bismol and googled the article:

Ew

I don't understand - if "everyone knows it" then why does this person also add that "you have to say it." If we already know it, no, you don't. But basically what the fuck kind of article is this?

Skate Canada gets an almost pornographic enjoyment out of detailing the extreme closeness of "platonic" (or former lovers) figure skaters in their partnerships.  First of all - since when is the sexual status of its figure skaters any business of a skating Fed let alone a component of its marketing? But Skate Canada wades right in with truly creepy enthusiasm, relishing every detail. We're told what's in the shared Weaver & Poje family breakfast tacos. We're informed about intimate marriage/sports counseling for platonic partners. Every five seconds Skate Canada sticks a thermometer up the rectum of some skating partnership and reports back with the blow-by-blow (not literally blow-by-blow, cause they're platonic, but you get what I'm going for here). And then they drop the chaser - they're PLATONIC.****
It keeps re-impressing me as a little off.
_________________________
*I know there's no excuse for that word and I also know why there's no excuse. That makes me a social anthropologist.

**Why do skaters get to pull the skater-ignorant card. What about the rest of us? "He's a figure skater - not a political scientist."  Do vets, students, cops, office managers, personal trainers, nurses, etc. get to go there? "I don't know what that wet shit falling from the sky is called - I'm a UPS driver, not a meteorologist!"

***He'd assumed it was a region of the country of Asia.

****I think all of Skate Canada's skaters in skating partnerships were required to be microchipped if they were on the Vancouver Olympic track. This microchip is programmed to de-platonic them the second one or the other declares the intention to retire after an upcoming competition.

Who is paying for it? A question.

When I was cutting the video about Jessica, the Moirs and the night of the Olympic free dance, I began to wonder if the supposed sideshow - Skate Canada's involvement - isn't the main event.

Skate Canada is always good for snark, but I've given it more thought, particularly with the facebooks getting further restricted, including Barb MacDonald's. There are a number of reasons to restrict the facebooks - among them, not wanting outsiders to take a second look and see things for what they are, particularly not outside media checking things out.

But what if things are dirtier than that. What the fuck WAS Debbi Wilkes doing in the Kiss'n Cry personally overseeing a public scam, using Skate Canada resources (Debbie Mac and that other guy) - not to mention Wilkes allocating her own time and attention as Team Manager and Director of Public Relations? And appropriating the venue for it too? (The Kiss'nCry became a staging arena for public deception.)

Why is Barb MacDonald - whose job is corporate communications - jumping aboard "Jess Dube's" fb the first night it's set up?

No doubt other skating federations know or wink when their skaters are sanitizing or faking their private life, but do they openly serve up the beard, spend resources on it and market it? Is this a proper way for Debbi Wilkes to use the venue? Is it appropriate for Skatebug to make this sham/scam part of its commentary at an event as it did for Canadians in 2010?

I'd assume the Moirs/Virtues spend the money to ferry Jessica back and forth from Ilderton - but do they? What about the Dominican, which included Veronique Dube and Jonathan Dube? What about Jessica's pere and mere in Paris at TEB 2009 where the parents did a walkabout with Scott's parents and Jessica and Scott for the edification of Jessica and Alma's fans on their facebook albums? The Dubes do not have the $$ resources some other parents have.

What about Monaco? Somebody has to hotel and feed the girl and fly her home from there instead of Italy.

Indisputably, the Jessica arrangement is not handled privately; Skate Canada officials in their professional capacity help manage logistics and execution. That's if any of it can be considered private, since so many of Scott's immediate family are high profile members of Skate Canada.

That top level SC personnel devote on-the-job time and attention to this is without question. What about $?

Jessica being on the same competitive circuit as VM saves money because she generally has Canadians and SC in common with them, and has had TEB in the past - and then last November when Scott posted on Jessica's facebook wall: "Can't wait til next week... Je taime" he was referring to Mississauga, where he and Tessa turned out to have a book promotion appearance and did a signing at the Hershey Center where Jessica was competing singles. Debbi Wilkes interviewed them there for Skatebuzz and plugged their book.

Was this promotional appearance belatedly set up so it coinciding with Jessica's competition would be paid for by the publisher or Skate Canada? Seems like Nationals would have been a more logical place to push that book. But VM had no intention of showing for Nationals and they managed to get a two-fer done in a venue where it wouldn't normally take place.

It might be a challenge this year to get Jessica to Skate Canada, but there is a TBD pairs slot, and what are the odds everything will work out as she hopes, and the less-than-inspiring Dube/Wolfe lp at Quebec will be overlooked. This team was also able to commission a Marina Zoueva short program -  a nice value add for Jessica too.

Is this ongoing situation a legitimate expenditure? SC got something like 1.7 million in gov't funding this year. Should an organization receiving public monies be openly deceiving the public?

Skate Canada has lost sponsors, yet the people in charge of sponsor relations and development seem to enjoy being personally hands-on with this bedroom farce a whole lot more. It's not just improper, it's icky and unprofessional.

Maybe the rationale is that spending this kind of energy making Scott and Tessa comfortable keeps them competing and is good for Skate Canada's bottom line. Maybe someone should ask why Scott and Tessa need this to be comfortable and remind both they're now adults. But who's going to tell them? Nobody at Skate Canada knows what that means.

One of Skate Canada's many dodgy marketing premises has been that they need stars to fill arenas and get television ratings. Skate Canada tends not to re-examine their premises, or consider whether their ideas about creating and marketing stars actually work.

SC got the gold medal from VM but Patrick Chan had to take his own career to Colorado to get results; D&D came up disappointing. SC was unable to keep the Canadian National Champion dance team together (Crone & Poirier). Nor does SC appear to have a clue how to manage press releases or press conferences.

They have no women singles skaters to speak of. I think attendance and TV ratings remain down despite the braggings about rebranding and storytelling, and despite how self-aggrandizing these current officials have been at the expense of their predecessors.

I'm only asking $ questions, I don't know. But unquestionably Debbi Wilkes was using Federation resources - herself, the venue and the volunteers - to bullshit the fans about the private life of the Canadian gold medalists the night they won the gold medal, in the venue where they won it. If she'll do that, what else will they do?

Maybe they believe this was part of the care and management of athletes en route to Olympic gold, no different than sports psychology and informational seminars. I think that angle is specious, but okay.

Tessa and Scott won a year and a half ago.

After Worlds 2010 and Worlds 2011, Tessa and Scott hedged about continuing in the sport without identifying any of the factors that would determine whether they continued or retired. Is this arrangement with Jessica- facilitated by Skate Canada - one of their conditions for staying?

Before last season Michael Slipchuk said that without Own the Podium monies, "if it's a matter of $10,000" between Virtue and Moir staying or going, he didn't see why Skate Canada wouldn't find it. Considering the shows VM do, the high-end wardrobe sported by both Tessa and Scott on and off the ice, the travel, the lifestyle and Tessa owning multiple copies of skating dresses that cost thousands of dollars each - for WHAT and why would they be in need of a "mere" $10,000 as a condition of staying in training? It was a curious amount.

Is this an appropriate allocation of Skate Canada resources - not just money, but attention, planning and time?

One of "Jess Dube"'s First Ten Facebook Friends

Barb MacDonald, Skate Canada, Director, Corporate Communications April 2010 to present.

Barb came on board a year before BMO took its money and ran. Barb's appointment did not unseat Debbi Wilkes, but perhaps freed up Wilkes for more face time on camera.

Barb says she's based in Ontario and is "Responsible for Internal/External Communications, Media Relations and media operations for Canada's national governing body for figure skating."

Barb has been a "senior communications consultant" since 1996, with a focus on right-wingish Christian ministries and affiliated fundraising.

Her professional bio from facebook:

An Accredited Business Communicator through the International Association of Business Communications. I specialize in providing both strategic and hands-on communications advice and services for a wide range of clients in the sport, business, not-for-profit and ministry sectors. Also serving as venue media manager for major sports events, running the complete spectrum of services to allow journalists and photographers to see the event, gather information, and file stories and photographs on the event.

(I'm a bit "Eh?" about how Canadian figure skaters of different or no religious affiliation feel about a Director of Corporate Communications who leads with a fundie agenda (not politicizing - ask Barb - she's forthright about it)*. I wonder if corporations sharing Barb's affinities are the ones most inclined to sponsor figure skating. Oh well, I'm sure Skate Canada did its usual thorough research before bringing her in.)

 Late one evening, some months back, "Jessica Dube" restricted her original facebook and all of its albums, and that same evening opened a new facebook account called "Jess Dube". Barb MacDonald was immediately on the friends' short list. Very on-the-spot for such a busy woman. 

Now, people interpret Christian doctrine (alternatively - values) differently. But nowhere in the New Testament is an orchestrated, aggressive campaign of misrepresentation and outright lies condoned, not even when the intent is to guard your privacy while stimulating revenue. We know how much Jesus enthused over the virtues of raising money. Am I right? Is there an "improve thy bottom line" teaching in the New Testament? In the Old Testament are there Nostradamus-type dictates on how to act out a lie for the camera as long as the goal is not just a) redirecting the curious from your personal life, but - primarily - b) scamming the public because you aim to take their money?

I guess there's bonus value points when a strategy lets you have it both ways. How to reap the (perceived) advantage$ of accessibility while retaining the protections of privacy and secrecy?

Lying.

So you create a lie and cook up a proactive marketing scheme openly  instructing people to believe it while prying open their wallets.**

Does the Bible advocate a pattern of media interaction where you raise the topic of people who resist your lies, mock these hypothetical folk, patronize them, then piously empathize with their romantic delusions?

Okay, well, testaments old and new aside, let's consider that, even today, Jesus is said to speak personally through certain right-thinking people. Perhaps He's reassured the SC crowd in person and they've kept it to themselves. I'm gonna guess Jesus is all about situational ethics these days. It’s okay for GOOD people to do wrong things. And it feels like it would be a giant mess to backtrack now so may as well keep digging and save face. 

What genius looks like.

Lastly, what about style? Does Jesus/the Bible prefer the lie that is smart, quiet, tasteful, tactful, seamless, easy-going, adroit, smooth, with softly blurred edges and a steady, consistent message? Is that better than the lie that embarrasses everybody, debases somebody's core emotional integrity in every photo, is sordid on many levels, degrading, mortifying, trashy, creepy, mutually humiliating for subject and audience, sloppy, unsettling, weird, contradictory and grotesque  - while simultaneouly achieving a tone that's self-satisfied, arrogant, obnoxious and douchey? The Bible is mum on style matters, so I guess Skate Canada has been groping in the dark.

_________________________

*not mentioning the Jews or the gays (Donald Trump taught me to put the "the" in front of different cultures, ethnicities, religions and sexual orientations). Cause SC doesn't have no gays. When Alma Moir gave an interview some years back on how Kurt Browning had helped dispel the gay "myth" in figure skating, she cited Brian Boitano as her example of a figure skater who had, sadly, perpetuated skating's gay image. Now Brian Boitano a) has never come out, as far as I'm aware, and b) is American, but that was Alma's go-to example. Out the guy without a qualm, claim he hurt figure skating's image with the public, and tout Kurt Browning, who years later burned his home down with a leaf  blower.

These people.

** a/k/a  hubris (a sin).

Barb MacDonald didn't vacate One Way Ministries until some months after her appointment as Skate Canada's Director of Corporate Communications, and she began servicing Skate Canada long before her appointment to the Directorship.
http://1wayministries.org/

_______________________________

It's super creepy how SC corporate directors, whose core responsibilities are corporate marketing, sponsor relationship development -  and in Barb's case, some venue/media operational oversight -  are so freaking eager to be personally hands-on with their "stars." Isn't the above a task for a p.a. or PERSONAL (not corporate) PR rep? Debbie "Mac" can't escort VM?