April

And screwed you out of a gold medal in Sochi. But ok, hang Marina Zoueva out to dry instead. She controls the entire ISU. What could Dore have done to set up Sochi. Am crying over Dore's passing sort of the way I did when Anton Scalia died. (Yes, I've bought my ticket to hell myself for that.)

I hope Virtue and Moir locked things up solidly with Dr. Faust before announcing their comeback. Although you'd think they'd be tapped out of things to bargain with at this point.

I see where Charlie White already expressed awe over Papadakis Cizeron, so next season will be fun.

Good to see Volozozhar Trankov smiling
despite Worlds 2016. I still have
nightmares.

The Artist Known as Hanyu.
I get what he's doing, but in terms of packaging,
Method Skating doesn't do it for me.

He's a skating version of The Red Shoes.
Plot Summary _ The Red Shoes movie

I watched a couple of Skating Lesson interviews with David Wilson. For years, in my eyes, David Wilson was just the guy who got paid to "choreograph" the same program year after year for Dube Davison. Actually, I often wondered if his last Dube Davison paycheck was 2008's Blowers Daughter, and for the rest of DD's career Annie Barabie just picked different music to skate it to. And then I saw his choreography for Yuna Kim's shows, when she did shows, and thought - that sure beats working. Fly around the world and demonstrate to champion skaters how to point to the ceiling in between arm rolls. Subsequently, I've become more familiar with his body of work, and I understand strongly how versatile and musical he is. However, in his Skating Lesson conversation, he mentioned that when Yuna won Worlds in 2013, choreographed by her new training team (no Canadians) - her "face" was missing (IOW, she was deadpan, and not facially expressive).  I don't give a fuck if the face was missing. I hate the pretense that that should matter. If the damn face matters, put it in the rulebook. Otherwise, quit this shit.

Catching up with Jessica Dube:

There was a point after her stint on The Navigator of the Seas where it appeared Jessica had not been signed by another cruise ship, and was all set to work at a gym. Happily, Liberty of the Seas has secured her services, so she's off for another six months as pretty much the highest ranking figure skater ever on the cruise ship circuit - I think most of them never competed internationally, and the previously highest ranked skaters got on the podium once at Nationals.

Abandoned again.
My heart goes out to her disillusioned dog.
He's aged ten years - in people years.

After three fake girlfriends, finally a genuine love connection.

What they should have done from the beginning, and what they've been semi-flirting with since the arrival of Baby Moir V.3, is just be all goes without saying about it. Take the question out of the interviews, and that's it. Every single fan will go along. VM could have had it exactly their own way from day 1. They chose to troll. They chose to bait and switch. They chose to gaslight. Let's see how grown-up they are in 2016-2017.

Canadians

First of all, congratulations to Director of Business Development (formerly director of Marketing and Public Relations) Debbi Wilkes for her sterling performance at Canada's National Figure Skating Championships. Debbi and her team fell just short of half-filling a venue the size of my grandmother's high school auditorium.* Kudos Debbi. Looking forward to all of your interviews on Skatebuzz. You've earned the spotlight girl.

Second:

WTF was that?

They fixed what wasn't broken, and the rest of it - don't get it.

Third: Jessica! Congrats on bravely soldiering through your sudden onset single-itis to second place in the short - even executing a split TRIPLE twist! I thought I was watching Xue Shen out there. Could Rod Black have leaned any harder emphasizing how much HARD WORK and long hours it takes to perform like that? I smell some motivational speaking engagements for you, Jessica.

Fourth, Tracy Wilson said the Dube/Wolfe short was choreographed by David Wilson.

David Wilson

When Dube/Wolfe were doing Liberty and Quebec P.J. Kwong was happy to inform us their short program was by Marina Zoueva. Come Canadians, it's good old David Wilson. The name of their sp choreographer changes almost as often as Debbi Wilkes' director's titles.** What's the problem? Canadians too mainstream for a sham shout out? Somebody thought people might wonder who paid for Marina?

Also Rod Black asked us to imagine you're Sebastien Wolfe, and one day you get a call that a World medalist - a champion (put it together like that sort of implied World Champion) needs a partner.

This stuff is just pulled out of people's hind ends, isn't it? There is just no relationship whatsoever to who, how, where, when or the facts. And this is the media some fans think would be on the case if they really knew Scott and Tessa were lying about their relationship status. 

Just read this Tessa quote about the short dance:

We're testing it out, we're feeling it and seeing how we feel competing with the changes, and getting some feedback from judges," Virtue said. "We're anxious to prove ourselves, and to prove that the changes we made were good, but we have to know that they are and trust our process and go out there and have a fresh start (Saturday) with a program that we love.

Can't get inside her head but that's not a Stepford quote, that feels real and syncs up with how they looked yesterday.

Finally, Melanie Hoyt reports she keeps running into people at the venue who don't know who Virtue/Moir are. So the two years of post-Vancouver Scott/Tessa promotion brilliantly orchestrated by Skate Canada is reaping big dividends in-country, that's for sure. It's not a surprise - you'd have to be amazingly incompetent to blow it with Virtue Moir and Thompson, Slipchuk & Wilkes have been sensational failures.

Ironically, prior to the Vancouver Olympics one of their favorite interview gambits was to explain to us all their superior insight about figure skating promotion in Canada, the proper way to do it and grow skating's popularity, how it needed to be presented to the public, and they let us know that this was something they thoroughly understood how to do that their well-intentioned predecessors did not.

They are unbelieveable charletons. Turns out their priority is promoting themselves - none more relentlessly than Wilkes & Thompson although Barb McDonald is as opportunistic as they come. She and Wilkes see Skate Canada as their personal promotion platform. Ask not what you can do for Skate Canada, ask what Skate Canada can do to raise your profile and create your brand. That's all that's getting done effectively in the marketing, public relations and business development departments.
_____________________________
 *I bet they get a full house in China.

**Who is Director of Marketing & Public Relations now that Wilkes is Director of Business Development. Wonder what job they'll pretend she's doing next season.