First of two posts. The second post isn’t fully worked out, but I think is going to focus on last month's Angelika Krylova interview, with a particular emphasis on Meryl Davis’ superior talents in the realm of figure skating and ice dance, which Krylova had no problem whatsoever enumerating. I may also remark on Meryl Davis’s implied hot romance with Fedor Andreev, and how this doesn’t do her fans’ near-unquenchable need for validation any favors.

The just-concluded holiday season has been, for the blogger, about two weeks’ worth of holiday celebrations/busyness, and one week procrastination. I didn’t really want to know or think about if Virtue and Moir, a couple of mid/late twentysomethings, apparently retired ice-dancers, continued to feel the need to make a display of self-importance via shamming on social media during Christmas and New Year’s, so I avoided finding out. I also didn’t want to pollute the holidays with second-hand embarrassment, even though anybody following Virtue and Moir should be real comfortable with second-hand embarrassment by now.

Every day she's shoveling all right.

I don’t know what’s going to be sadder – when the latest crop of Virtue Moir fans, in, say, 2029, wonder if these two fortysomethings regret never having gotten it together, sharing fan fic about Tessa and Scott’s wistful conversations about what might have been, or Virtue and Moir still pretending to themselves, enabled by the sycophants who appear to surround every figure skater, that shamming is necessary.

Caveat, for what follows: this isn’t focused on skating women in social media to the exclusion of men. It’s just that in some respects, what I’m talking about next is kind of what a gossip columnist once said about the cast of Friends: as the show went on, the actresses on it got skinner and tanner, their hair got longer and straighter, and the dudes just got fatter and more slovenly. The particulars of Tessa’s social media image manipulations got me thinking along these lines.

When I look around at guys who were competing ten years ago, some of whom are now coaching, a number of them have gotten pretty comfortable wearing relaxed-fit pants and jackets. I look at women who were competing more recently, or are still competing, but have been at it a long time, and some of them, no matter how free-spirited they pretend to be, have become even more image-conscious.

So, speaking of second-hand embarrassment, Jessica Dube is now posing like this:

Short takes

These gifs aren't apples to apples comparisons. They're just my takeaways, distilling my impressions of Skate Canada and Skate America 2014.

Moore Towers/Marinaro:

Yep.

Chock and Bates:

Not so sure about the curve part or
the "lift" part.

I can't.

What I noticed with Chock Bates is that after the uber stand-still, draggy, dramatic opening, and some effortful stroking, the program turns glacial. That's a thing now in ice dance.Be slow. Truncated run of blade is preferred. How can you be crisp, clean, and tight with your music if you spend any time on an extended, deep edge. By the way, very.deliberate.sustained.gesturing is the new "crisp and clean."

The other thing in ice dance is the less skating you do, the higher you'll score.Ice dance. Once the skate-iest of all the figure skating disciplines. Then the North American Feds and ISU officials realized the public and media didn't know the difference, so why not turn it into a favor swapping pawn, and a pile of crap, while bragging it's now legit, in the best tradition of the most corrupt enterprises in civilized history.

I can't even touch the base value and levels bullshit.

The Shibs. I want to cry. The blade run and speed alone. How many points behind Chock & Bates? North American figure skating is a bunch of assholes:

Chock and Bates, of course, have one of the most
rudimentary, mediocre step sequences in contemporary
free dance history.

Hubbell Donohue (switched to their 2014 skate)

They need better speed, but how relevant is that in ice dance anymore? Chock & Bates are slow, and Hubbell Donohue have deeper, longer edges, better unison, softer knees, more program content, and skate their program.

Gilles Poirier:

I think there's some sleight of hand with them where she's on an extended edge supported in some type of connection/hold with Paul (and hey, I won't look a gift horse) but he's doing the actual skating, he's the one with power, and that's how they achieve speed/ice coverage when they DO achieve speed/ice coverage. It's a more palatable strategy then just in-your-face dragging and pulling, and that's the best I can say at the moment til I sit with their program a little longer.

******
Update to the paragraphs that follow - here is the attorney's original article:

An Idiot's Tale

Her name is Javairia "Jia" Junaid. I don't know if her linked-in profile is current.

My issue isn't with what she describes as her "bias" - a bias that assumed the appealing (to her) famous guy was being targeted by a vengeful ex. Plenty of people harbor attitudes and biases at variance with their education, job description and experience.

My issue is with her stupidity and her inability to process information. There were two components to the original story. One was The CBC's announcement that they were getting rid of Ghomeshi. The other was Ghomeshi's facebook post.

Any lawyer - any regular person with common sense - would know that a publicly funded corporation the size of The CBC, run by a bunch of well-paid, lawyered-up corporate dudes, is not going to get rid of one of its longstanding marquee talents because some ex-girlfriend with a chip on her shoulder made shit up. But attorney Jia Junaid had no problems reaching that conclusion. I wonder what she charges per hour - her clients must get tremendous value whatever her rate may be.

It's an especially comforting read when one absorbs that she's worked in advocacy sectors. NICE.

My original remarks:

I don't know what kind of idiot juice some media types are drinking in Canada, but one of the many naval-gazing Ghomeshi "think pieces" was from a media-type/lawyer (a woman) who confessed that when Ghomeshi's firing was first announced, and she read his facebook post, she believed him, and imagined that he was being victimized by a bitter ex girlfriend, probably a model/actress wannabe (I will hunt down the link to the article later).

Think of the brains it took to default to that assumption. This legal light immediately assumed that a corporation the size and power of The CBC would fire its famous signature face/name/brand because some anonymous, wannabe, resentful ex girlfriend decided to make trouble by making shit up. An actual lawyer figured that. A lawyer assumed The CBC just went - sure, probably true - he's gone! The subtext in this lawyer's assumptions was that it was probably a pretty girl, and therefore entitled and uppity, and you know, they get publicly funded major corporations to do their bidding all the time.

SO so incredibly stupid. And she had no problem publishing this.

I bet this woman/lawyer defaulted to that assumption without ever having once in her entire life witnessed/experienced an ex-girlfriend taking down some guy. She believes in myths more than she believes in real life. I would love to ask this lawyer exactly how often in her real life experience, and not her soap opera viewing, somebody's vindictive ex-girlfriend, all on her own, not only attempted some sort of combination smear campaign/stalking strategy against a guy, but against a much richer, more powerful, famous guy, and succeeded.

This woman is now regretting her default reaction because as it turns out, a couple of well-known women are accusing Ghomeshi, so now she knows it's not some phantom model who persuaded CBC to ditch the guy whose 20 foot poster was on the side of the building, but a few People Who Count.

I am dying to find out what firm pays this woman for her legal expertise, what her hourly rate may be, and what clients pay through the nose for her work. I hope it's not Siskinds.

*********

Enjoyed this from MacLean's latest on Jian Ghomeshi:

Stories circulated at the CBC about his penchant for “rough sex” but they were mostly dismissed as gossip, says Paul Malcolm, a Q producer for four years. “I heard rumours of punching for as long as I was on the show, but I didn’t believe it.” “Jian was very private,” says one producer, who noted he seemed to have different tiers of girlfriends. There were high-profile women with whom he was aligned —Ani DiFranco, Sarah Polley, Lisa Ray, Tessa Virtue—as well as far younger women who would accompany him after show tapings in other cities.

Nice, right? Virtue and Moir are lucky Ryan Semple only appears to be a quasi-virtual-douchebag on twitter and instagram. But I bet anything they don't know much about him.

Virtue and Moir's social media alliances are paper thin, there's not even rudimentary due diligence, it's all cosmetic Stepford bullshit. Virtue and Moir have turned themselves into brittle, pageant-esque, image-burnishing paper dolls each an inch deep. It's so bizarre - years ago all they seemed to care about was skating, and Tessa was adament that neither she nor Scott had any interest in becoming celebrities. That attitude was either a complete lie at the time - wouldn't be surprised - or they've morphed into opposite sorts of people, and what are they getting out of it? They don't want to be adults? They want to stay in their version of high school their entire lives? There are twelve-year olds with more guts and character than either one of them.

At least with the Ghomeshi case causing people in media to come crawling out of the woodwork to confess how insular, dishonest, self-serving and inverted their "industry" and "community" actually is, we know the sorts of people with whom Scott and Tessa have affiliated themselves, and there's that saying that you know someone by the company they keep. Without even needing to, Scott and Tessa have adopted a community and are being reinforced by a community that is self-admittedly immature, self-promoting, self-obsessed, afraid, and insecure.

This post is brought to you by the windows behind Scott and Tessa:

There's been a lot of Funhouse Mirror-themed decor in the events they've attended this summer and fall.

Skate Canada, Give Dylan Moscovitch the money Scott and Tessa Declined

Dylan Moscovitch back in the game



This is Dylan Moscovitch and his new partner Lubov Iliushechkina, who was at last released from Russia. Considering what partner switches often look like for the dumped partner - a sad, hot mess - my expectations weren't high.Then there was Skate Canada's attitude, which is really the point of this post. I've actually wondered from time to time if Skate Canada had encouraged Kirsten to dump Dylan, been a factor there, because, last we heard from Mike Slipchuk about Dylan and the whole Russian Fed/Lubov situation, it sounded like: "The entire topic puts me to sleep, but if you want a quote, I don't give a shit if they keep Lubov or let her go."

After learning Lubov had been released, I checked her out over the weekend and switched to "Geez, I hope Dylan's been keeping in form!" Today, I saw the above.Well, well, well.

I know Dylan's thirty, but the 2010 Olympic male pairs champion was 36. I think Dylan can hobble along til 2018.

I'm doing this post cause it's a Skate Canada thing. I'd like Skate Canada to announce that some of the money Scott and Tessa "are entitled to" but "declined", because they so generously wanted it to be available for other skaters, can be freed up for Dylan Moscovitch now that he's found himself such a terrific partner, and they look so promising together.

I know it doesn't work exactly that way, but since Skate Canada played it like it does work that way, encouraging all of us to be: "Oh thank you for giving up those funds you're not eligible for, Scott and Tessa", perhaps we can play along, and point out that Dylan Moscovitch has the exact same resume as Kirsten Moore Towers. Any Federation's high performance director can look at the embedded video above, and assess that Iliushechkina/Moscovitch have top 16 potential. I think Mike Slipchuk also has eyes.

Would also like to mention that a figure skater can be nominated retroactively for funding in the current AAP cycle. How about it Mike? AAP has rules and regulations, but a close reading does suggest that they're not exactly a police state when it comes to oversight, and also suggests that a retroactive carding nomination is well within bounds.

The IFS article talks about how Dylan's funding went AWOL while his skating future was in question, which I believe is how it works per Sport Canada/AAP policy. Maybe, though, it doesn't work per AAP policy, and it's as Skate Canada explained it with Scott and Tessa - the honor system. While his partner status was in flux, Dylan graciously "declined" the funding he was entitled to so that other skaters could benefit. An honorable group, these Skate Canadian skaters.

Now Dylan needs to scrape together some funding. He and his partner are also hopeful that they'll get an international assignment this season, late though it is, and though Skate Canada would have to get off its ass a bit. I don't know, Dylan.You and Lubov aren't bad, but you're no Jessica Dube/Sebastien Wolfe, whom Skate Canada threw opportunity at back in 2011.

Jessica and Sebastien when they were merely a promising new pairing.

Do you think Dylan Moscovitch and Lubov Iliushechkina up there could be international calibre? Do you suppose Mike Slipchuk will step up and shake some opportunity from the assignment schedule, as well as funds from the money tree? Why ever not? How about it Mike?

I await Mike's explanation that a couple of lower ranked bobsledders have already jumped on the money so recently set free by Virtue/Moir/Chan, never mind Skate Canada's press release said "so other skaters" could benefit, and far be it from him to interfere. He's like that, Mike. Sits on his hands a lot.