I'd pay $600,000 to get a light show between Bill Thompson's ears

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/FigureSkating/2012/03/11/19488166.html

I can't even.

I wish I had a better heading and maybe I'll switch it out later but for now, nothing like a guy who sucks at his job, whose organization is a model of financial miscalculation, getting pompous about what an entire city better put out to stay in his good graces. What fucking bubble does he occupy and don't answer that.*

I would post excerpts but it's hard to do while puking. (Okay, got over that and posted one.)

And of course he puts his faith in something asinine. A light show. That is CRITICAL.

Some time back a poster in the comments section told us that London knows what it's doing putting on skating events, and Worlds should be well-managed and very well-attended, unlike most Skate Canada-managed competitions.

Well there goes that because Skate Canada CEO Bill Thompson has elbowed his way into the spotlight. Naturally, Thompson feels like he's qualified to tell London how to do its job. While every potential ticket purchaser now sees the chances of experiencing a well-run competition dimming exponentially.

Why? Because, of all the elements of this event, upon what is Thompson fixating?

The light show. The city-budget busting $600,000 light show that some London officials would like to nix, seeing as how the economy is kind of in a jam at the moment.

Please tell me the light show is going to be configured to show the Skate Canada logo in lights because I figure that's got to be it.

Per Thompson, they better not even think of canceling the light show, the component around which every successful figure skating worlds orbits. The light show was the deciding factor in Skate Canada awarding London the event (not competence? I'm surprised.).**

Screw programs, timely mailing of tickets, an organized competition, a public treated with respect. The fucking LIGHT SHOW is key. Fail to deliver on that, and London's entire reputation as a city will suffer with Skate Canada, says Thompson. Not just with Skate Canada, but with other sports.***

Hear that London?

That is Skate Canada today. Everybody from sponsors to a location that can WHIP ITS ASS in organizational competence to the ticket-buying public is supposed to run around worrying what Skate Canada - the David Brent of organized sports -  thinks of it and an entire city can just choke on higher taxes because Bill Thompson don't give a shit. He's not obligated to bring stuff downtown!


Moe, Larry or Curly?
Except, you know, not funny.

Classic Skate Canadian logic. Some city officials are balking because they want to maintain the tax freeze for its citizens and splashing out $600,000 for a light show could put that in jeopardy. Fuck that, says Thompson, showing a seasoned CEO feel for the marketplace. Increase the tax burden on Londoners if you must, but deliver that fucking light show because Skate Canada will be bringing some stuff downtown and you don't want to know how Skate Canada will feel if it doesn't get $600,000 worth of light show in return. It's the most important part of the entire Worlds! All the message board fans are banking on it!

"I do think the light show would make a very big difference. We are doing some things around the event we are not obligated to do -- bringing things downtown to increase traffic for your businesses -- and this (the light show) would help,"****Thompson said at a brief ceremony on the weekend.

Who could turn down a proposition like Bill's? Pay higher taxes because things will be coming downtown. Skate Canada things. SC - with its Midas touch.

I don't know, feels like a wash. Gimme the tax freeze and I'll suffer without the stuff Skate Canada is gonna bring downtown. Even though I bet tumbleweeds will be just a rolling through downtown London without that light show. London businesses have been telling their creditors to just hold on until Worlds because the light show is gonna set the books to rights. Of course then they'll have to pay higher taxes the following year. You think Bill could send some stuff downtown then, too?

Bill's confidence in his own judgment remains unshakeable despite years of stupendous and costly idiocy. That's a man.

Listen to Bill, London. Take his threats seriously. You don't want to lose face with Skate Canada. Bill knows from civic and corporate economics. Ask BMO, Homesense, Artistry, Nabisco and ask Kozy Shack pudding.

If I were a corporate sponsor, I couldn't wait to get into bed with this guy. He's public relations magic.

I'm out of stuff. There's so much stuff here, it's like I've got keyboard paralysis. Everything's jammed up.
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*We're getting an ever clearer picture of what the figure skating veterans running Skate Canada believe attracts audiences to figure skating.

1. TMI
5. Debbi Wilkes
11. Logos
12. Reminding Canadians that Skate Canada is Canadian
15. "Masculinity"
19. Light shows
79. Figure skating

**Except, despite what Thompson says in the link, apparently not.

***Bill. "Other sports" think you're a clown.

****Why doesn't he put London officials in touch with the Moscow officials who pulled off a smashing Worlds on minimal notice last year thanks to ITS light show?I'm sure Moscow will point out that without the light show businesses would have taken a hit and the venue would have been half empty.

He don't care.

Sandbagged by sandbags

Marijane Stong

Marijane Stong is in the Skate Canada Hall of Fame. For a long time Stong worked extremely closely with Scott and Tessa, particularly during Tessa's battle with exertional compartment syndrome. She's been a respected coach consultant.

Here's Stong's relevant quote about Scott and Tessa from the crica Worlds 2009 clip below, referring to Tessa's time away after exertional compartment syndrome surgery:

"All the time that she was ailing and she was doing her rehab, they worked every day in Tessa's apartment on little things like the lifts - they put the music on, they play with the expression, they did everything imaginable to try to be in really good shape while she got the legs working again. So it wasn't - I mean when they were off, they weren't just off, they were continuously working.

And they had a very wise way of training when they came back."

 Marijane Stong                    

The period to which Stong is referring is the infamous rift they get melodramatic about in their book.

The clip:

But? I thought the whole time Tessa was ailing in London Scott was in Canton skating with sandbags?

You mean Scott was together with Tessa the whole time?

Clearly Stong had not been through Debbi Wilkes' Seminar for Spoon Fed Spin.

I'm crushed this didn't happen.*

What Stong describes makes sense of course. It's unrealistic that a team desperate to compete in Vancouver would not speak or see each other nor communicate in any way for two months in the run-up to their first competition of the critical pre-Olympic season. They were due to reveal a strategically conceived, innovative new program at Canadians. They'd missed the Grand Prix season and would be heading to Worlds behind everybody else. All else aside - such as the fact that there was no estrangement, the fact that Tessa rushed her recovery, the fact that she and Scott were in a long-term committed relationship, the fact that they made a joint television appearance at Skate America mid-recovery - an Olympic-track dance team letting that happen just prior to a championship is not going to happen.

Scott and Tessa had two stories. In the first - the 2009 rendition -  Scott trained with sandbags and hockey sticks while Tessa stayed in touch from London, cheering him on and consulting on progress, occasionally apparently able to see him train somehow (He is fabulous! said Tessa). And of course, they grew even closer when she came back.

In Version 2, circa 2010-2011, each was clueless about what was going on with the other. Scott kept expecting her back sooner (the most ridiculous spin of all), but basically it was like each had dropped off the face of the earth where the other was concerned, so when she returned to Canton, no work had been done and on top of that, they were estranged and remained estranged for a year.

Whew.

I'd like to know what's happened to commentators like Stong. Intelligent, not formulaic, not reciting cheesy soundbites, not speaking of the individual skaters in terms of the image stereotype Skate Canada wants to promote. Not talking down to the audience.

She's a throwback. Even though she's very home team, she sounds like an adult. P.J. Kwong, whom I do like, sounds mechanical in comparison, and as if she's pitching to a much stupider crowd.

“Cathy's lies were never innocent. Their purpose was to escape punishment, or work, or responsibility, and they were used for profit. Most liars are tripped up either because they forget what they have told or because the lie is suddenly faced with an incontrovertible truth. But Cathy did not forget her lies, and she developed the most effective method of lying. She stayed close enough to the truth so that one could never be sure. She knew two other methods also -- either to interlard her lies with truth or to tell a truth as though it were a lie. If one is accused of a lie and it turns out to be the truth, there is a backlog that will last a long time and protect a number of untruths.”

John Steinbeck, East of Eden        

I went looking for the above quote, that I remembered from East of Eden, because it's a good description of manipulative lying. Scott and Tessa lie with animation and a lot of earnest-seeming embellishment. I can never figure out if this is as contemptuous as it seems or just disconnect - some idea that if they're nice and understanding about things it is a nicer way to lie. Maybe if you throw down enthusiastic exclamation points on fb while baiting fans it's a nicer way to be a tool. But still, Team VM borrows a lot of very meant-to-be-subtle, sophisticated lying techniques and wreaks hell with the execution. Typical Skate Canada - ambition outflanks competence.

And there's Tessa patting the public on the head and saying she wants couples in movies together too.**  How obnoxious. But maybe she doesn't see it that way - maybe to her it takes away some of the sting of lying.
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*Actually, while looking for sandbag gifs, I came across a million images of athletes - both male and female - using them in training. Yet - "Imagine - sandbags!" was presented to us as some miraculous creative innovation and extreme dedication.

**Not to mention this ignores that people want them together based more on off-ice behavior than skating performance.