Everything old is new again

Beverly Smith - Ilushechkina and moscovitch second chances

Wanted to share the above. It's a typically terrific piece from Smith, profiling two appealing, easy-to-root-for figure skaters, and it's worthwhile also for what it says about this team's funding situation.Without revealing numbers, Smith's article reinforces how expensive it is to train for elite competition.Thank heaven Tessa and Scott gave up the funding they were entitled to receive for not training and competing this year, or even more figure skaters would have found themselves up a financial creek this season.

Trophee Eric Bompard 2014 Short Dance Results:

Trophee Eric Bompard 2014 Free Dance Results

Look at that lockstep.

Kaitlyn Lawes twitter!

Great exchange! Figure skating challenge up next! #Trillium2014 #crossfit #guesswho

Did u know Kaitlyn Lawes is the 3d most followed lady curler on twitter! #16.2k

Hey Kaitlyn Lawes lost all other punctuation on her keyboard/phone! #somanyexclamationpoints

****

I don't know which is worse - this or Jessica's winks and hearts.

*****
All of the questions in this post are rhetorical. I haven't done enough research to have the answers.

Part of this blog and blog comments section has been looking at social media marketing, including its standards of integrity. I'm curious about how come what Tessa and Scott do, which is to combine deceiving the public on twitter with promoting their sponsors on twitter, is okay. Lawes does the same thing. Mostly I wonder if we must then assume that Lindt and pb chocolate milk can be considered participants in the manipulation and hoaxing of the public about Scott and Tessa's relationship.

Most people inside Scott and Tessa's network know they're married and have a daughter; this network can be described as enormous. Scott and Tessa must be getting feedback that their tactics are fine. It seems to me they've been innovators in using social media to not just actively promote a hoax, but in actively gaslighting the supporters of their skating, and those who follow figure skating. They're not reactive. There's no pressure from the media. Scott and Tessa instigate.

That last, the "it's not us - it's you" (actually it's "it's not us - it's them (fans)) is the "unique" component of all this - to actively and repeatedly report to the people you're lying to that you're being nothing but truthful, and, taking it a step further, to assert that the people you're lying to are confusing fantasy/performance with reality. You present yourselves as constantly needing to get out there and set people straight. (Which is another lie - they lie about their supporters. Apart from the blog, Scott and Tessa's false version of their status isn't questioned online.).

Until the reality show, one might argue that the people who partner with Scott and Tessa - other athletes, sponsors, representatives - aren't aware of Scott and Tessa's tactics. Figure skating doesn't get much coverage, nor do the personalities in the sport get coverage unless they're actively seeking it out. People in entertainment, talent management, other sports, event production, and sponsorship might be under the impression Scott and Tessa function like a lot of couples who maintain a platonic facade for privacy reasons, although even before the reality show, Scott and Tessa went into way more detail about how platonic they are than other couples have ever done. They repeatedly did entire interviews in print and video where that was all that was discussed. With Scott and Tessa, it's a little difficult for anyone to pretend to believe they're just working from a defensive position, but if you're not keeping track, that assumption can be made. But once they did the reality show, nobody could pretend that anymore.

This type of situation hasn't been addressed by the FTC (or, in Canada, the Canadian Competition Bureau, the FTC equivalent), or made it into any social media best practices guidelines. I imagine nobody at the FTC/Canadian Competition Bureau is even aware this sort of thing exists - Scott and Tessa are unique, after all. With the internet, rules and guidelines evolve in response to issues as they come up.

FTC/Canadian Competition Bureau

The linked article discusses the FTC's ability to govern Canadian advertising and sales practices (I imagine what Scott and Tessa do isn't sales/advertising, but marketing and promotion).

Here's the combination of factors that I question, wondering mostly if this is okay, and will become common practice:

1. Scott and Tessa publicly insist they are single and dating other people.
2. Scott and Tessa are married to each other, and have a daughter.
3. Their extensively promoted reality show, "Tessa and Scott," which aired on the commercially broadcast W network geared towards "women's programming", told us Tessa and Scott are each unmarried, are platonic, are not a couple, and told us Cassandra Hilborn was Scott Moir's girlfriend.The actual facts are Tessa was his wife, he was a married man, they have a daughter, live together as a family, and he was not dating Cassandra Hilborn.
4. W is an "entertainment" network, not a news channel; but their marketing of  "Tessa and Scott" stressed that we'd be seeing Tessa and Scott's actual life, the real them.This promotional angle was specifically built around Scott and Tessa's honesty, transparency, sincerity, and genuine character. Scott even took to insisting it was a documentary. (I don't know if describing your personalities as genuine, sincere, etc., rather than using the words "honest" or "the truth" to describe the content of the show you're promoting, constitutes a technical out, but marketing guidelines are ALL about those semantics.)
5. Scott and Tessa repeatedly portray the public as self-deceived in wishing or wrongly suspecting that Scott and Tessa would ever be or are together as a couple.
6. Any review of fan discussion outside this one blog will demonstrate, going back years, that fans do not and did not challenge Scott and Tessa's version of their relationship, and Scott and Tessa were not and are not responding to persistent or vocal skepticism from fans.
7.Scott and Tessa are proactive. They frequently introduce the subject of their relationship, using every social media, legit media and reality television manipulation and flat out lie under the sun.
8. Scott and Tessa use the same platforms they use to lie to the public to promote their sponsors. Do the sponsors know?

Does this mean a public figure can basically tell any lie they want about their personal circumstances on social media, market it, and have it be validated by legitimate media, sponsors, other public figures?

Marina thoughts. Plus - pregnancy: do your research

Long post. When it comes to the Marina section, this may be one of those posts where my thoughts are imperfectly worked out and get sorted later in the comments section, or via editing, as my perspective becomes better organized.

On the pregnancy front, it seems to me that those who insist Tessa shows no sign of pregnancy must know that plenty of women don't show mid-way, or even most of the way. It's just that these fans have made up in their own heads that Tessa Virtue is not one of those women. A lot of comments section discussion works off stuff that only exists in people's heads. They decide something or other is not possible for the version of Tessa they, personally, have invented, and they see no reason why what they've made up shouldn't be treated as valid. I see this mentality reoccur constantly in the comments, although of course it doesn't describe everybody.

Alternatively, another reason some people might fixate on the idea that all pregnant women project a balloon shape is that's the only sort of pregnant woman these fans believe they've ever personally seen. When they've crossed paths with women who carry differently, they failed to perceive that she was pregnant, and continue believing pregnant women all look the same. As with much of this mindset, if they don't see it, it doesn't exist.

Yahoo:

Image linked by participant in comments section (thanks):

I like the above image as it's easy to see this woman is pregnant (relation of her abdomen to her pelvis, for one) but in addition to carrying small, she's got a pronounced s curve in her back that can trick the eye into thinking it's simply her posture. Due to her proportions/contour/how she's carrying it would be a cinch for her to dress as if she's not at all pregnant. She could stand differently and look even less pregnant. Tuck her butt under and she'd even be flat, you might say, because that pregnancy slope isn't just mild, it's a continuous plane - it doesn't abruptly jut forward. Look at this lady. I bet she doesn't even have the abs of an Olympic gold medalist in ice dance.

I was going to post a bunch more photos but they're all the same. If you've decided the Tessa Virtue that you've made up in your head is a woman who, if pregnant, would show stereotypically (even though there's actually no such thing as typical) a million pictures won't make that worldview shift.

*****

I was debating posting my thoughts about Marina, as I think the discussion has, at times, gotten down to disagreeing on first principles. When that happens, you just have to agree to disagree; you're not going to change someone's mind on the fundamentals. This post is not an attempt to change minds, but to express my own views, even though I'll reference contrary views. My views start here:

I think Marina/Canton remains the best training center for Tessa and Scott, and Marina the best choreographer for the team. I have thoughts about the political influences that may direct where VM train, if they do continue, and will mention that when the post reaches that point. But to start, I refer to this latest article from icenetwork.com:

icenetwork article on Marina, Canton and current teams

I think the key is fluidity and collaboration in the process of building a program. Here are excerpts that highlight why I think this is the best training center for Tessa and Scott:

"This is actually really different for me. Nikoli did all the work by himself," he said. "I think it's really great. Every coach can see one piece of program from [his or her] own view, and everyone wants to give you the best. When you skate in competition, everybody has different tastes, and I think our coaches have the same [goal] but different tastes. If you want to be a good skater, you have to feed on these different [viewpoints]."

Since her days with G&G, Marina has been a collaborative coach/choreographer, and yet some fans have decided, and, having decided, insist, that she refuses to allow outside influences, despite that fact that collaboration and proactively bringing in outside influences has been the hallmark of her training process since she became a choreographer. She encourages her skaters to do the same. To the extent Scott and Tessa are self-determined and draw upon outside resources, they are modeling Marina, not working against her or despite her. IMO they're not outliers in her program, but represent the fullest expression of Marina's style of working -  a style that can only be completely fulfilled by skaters possessing the talent, and the smarts about their talent, that Scott and Tessa possess. Everything known about Marina points to a person who gives her skaters all the tools, all the resources, to be used and understood by the skaters themselves as full collaborators/participants, responsible for themselves, and self-reliant. Of course, the more ability a skater or pair of skaters has, the better this works. Of course the skater has to be receptive.

There is so much "say the opposite" in figure skating and figure skating discussion. The fan meme that maintains Marina does the opposite of what she actually does is just part of the pattern. In that meme, Marina is too easily threatened and Virtue and Moir went to Swan against her wishes. No, this is not the position of every person who is not a Marina fan, but this is the song sung by many who have disliked her for years. This particular criticism is something they've made up, all contrary evidence dismissed. I guess mentioning this may appear to be argumentative/trying to convince, but it's more me acknowledging that, when I highlight Marina's collaborative process, there are fans who inexplicably assert that she doesn't collaborate, or only collaborates when there's no choice.

ETA - To address something I read in the comments section below the previous post: it was mentioned that D/L (think it was them) and Jeffrey Buttle don't have that much experience choreographing ice dance. To which someone else retorted, "JMB and Swan didn't either, and that turned out pretty well!"

I have to ask myself:
Is this person comparing floor dance specialists/choreographers to ice dance/figure skating coaches/choreographers as if it's the same job? If that's the case, Virtue and Moir's horizons broaden. They won't need to train at another rink. They can just get choreo/coaching from Derek Hough. What more would they need?

I get frustrated when the "ice" part of ice dance is minimized by some fans (again, not all fans, and not all fans who aren't Marina fans).

Marina is changing music for the free dance. We tried already a few different styles. That is the way she works. Every day she speaks about it a little bit different, maybe she found another idea. We have all of the elements for the free dance: lifts, spin, footwork."

That's called process.

Marina is thinking like a professor; she knows what she is doing.

I love the thinking like a professor.

When was the last time somebody invented a new turn, new step? When ice dance fans look for innovation, what do they mean? For me, Marina works better with rhythm and music than any coach around. This is subjective, but I think a lot of people aren't musical, or aren't in touch with rhythm. That is where, for my money, Marina is absolutely brilliant. Just compare her to Igor. Igor is a musical washout, as far as I'm concerned. That's why his choreography, even though he steals and reworks and repurposes like everybody, seems so clunky. There are other choreographers/coaches who put together really nice programs, but IMO they don't use rhythm as well, aren't as insightful about tension and release, anticipation/propulsion, counter motion, etc., either (by insightful I mean, what parts of the music to use when you want this to occur, and where to place it in the program).

That was something I started understanding when I originally began watching Dancing with the Stars. I saw successful singers who couldn't hear or feel music/rhythm when trying to dance. And conversely, there were contestants with almost no range of motion (like 66 year old George Hamilton in 2006) but wonderful rhythm, who were able to put it across. Anyhow, I think that's the biggest obstacle to some people appreciating Marina - the ones who don't hear/feel how she's put it together with the music. Even her work-for-hire (like her blues program for Dube/Wolfe) uses the music with movement so much better than similarly put together programs, to energize the skaters and the audience.

The musicality in Seasons didn't appear as accessible to some as Carmen, but I love this wonderful post from fan forum:

http://www.fanforum.com/74168395-post211.html

In my favorite part of this post, the author describes what she/he understood about Seasons prior to the point where her sensibility was finally affected by Seasons (an event that occurred in a later performance). Bolded parts are mine:

I was hearing the nuances in the music that Tessa and Scott play within choreographically - nuances which aren't always rhythmic but are sometimes beautifully subtle alterations in pitch. I also felt like I had a decent grasp on what they were trying to do - and project - from a movement standpoint. But as far as the overall texture of the program was concerned - that overarching sensibility it's supposed to stir - it wasn't there for me like it was with so many of their past programs (and this season's SD). And I thought, "eh, that's all right. If it's not there for you, it's not there. Doesn't change the fact that it's a gorgeous, intricate, conceptual program that is gold medal-worthy" (and of course, the skaters performing the program are feeling and connecting to it), which is what matters.

Cute Ice Princess Blog Looks at the Finnstep

It's just camera angles. From another camera
angle her left blade is actually OFF the ice.
Were it not for Meryl Davis fans, I would never
understand the importance of camera angles. From this angle,
it appears that the skater is on the ice. From that angle,
it looks like the skater is in the Kiss'n'Cry.

Thanks very much again to cuteiceprincess tumblr and to Lady B. And once again, Meryl Davis fans are invited to explain how Lady B has it all wrong.

Finnstep: DW's skating doesn't match their protocols

Okay, here we go. Let's remember that Lynn Rutherford justified VM's Finnstep levels in the Olympics by pointing out that VM had failed to get their levels in the past. That's it then. She's a figure skating "journalist", after all. Like every single mainstream figure skating journalist in existence*, her deal is, "I'm a figure skating journalist, but I'm not a technical specialist" which means "I write about figure skating but don't actually know what I'm talking about when it comes to what went on out there. I trust the judges when they produce results I support, and so should you even if you don't like the results. Should any observer deviate from the agreed upon official narrative (such as the inventor of the Finnstep disagreeing about how the Finnstep was scored), just disparage his credentials." This stuff about you need to be a technical specialist to write about the technical side (which is the damn win and lose side!) is hammered home to us fans, who are nevertheless supposed to invest ourselves in this "sport." Then there are the times a journalist gets worked up about an outcome, but, not having educated him/herself in the twenty years they've spent writing about the damn thing, makes a half-baked hash of it when attempting to challenge dubious results (looking at you, Steve Milton).

It's notable that people like Lynn Rutherford are interested enough in figure skating to work for publications dedicated to it, which means they write, tweet, attend competitions, etc., but they never manage to get interested enough to actually be able to tell what's going on for themselves. They like to tell us it's impossible to tell for yourself unless you're some sort of "specialist." Figure skating journalists have been using that one for years. Those who presumably do know technique, such as P.J. Kwong, don't talk about it when they discuss figure skating with fans and pretend to know nothing about it when a team like Davis White hijacks the Olympics from the rightful winners.

Yet mere fans, who have not spent years writing about skating, or rubbing elbows, are able to read and understand the rulebook, and evaluate a skater(s) performance vis a vis what's in the rulebook. Turns out this sport is observable. Turns out, the rules are comprehensible and applicable to real stuff. We can familiarize ourselves with the rules in whatever language we speak, and then see if the skating and the scores make sense per the rules.

The likes of Rutherford, and those in the comment booth pretend this is impossible to do. Per them, the only way to evaluate the legitimacy of a protocol is to see if the skater has been given similar protocols before. Cuteiceprincess tumblr, along with quite a few other fans (who are, of course, ignored because then the propoganda jig is up) disagrees. You can actually evaluate a protocol's legitimacy by looking at the skating. What a concept.

Here's Lady B:

The next image makes you see two keypoints that are needed to assign the level 4 to the first sequence of finnstep. To Tessa and Scott was awarded Level 3 and a Level 4 for Meryl and Charlie. Let us see for a moment

FIRST KEYPOINT: the woman must do twizzle and a half, and end on a right foot with an “outside back” edge.This edge must be CLEAR. And the foot with which he comes have to be ONE. We see clearly how Tessa comes with only one foot (the left is oriented forward as it should be to give the draw back on the right foot instead is on the outer edge) and a clear outer edge.
Meryl instead not only arrives on TWO FEET but even over a non-defined, completely flat (as is also visible in the gif).

Again, the gif.

This keypoint has been given the right to both Tessa and Meryl.

SECOND KEYPOINT: After another twizzle and half, the woman has to come with a light foot, right, forward, on a CLEARLY outside edge.
Now, let’s see how Meryl and Tessa are clearly arrived with a flat edge and not defined (not by chance that keypoint is the most difficult to reach). The blade is straight and there is a clear tilt in either of both Tessa and Meryl.

NEVERTHELESS, to Tessa is not given the keypoint, while Meryl yes.
Conclusion: Tessa, a keypoint only earned a level 3.
Meryl two keypoints not deserved, level 4.

What’s the story?
How is it that Tessa and Scott are counted at infinitesimal and Meryl and Charlie is not it?

I would like to remind you that the judges have MEGA replay of what happens during the keypoints and the keypoints that are fundamental to assign levels.

This thing happens all too often in the steps sequences, where Meryl and Charlie seem to automatically level 4 even if their blades are miles away, while Tessa and Scott struggling to get a level 3.
In any case, this is another chapter.

As usual, it seems to me that is rewarded the performance and not the difficulty and true technique. All the more reason why the Tessa and Scott shall be made a higher standard and will have to have everything perfect (all executed perfectly) to win, unfortunately.

As it turns out even when Virtue and Moir are not only better than Davis White, but as near to perfect as ice dancers can get, they're simply not allowed to win. We were all sold a bill of goods about the "storyline" of rival ice dance teams. There was no rivalry. VM were cast as foils meant to legitimize Davis White. Davis White are beating Virtue Moir! Ergo Davis White must be terrific! That's it. Virtue Moir spent the past quad propping up Davis White so Davis and White could appropriate what they did on the ice and pretend to best it. Virtue Moir were only fodder.

P.S. - Re-reading this analysis and looking at the screen caps, Meryl missed both key points in this performance, yet Davis and White got L4.

ETA: Figure skating is consciously, aggressively, perpetuating fraud not just on the ice but off the ice. It's connected. Both are tied to the current culture in the sport, with an accompanying condescension and sanctimony. Davis White are so deserving and it's disrespectful to question the outcome in Sochi. And hey, did we mention Virtue and Moir are GREAT people?

_____________________________
*As ever, excepting those figure skating journalists who write on their own web pages, or for skating-centric websites, but who do not influence how figure skating is discussed in mainstream media, on twitter, or in the comment booth.

Davis White Off-Balance, Out of Sync in Sochi

These gifs below are from neverendingdreamtumblr. Blogger doesn't permit the posting of gifs side by side; at least I've not been able to troubleshoot that process. So, below, the gifs are angled in a descending sequence instead. On the neverendingdreamtumblr, this gif set is titled: "Why Meryl Davis and Charlie White Shouldn't Have Won in Sochi". Below the gif set there is this caption: "Balance issues, lack of synchronicity and they had problems with their twizzles for all FOUR performances! Perfect GOEs…???"

But of course! What are you going to believe? The protocols, or your lying eyes? What report has more credibility - the skating itself, or the commenting on the skating?

So here we go.

I'm re-posting this from neverendingdreamtumblr, because it's important that video like this is seen by as many people as possible. I encourage everyone to visit neverendingdreamtumblr for these gifs, even though they're also posted here. That tumblr has the gifset neatly formatted in a grid, instead of inartfully angled, and the grid has more impact. The impact this mess deserves.

I'm also re-posting these gifs to push back against the notion promoted, even by Canadian skating interests, that it's impolite, hysterical, obsessive or disrespectful to notice cheating. P.J. Kwong, for example, seems to believe that challenging the results is disrespectful.

What does respect mean to P.J. Kwong? I believe it's disrespectful when a team goes out and skates according to the rules, and elevates the standards of execution set out therein, all the while demonstrating absolutely textbook+ skating according to the criteria that governs the scoring, and the rules are ignored. Instead, right in front of our faces, in defiance of what we've just seen, that team gets ripped off, point stripped, manipulated and low balled. Why? Because the sport can flaunt its lack of accountability.

It's also disrespectful to the skating public when a team produces bastardized bullshit while demonstrating skating technique explicitly discouraged in the guidelines, and is scored as if they skated exemplifying the rules, standards and criteria.

Gaslighting is always disrespectful, P.J.

It's always disrespectful when we're directed and coerced and badgered into accepting a lie as the truth. Everybody involved in telling the skating public to do that can fuck off, and that includes most of the Canadian commentariat. If they want to lie their faces off, that's up to them. But when it comes to pressuring fans to fall in line, who do they think they're talking to? A bunch of "fraus", that's who. "Frau" is biggest perjorative on the internet, and that label is implied in everything the skating commentariat says to and about its fans. It's implied in nearly everything sportswriters say about the fans. I believe the dismissive, trivializing tone used by skating site contributors such as Lynn Rutherford is intended to trigger appeasement and insecurity in the fans who are treated that way, who are embarrassed by the implied "frau" label. That patronizing tone is meant quell those who persevere with pointing out what happened in Sochi. So again, fuck that.

I love how Charlie and Scott can be friends and Meryl and Tessa can't

How does that work?

According to an interview P.J. Kwong IMO pointlessly agreed to grant, "let's face it, Meryl and Tessa aren't going to lunch together." says the interviewer. Because they're COMPETITORS.

IMO it's fine to be interviewed by absolutely anybody - a kid, a blogger, a fan, your mother. Any of it can produce interesting content. However don't ask questions with your high-handed, but wrong assumptions built in, especially not to P.J., who doesn't exactly have the best focus or the most logic. Or let's call the assumptions what they are - low rent dramatic fantasies based on absolutely no actual information except the lowest common denominator stereotypes held by the interviewer. I'm sure the interviewer thinks Charlie and Scott can share a beer, no problem.

At least she confirmed what was already apparent - she never asks questions that aren't approved in advance. I'll take that further - she asks questions at times that the skaters themselves would like to be asked. Such as the time she asked Scott and Tessa what romance means to them.

P.J. also told twitter she'd ask Scott and Tessa more specifically about where they got the idea there was an internet backlash against Carmen from the fandom. She never did. And now we know why.

She has a role and does it well, but that role is publicist. It's not reporter.

Hey Steve Milton, don't throw out your notes

Here's an article on Scott and Tessa's con artist soul mate, Notre Dame's Manti Te'o, the football player with the dead grandmother and the dead girlfriend run down by a drunk driver while suffering from leukemia. He bravely played on.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130117/manti-teo-girlfriend-hoax-quotes/

When the whole thing turned out to be a hoax, Sports Illustrated asked the journalist who had written about Te'o's loss to explain his fact checking process.

There was sort of one. Not the greatest. A lot of it was taking Te'o's word for it, and writing it off when attempts to verify Te'o's account with Lexis Nexus searches and other research came up with nothing (no accident report, no hospital records, no funeral notice). Another thing the reporter was unable to confirm was the dead girl's actual existence.

There were Te'o associates on campus who supported Te'o's account of the relationship. And at the end of the day, why would he make it up?

The story ran.

So the reporter spent about 5 days on the story beforehand. Looking back, there are holes in his fact checking, but at least a fact-checking attempt was made. Despite the tears of the football player and the passion of his pastor, and the supporting statements from those on campus, the reporter at least made some attempt at independent verification, although it wouldn't rise to the level of secondary sources.

But It wasn't like the figure skating media that ingests everything straight from Scott and Tessa's mouths and throws it up directly onto their keyboards.

House of Anansi Press paid Steve Milton to write a book with Scott and Tessa. This book didn't just transcribe Scott and Tessa's own words. It was also written in the voice of Milton. Milton didn't do any fact-checking. And Anansi didn't require any.

Although it's someone else's story, a professional will make sure the story he's paid to tell is true, and the words he writes in his own voice can be verified.

There's nothing terribly praiseworthy about the Sports Illustrated story proceding even though the reporter was unable to unearth corroborating evidence. But he didn't cover himself in complete shame. He actually DID do some research. He simply rationalized when his research came up with blanks.

Did Steve Milton research the "backlash, mostly on the internet" that he writes about as fact in his latest kneepads piece on Scott and Tessa? Did he research the rift when they told him about that?

The rift, remember, was the pivotal event of the book he wrote with Scott and Tessa. This rift didn't have a vague timeline. It had a specific timeline. Tessa had surgery in October 2008. She was back in Canton in December 2008. In between Tessa and Scott claim they were completely estranged, disengaged; they'd literally disconnected.

They didn't see each other. They were never in each other's company. They didn't talk. They didn't text.

Except for the fact that they did. All of this is easily checked with a simple google - forget subscriber-user database searches. On damn google. Bam - there's the Skate America interview from November 2008. There's the John LaBatte appearance. There's their Canadians 2009 free dance while the commentator (someone inarguably close to them) specifically describes the time they spent at Tessa's London apartment working on the program while she recovered.

So Steve Milton is a fiction writer? Did Scott and Tessa's book have the subtitle "based on their true story"?  or "A fictionalization inspired by real events"?

When Steve Milton appeared at a couple of book signings with Scott and Tessa, did he notice she wasn't as slender through the middle, that her face was full, boobs bigger, hair thicker - that she was pregnant?

IOW is he a hack, a liar, a dupe, all three, or what?

What's going to happen when P.J. Kwong follows up with them? Is she going to substantiate what they say? She's on the web herself. She knows the sites. The internet isn't some amorphous uncharted mystery territory. It has URLS, screen names, indexes, forums, links all over the place, organized discussion, and the skating part of the web is very small, as Scott and Tessa are well aware seeing as how they have exploited that fact for years. If the backlash exists P.J. can find it over lunch.

Is she going to do a simple archive search to see where the backlash is? Is she going to ask them WHO told them there was one?

I think she's going to assume - or pretend to assume - they are honest. Which is not reporting. Which is not conveying accurate information. When Scott and Tessa drag third parties into their stories about themselves - in this case, the public - they can't be the only source on the things they are asserting. The evidence is available - free - for anyone writing about them to check out for themselves. Why doesn't anybody do it?

This vague shit about filtering isn't reporting. You don't become aware of something in the fucking atmosphere. You are told about it and someone with a name and or job tells you, or you read it yourself.

Where are these people who confuse fact and fiction? On what web page? Most internet users have user names. Which screen names are confusing fact and fiction? What Virtue Moir thread has fans insisting they're together because their on ice performances are so convincing?

What Scott and Tessa do is similar to what Chris Wallace did while interviewing former President Clinton some years back. Clinton agreed to the interview because they were going to talk about his work in Africa. Chris Wallace blindsided him by telling him that after the interview was announced, he'd received a bunch of emails demanding that Clinton be asked why he hadn't done more to stop Al Queda prior to 9/11.

Clinton, no fool, called him out and left Wallace a mewling sack of squirm in his interviewer's chair. Clinton knew there had been no influx of emails demanding Wallace ask Clinton about Al Queda. Wallace made it up as a pretext for promoting the Fox News storyline that Al Queda and 9/11 was Clinton's fault and not Bush's.

So, while figure skating is frivolous, and certainly everything out of Scott and Tessa's mouth is weightless, they do something similar. Make shit up about what the public is doing so they can talk about what they want to talk about.

However, it is the journalist's job to make sure what Scott and Tessa claim is happening actually is happening.

Again, it is not a time-consuming or complicated task to double-check the web pages and message boards where figure skating is discussed. Skate Canada does it every single day. (So Skate Canada also knows Scott and Tessa are lying.) It's not complicated to do simple logic and ask Scott and Tessa how they are so sure there is backlash when they simultaneously claim to be divorced from the internet. How did they come to have such a clear idea of what was being said?

P.J. Kwong has a responsibility to not simply say "Oh well, they must be getting it from somewhere" and move on.

Yes, they must be getting it from SOMEWHERE - so ask them WHERE. Stone up and get a real answer, not a vague filter crap one.

If someone like P.J. or these other "journalists" are too busy to fact check, then their only option is to put everything Scott and Tessa say in quotes. Their only story is that this is what Scott and Tessa say or claim. And that's IT. They have no right to use Scott and Tessa as the primary and only source on what a whole bunch of other people are doing and saying in a medium they don't even read. P.J. is busy. Fine. Then that's what she should do.

Scott and Tessa are not sources. They are subjects. I know the journalists kiss ass, are more uber fans than writers. They want to be liked by Scott and Tessa. They laugh and fawn. But they're not just writing about Scott and Tessa, they are writing now about what Scott and Tessa say about fans even though none of these reporters are able to produce a single piece of corroboration, nor have heard of the backlash til Scott and Tessa told them about it. Fans are actual people. And they've tightened the focus by saying fans "on the internet". The skating fandom operates in a small corner of the internet where they can be easily found and reviewed.

Scott and Tessa can say all the shit they want about themselves - unless of course there is evidence on the public record that they have just lied through their teeth - as there is about the rift. And of course, they charged money for that book and were paid by Anansi, so the fact that the book contains a central lie is extremely relevant information; it's not private or their version of themselves. It's an outright lie.

But nobody checked it. Fine. They damn well better check what Scott and Tessa say about their fans. That's a third party. That requires independent fact checking. Scott and Tessa told them where it existed - the internet. Go to the fucking internet and double check it, or shut up and don't report it as fact.

Media today is all about grabbing the eye. That's more important than careful research. But you can't have it both ways. If you want to get the headline out there fast and not support-the-story, then your story is "Scott and Tessa SAY this." That's your story. They can't become your subject as well as your source for factual declarations in the piece you write.

Official hinkiness



6th Place at TEB and not French = 2 gala performances.

Updated to mention that Hubbell & Donohue were not invited to skate at TEB's gala but P&I skated twice. TWICE.  No last minute fill in because they packed their gala exhibition costumes with them before leaving for the competition.

Maybe if they hadn't skated the second program the team who finished ahead of G&P might have been able to skate the gala once. What's his name again P.J.? He used to skate with Piper? Name not coming to you?

If this is what Skate Canada requests for TEB, imagine what we'll see at Canadians and then Worlds. (As Piper and Paul are already on the team.)

Piper and Paul are prolific social media participants, yet I didn't see either posting their excitement or gratitude at being unexpectedly asked to take a major part in the gala performances usually reserved for medalists and a host country's local and favorite skaters.

Rather, Piper expressed satisfaction with their TEB experience, and, in the same matter-of-course tone as her "come see us in person at Worlds", mentioned the next day's gala.

Whaaaa?

Piper and Paul are smiley. A lot of people at Skate Canada are big enthusiasts of this team, and striving to make the enthusiasm contagious on the basis of not much more than that.

Why?

Tanith Belbin even tweeted out specifically to Piper Gilles (an ex-American skater) how great it was to see someone SMILING in the Kiss'n'Cry at the otherwise apparently Godforsaken Skate Canada Grand Prix. Tanith - do you have this complaint when watching football and hockey - that more team members should smile, no matter what the score? Is figure skating a pageant? What does smiling have to do with anything? It's sports. Or is this preliminary sour grapes on your part over the success of Virtue and Moir's non-smiley but hugely popular Carmen?

It's great to be natural smilers like Tanith and Piper, so the two fawned over each other a bit, but again it seemed like a random reason to single out Gilles and Poirier. And Tanith is USFSA, not SC. But what the fuck, for real.

There's one topic that's avoided and that's the actual skating.

If, like P.J. Kwong, you so strongly believe that Team X deserved a medal over Team Y that you take to twitter and use your coaching credentials to declare this belief unbiased, in my opinion you ought to be able to come up with specific reasons why if you're asked. A valid example of what Team X did better than Team Y - the elements that drove your opinion in the first place. Not - uh, well, I'll have to go back and look.

Go back and look? You don't know? If going back and looking is going to help you find reasons for an expert opinion you've already shared, then why doesn't going back and looking help you preview Paul/Islam? Kwong said on twitter that she couldn't comment on Paul/Islam's programs because she can only judge skating skills in person. Paul/Islam are on youtube, though. Why not check it out?

She's an SC mouthpiece and an ice dance coach, Paul/Islam are Skate Canada National Team ice dancers. P.J. feels comfortable going back to youtube to watch and compare Hubbell/Donohue to Gilles/Poirier at SC so as to retroactively come up with reasons why she's used her status as an expert to declare Gilles/Poirier the rightful Skate Canada bronze medalists, but she's not interested in watching Paul/Islam until she can see them live?

She can only evaluate Piper and Paul - live, video, neither, both - doesn't matter.

Incidentally Hubbell & Donohue outscored Gilles and Poirier by a fairly whopping amount at TEB.

Also incidentally, how does a team like Gilles and Poirier pull down 63(??) in the short dance at last year's Canadians, and despite experts such as P.J. declaring them improved and despite no visible mistakes, pull down a mere 51.+ in front of an international panel outside Canada this year?

There's no Congeniality segment in CoP. There's no Level 4s or high GOES for fun. Or "this program is more appealing" base value.

It's a competition - GP aren't being scored against previous outings, but against other teams. P.J. tells twitter that as an ice dance expert, she can objectively tell us they should have gotten the bronze medal, but can't can't offer a single relevant example off the top of her head of what G/P did better than the bronze medalists.

Why are Piper & Paul skating at the TEB gala? Is it a special request by Skate Canada because they're the 2013 Canadian bronze medalists and have a bye to the World Team? How does that affect the lower ranked teams who will be battling it out for fourth place at Canadians 2013? I want to hear from them.

Sure, a lot of figure skaters find galas a chore and if Piper & Paul eagerly present themselves as willing to round out an afternoon's closing fun, why not.

Can Skate Canada talk about other things this season that doesn't come off as "We interrupt this 24/7 promotion of Piper and Paul to pay lip service to some other non World medalist team Canada skaters. Hi!

Now - back to your regularly scheduled Piper and Paul!"

For example, how about some follow through on Dube/Wolfe? Last season Skate Canada blatantly hyped and favored Dube/Wolfe - well, the Dube part of that - rewriting the story of how the team got together while promoting Dube's work ethic and championship mentality. True to form as we've experienced it lo these many years, Dube rewarded them by blimping out over this past summer, getting a "late start" (it was said) compounded by an ankle issue (it was said), missed all the summer comps, wasn't ready for HPC, and missed the GPS.

You go girl, you hard working champion, you.

It just cracks me up.

Skate Canada has dropped Dube/Wolfe like a hot rock. The only time they're mentioned is if a fan presses someone on twitter (Skate Canada, P.J., etc.). Otherwise it's Dube Wolfe who?

Where's the follow up? What are their current plans - what is their status?

Instead of 24/7 Gilles/Poirier from Skate Canada and their p.r. mouthpiece, P.J., what if Skate Canada interviewed (not just skyped) W&P about their Grand Prix experience? Based on Kaitlyn Weaver's social media remarks, she and Andrew were shaken by the feedback and the scores they received, were considerably disheartened, but are now re-motivating themselves and revamping. It seems there's a lot to talk about there, and maybe some pumping up, expressions of faith, and overall support is called for from their Federation, considering the team still managed to medal in both GPs despite their disappointment. Where's the Skate Canada drumbeat for them?

They are SC's second ranked ice dance team. Is SC completely uninterested in W&P, preferring to hype a 51 point sd team from TEB?

There's another possibility. Which is that even the lower ranked skaters at Skate Canada are disenchanted with their Federation and prefer minimal engagement. This leaves the Federation looking as if they hardly have access to their own figure skaters.

Sure, during competitions the skaters are compelled to present themselves to be interviewed, but maybe much of the rest of the time maybe they're avoiding Skate Canada's embrace. Piper and Paul step in to fill the void. They don't know the word "no". Their availability gives Skate Canada something to do or to appear to be doing on the daily, as it appears to me that the highest profile directors in Skate Canada's communications and public relations areas have nothing but patronage jobs to begin with (Debbi and Barb).

P.S. - apparently the last-place finishing French place team was unable to participate in the gala due to one of them being under the weather. Perhaps the Canadian Piper and Pal stepped in to replace them.

This is beyond weird, the media whoring and attention seeking. Yes, fan outreach is nice but this is ham-handed and it's self-serving. Are they jostling for a reality show? Is there a voting contest in which they're entered so they're out there trying to drum up brand awareness and support? Where is all this intended to get them in a competitive sport where nobody's crowned homecoming King and Queen? How does Skate Canada envision this translating to success for Gilles/Poirier?

Until something else emerges, my working hypothesis is A) the other teams are keeping Skate Canada at arms' length except when required and B) this push is filler because Barb and Debbi don't have enough other things going on to show how busy they are. And they're a bit embarrassed that the figure skaters are trying to disassociate themselves from their federation on the pr end when at all possible. Using that hypothesis, the overhype of Gilles/Poirier is necessary to convince the public they are worth obsessing over, otherwise the public would be - why is Skate Canada all over this new, low-ranked team who have not impressed at their first international? Why them up in Thomas Sabo's grill, why them getting instagrammed, why are they the bff's of P.J. and Skate Canada? Skate Canada is pumping them up so as to justify talking about them a lot, and they're doing that because they don't have enough else to talk about.

If Paul and Piper nominated themselves to fill in for the ailing French team, it would have been nice if Piper had facebooked an acknowledgment that they were under the weather but she and Paul were honored to be skating. It's the "This is just how it is for us - a bye to Worlds, and of course the gala" tone that calls attention to itself.

Scratch the above. Piper and Paul had costumes for their two performances, so they knew ahead of time - the gala costumes were in their luggage prior to the competition. Fun.

Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, who scored much higher than they did, didn't perform in the gala at all.

Past the top three medalists, gala participants at TEB are down to the discretion of the organizers, as it turns out. What do we think happened?

The organizers said - let's invite that fun, colorful, happy pair of sixth place Canadian ice dancers to skate two gala programs and bomb Gao's as well! Hope they have costumes!

Or Skate Canada contacted the organisers in advance of TEB and requested Piper and Paul's participation, so that Piper & Paul would be able to really show themselves to full advantage by packing their gala wear?

Was that so hard?

 Tesssa & Scott's interview with P.J.Kwong.

P.J. asked each to define what romance means to them. Tessa can't help herself - at first she thrashed like a fish on dry dock and pretended the question was about the romantic elements of Funny Face. Which, you know, isn't really a romantic program. Audrey & Fred in Paris -come on. Let's look at it techically, from a composition standpoint. I could go on for days:

 

Romantic? Funny, we don't think of Funny Face as romantic; it's a
man helping a woman to have more fun, take life less seriously, they
rub foreheads and cheeks together like Eskimos, they stroke each other's
faces a little bit and then end up gloriously in love, but is that really romantic?

To be fair, on the scale of what Tessa and Scott usually do on the ice, that's not romantic. I think what she getting at is saying it's not JUST romantic - they actually do other activity besides paw each other between elements. Activity like having fun together, teasing each other, being playful, holding hands and gliding and twirling, fooling around with different dance styles. So, not romantic.

But then Scott takes the ball:

How crushing for Tessa/Scott shippers. Clearly, he was thinking of:

There she is to his left - his other half. And he didn't even have to find her in the world. Skate Canada served her up on a platter.

Then Tessa says her definition of romance is:

"I think the ability to laugh and be completely yourself with
someone is the most romantic thing ever."

That's got to sting. When has Tessa ever said her favorite thing about Scott is that he makes her laugh?

In their own tightly-wound way, they basically said they love each other and romance is each other. They won't admit that's what they said, but they didn't go out of their way to describe something that couldn't possibly be each other - they described what could only be each other.

And they didn't turn into pillars of salt, nobody burst into flames, people's heads didn't swivel as they pointed fingers and made fun. The world didn't stop spinning and Tessa was still breathing when she was done answering. She wasn't spewing pea soup.

Baby steps, for which they will compensate by sham-messaging just as soon as Jessica can unclutch herself from embracing and intertwining fingers with Sebastien.

Have to give Jessica credit - that relationship was turning toxic but I believe Jessica's drive to remain viable in Canadian skating and postpone engagement with the real world - her status as a demi-celebrity and top dog in Quebec skating is so central to what drives her - that she actually focused, and turned the relationship with Sebastien around - and that (relationships where SHE steps up) is not her metier. But she's got willpower when it comes to her agendas, that's for sure. She doesn't want another worlds medal, she doesn't care much about international results, and she's as ecstatic with a mediocre program skated with meh GOES as others are with near-perfection. Going forward is not her agenda but absolutely, her world as it's been since she's been in senior skating is how she wants it to stay.

At the same time, at Canadians, she demonstrated plainly that she's not some insecure nervous-in-the-clutch figure skater who underperforms despite her deep desire to succeed. That's fans being defensive about Jessica - needlessly. The Jessica they protect is a fantasy version.

The real Jessica doesn't get down on herself. The real Jessica thinks she's fine and if there's a problem it's going to be someone else's problem.  She was one of the few pairs women to keep her composure and hit her elements despite more than one wobble (and a de rigeur doubling of the 3 salchow). She's not nervous, self-doubting or insecure. In the past, she didn't put in the work, she was lazy, she has a great deal of strong, natural technique, great balance and stability and gets deep into the ice. Without those assets in combination with her work ethic in the past, she'd have been even worse.  What's happened in the past with her is her resisting her partner, putting more energy into that than in training, resisting going outside her comfort zone, and also using the ice as a passive aggressive venue if, off ice, someone else's will (Bryce's, say) prevailed over hers in any area either professionally or personally. She'd pay them back on the ice.

At this point it does appear as if she's succeeded in simply putting Sebastien in Bryce's place - only a Bryce who is not pushing for higher level of difficulty, more challenging content, and a shake-up in training centers. Just nice, basic, reasonably consistent pairs programs (Skate Canada-speaking) that keep her in the mix.

Tendonitis

P.J. Kwong reports Jessica Dube has withdrawn from ladies singles at Canadians due to sudden onset tendonitis in her toe-pick leg.

I will miss Jessica's non-tendonitis jump technique in singles.

Well that's a shame.

Any moment now, I suppose she'll withdraw from the pairs competition too, since you need that toe pick for the split twist.

No? She's gonna gut it out? What a trooper.

I have to confess, when Jessica withdrew from singles, and since she spent most of her last singles competition on her ass, I thought - well, of course. She's not really training her singles skating, she was just saving face since she swore she split from Bryce due to her renewed "spark" for singles skating. And now she's over it. She had pretended it was singles skating prompting her decision - that she had no idea she'd soon have Sebastien in the bag. She certainly couldn't be all "screw singles" right away once she had a new partner. That would make her look all manipulative and stuff. She had to keep up her singles for a bit, just for form's sake. So when she withdrew from Canadians I was like - yeah, she's done.

How bad do I feel now? I had no idea a reason would actually be produced, that reason being singles skating situational tendonitis. It's kind of like the jump flu virus she suddenly came down with last year the day of her Canadians singles lp. Remember that? Her eyes were clear, her skin tone was normal, she spun like a top, spirals were smooth and steady, footwork decent and she sourpussed like a pro. But when it came to the lutz, salchow, flip - jump flu.

Here's her chance to make up for it and darn the luck - she's hit with singles foot. When she toes in for a lutz or flip in her singles program - ouch, ouch OUCH!!! When she toes in for her split double twist in pairs, everything's fine. Well, except for her being a 24 year old world bronze medalist backsliding to a double twist.

Although fans of her singles skating will be disappointed, at least her case of singles foot will not be a roadblock when she climbs the podium to receive her bronze medal in pairs.

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.
_________________________
*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.