The meanest person is always the smartest person

From Dictionary.com

Role Model

noun

1. a person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people.

This post is a continuation of the post section below that talks about #ALSicebucket challenge. It revisits past behaviors that have been discussed here before, with the understanding that these behaviors reflect patterns that continue to surface in Virtue and Moir's interviews, in the reality show, and on social media. It's organized around the idea that, while many of Scott and Tessa's choices in public relations and marketing appear to be calculated based upon what they believe will work on the absolute lowest common denominator (a/k/a "skating fans"), as well as what they believe will most effectively exploit and disparage that segment of the public, these choices are more telling about Scott and Tessa.

I believe Virtue and Moir are role models for other elite skaters when it comes to skating and training.They’re role models for how to be polite, low maintenance, considerate and gracious while the center of attention in public.They’re role models for how to be well put together and poised when rubbing elbows with notables.

The thing with Virtue and Moir as role models beyond those areas is they never appear to grasp any larger picture.Tessa, in particular, appears susceptible to imposing thought systems on everything beyond her personal framework. God forbid she take in what's actually out there. She's the original forest for the trees archtype.The woman is always looking for a state of the art filter, the best life edit app.

All of their lives, they’ve been at the center of the frame. It’s been about them.Tessa, in her social media presence, comes across like the stereotype of a sorority girl every parent wishes their daughter would be. Why can’t you be more like that nice Tessa Virtue. As skaters and athletes, they’re role models. Beyond that, there are skaters who are douchier, but also plenty of skaters who do a better job as role models a regular person could look up to. What Patrick Chan, Jeremy Abbott and Paul/Islam did with the #ALSicebucket challenge is absolutely effortless, but you never see Scott and Tessa thinking of it. Everything outside a universe that has the two of them as its focal point is just a metric.

It’s a bit ironic that the post below looks at the merits of raising “awareness”, when Scott and Tessa’s apparent lack of awareness around some basic issues of empathy, common sense and how "A" connects to "B" has been so marked during their time in the public eye.There are few supposedly intelligent public figures who are more obtuse.

I guess what they do works, if the goal was to turn many of their fans into eager, panting puppies, desperate to appease and please.What it looks like to me is a lot of fans are behaving that way in order to encourage Virtue and Moir to stick around. Fan dynamics tend to be the same no matter what fandom we’re talking about, but as far as I’m aware, this particular aspect seems particular to Scott and Tessa fans.This worry that if fans do something wrong, Scott and Tessa will cut off the supply of Scott and Tessa. I don’t see other fans worrying like that. Even Meryl Davis fans who respond angrily when her looks or skating are criticized don’t appear to worry that criticism will drive Meryl out of the public eye.

IMO there’s a failure on Scott and Tessa’s part to ever really consider what’s outside the frame. What’s outside is other people. Fans have another existence apart from their fandom.They’re human beings. In their public behavior, Scott and Tessa only consider fans as fans.That’s fine most of the time, but there are times it’s helpful to remember, before you open your mouth, that they’re also people. The beaten puppy syndrome described in the above paragraph is a consequence of Scott and Tessa’s manipulations over the past seven years. Fans know there's something elusive and shifty about Scott and Tessa's public personas, and many fans seem to believe that if they modulate their behavior, and control the behavior of other fans, Scott and Tessa will allow themselves to come more clearly into focus.That's the game. Scott and Tessa's appearance on twitter and instagram is just the most current iteration of this dynamic, a dynamic driven by Scott and Tessa's constant public relations mind fuckery.

Scott and Tessa don’t appear to make very obvious connections, of the sort that require empathy and a grasp of basic context. As many blog participants know, a few years ago Scott made a rare appearance on his facebook page, requesting suggestions for a profile picture. Until that point, his profile pictures had been of him alone, all of them as interesting as if someone had pressed the shutter by mistake.The only thing missing was a blurred thumb across the lens.* His request made it appear as if he were finally willing to have a "real" profile picture. As he's not an utter moron, he knew fans would suggest an appropriate photo of himself and his skating partner.

After entertaining earnest suggestions from fans over the course of a few days, his request turned out to be a fake-out. He left all of those fans with egg on their faces. Imagine the fans who took some time and thought, fans who sat at their computer looking at a few pictures before deciding on the one to suggest to Scott.Their suggestions and links were posted on his fan facebook wall for everyone to see. Some fans spent time trying to choose not just a picture they liked, but one they hoped might appeal to Scott. Everyone was trying to respond in a way that would encourage Scott to interact more on facebook.There’s a vulnerability in that.They trusted his request. How the hell does he miss that? If you’re only thinking about yourself and your clever gimmick, if you’re not considering that the other side are people with feelings and lives apart from the fact that they’re “fans”, that’s how you miss it. If you lack respect, you miss it.

If you’re unusually stupid, you miss it.There’s that, too. It’s not the fake-out itself that’s problematic, but Scott’s failure to make the basic connections that would let him know that what he planned was mean before he even did it.That’s why I say they’re up their own ass. Sure, he hadn’t shown up on his facebook in forever and day. Of course, when he does at last pay a visit, requesting input from fans to boot, fans are going to be extra excited – but also extra polite and cautious, so he’ll be encouraged to reach out more. Naturally, when it turns out to be a “gotcha”, he’ll look like a dick.

Think of those fans realizing he probably never even looked at their suggestions.Then falling over themselves to excuse him.

I’m pretty comfortable saying that just about nobody but Scott Moir, Tessa Virtue, some of Skate Canada's directors, and Moirville would do something like that in the context Scott did it.The mean of it would be obvious. No matter how douchey people are in private, most people don’t want to show their ass in public.

Flew right over Scott’s head.That’s the kindest, most benefit-of-the-doubt interpretation.

That’s them all over.Virtue and Moir have information.The public/internet fans, officially at least, don’t.The person who knows stuff someone else doesn’t is the person with power. Scott and Tessa use that power to humiliate fans all the time. But does it count if fans don’t realize they’re being humiliated? I think what possibly embarrassed Scott about the facebook trick was he was caught. Fans saw what he did. I don’t think the actual concept of humiliating fans bothers him much, as long as it can’t officially be traced back to him.  

A large component of the sham is creating and repeating a narrative that will later be deployed to leave the fans to blame for all the lying and manipulation Scott and Tessa have done.The general lack of decency in this agenda isn’t a consideration. For Scott and Tessa, it’s all about appearances, all about lack of accountability. It’s all narrative. Actual decency, actual integrity, actual empathy is irrelevant. It really is exactly the mirror of the Davis White trajectory to the gold medal.The exact same damn thing. Both things occurred within North American figure skating culture, a culture which is a piece of fucking work, going by the two teams at the top.

The failure to connect "A" and "B" also showed up in Scott's infamous “I’d trade places with my brother because then I’d have a beautiful daughter” remark.What human being would think of something like that and not hear alarm bells before putting it out to the world? Scott. He was too distracted by the triple twist, back somersault clever of it all. Up his own ass.

So many other skaters would make those connections automatically. Geez, I haven’t been on facebook in a long time, if I show up and pretend to care about their opinion and it turns out joke’s on them, I’ll be a dick. Automatically, they’d know it. Scott and Tessa don’t. They’re used to being the best on the ice; somehow that appears to have convinced them they’re also the smartest two people in any room. But it doesn’t look like smart. It looks like mean. I wonder if they think there's any difference.

_______________
*Facebook is free, so it stands to reason.

Megan Duhamel is giving back her TEB 2008 medal

https://www.facebook.com/notes/peter-murray/isu-circular-letter-no-612-interruption-of-skating-programs-urgent-need-to-amend/10151523504576186

Above is a link to the ISU circular letter addressing the urgent need to amend the rules about skaters stopping and restarting the program.

And Meagan Duhamel likes this:

Of course, Virtue and Moir. What an embarrassment. They stopped and restarted, just like you did in 2008, Meagan. They didn't win. The ISU has never given a shit when it was other skaters, right Meagan Duhamel?




Of course, one reason Tessa and Scott never had to stop their program because one of them cut a vein on the other is because Tessa and Scott actually can control their skates and their bodies. They don't go full bore on the ice despite skating like they've joined a demolition derby.

Meagan sliced Craig's hand (the program stopped), with enough blood so that her costume was bloody when they stopped. That doesn't happen a lot to other skaters. The blood flies when Meagan's on the ice, though.

Maybe the ISU should make a rule about not being able to participate in the Grand Prix series or other international competitions unless you're a good - and considerate enough - partner to keep your skate blades away from your partner's veins, arteries and other parts of their persons that have a lot of vascularity.

This issue is obviously freighted with other issues the skaters have that have nothing whatsoever to do with Virtue Moir stopping, but has to do with other stuff about Virtue Moir. They're hiding behind this issue because they don't want to address what's really bugging them and I don't just mean the sham, but you know, being special snowflakes in general.

With Duhamel, I wonder if it's being a pair girl who waited for years to afford a ticket for her dad to see her compete internationally, while meanwhile Jessica Dube gets both parents at TEB and her parents and a brother at Worlds in Nice through no financial effort of her own or her family's. Even if the freight was paid by the Virtue Moir families, that has got to rankle, particularly when one factors in the extra and gratuitous publicity Skate Canada gave Jessica even when her partnership with Bryce was at an end. If you see yourself as a hard luck case who scraped and scrambled and trained to get where you are, and you see someone else sailing through hardly trying in part because of favors they're doing another set of skaters, it could rankle. Even if, upon analysis, it's not a really fair or rational resentment.

What's embarrassing?  They weren't dinged enough to be off the podium? They won the fucking short dance. Duhamel/Buntin weren't dinged enough to be off the podium. Zhang & Zhang weren't dinged enough to move Shen & Zhao up to silver.  Does Meagan think splattering gore on the rink is not embarrassing, but a debilitating cramp is? What's her hierarchy of acceptable health or injury issues?

Not for nothing, I also think the ISU should make a rule about celebrating on the ice before the program is over - another habit of Duhamel's - but nobody seems to find that as embarrassing as finishing with a silver medal at a 4CCs where they won the short dance and are the defending champion.

Maybe Duhamel thinks that unless you make a big histrionic show of it, it's not fair.

I don't think Virtue Moir faked it in 2013, but I think they did in 2011. And I still want to know - what's it to YOU, Meagan Duhamel? Don't hide behind the embarrassment to our sport bullshit when the real embarrassment to ice dance is how it's scored.

What actually is your problem? What did they gain by faking it in 2013, if you think they faked it in 2013?

I think someone like Patrick Ryan, who obviously is unhappy VM weren't dinged off the podium, should count his blessings for the scores D/W receive and didn't earn according to the criteria in the CoP. The hypocrisy is incredible. 

Who do they think they are?

That's a real question, not rhetorical.

Their friends, along with the members of the media as fascinated with them as many fans have been, along with their families, declare that Tessa/Scott are great people. Part of it is Virtue Moir's talent, and their willingness to challenge that talent. Partly it's they're gracious and unentitled in person. Some of it is just good showing - poised, patient, always with the game face.

For example, there's the family friend who posted on her facebook that Scott and Tessa are "such good kids and always will be - what you see is what you get" despite the fact that she's a sham contributor and has helped them lie. ("You two are the best couple on earth!" is an example of her captioned enthusiasms under facebook sham spam). But when she says things like "What you see is what you get" - she believes it.

I think it goes to a parochial mindset cut through with immaturity. It's the entitlement and complacency that comes from "We're right because of who we are, not what we do." They're undisciplined, and unwilling to think critically or challenge assumptions they hold about themselves.

Who are the targets of the sham right now? The media? Most of those who interview them know they're together.

It's the public? Just the Canadian public? Is it the fans in front of whom they frequently don't even pretend they're not together?

What about those "dedicated" (™ Scott Moir) skating ladies?

Or the crazies that EVERYBODY in the public eye has?

The internet? Who gives a fuck about under a hundred people on the internet - so much that you  market a years-long program of ridiculous and insulting lies? That's not a problem - that's a nuisance. Stop thinking about it and it's not even a nuisance.

It's all Tessa and Scott self-indulgence and ego. They were anticipating revealing their status long before now, but when they realized they could get away with the pregnancy they decided why not continue to Sochi.

What they do now isn't necessary. It's not important to their mental health, to sustaining their personal life, to protect anything. They do it because they can. If you can treat a group of people you don't respect without respect and get away with it, why not do it? That's them.

If they had revealed their status, there would be no significant fallout. The media ignores what Tessa and Scott want ignored, emphasizing only what Tessa and Scott want emphasized. How often has a media package referred to their dramatic withdrawal at the 4CCs, for example? About never, I believe. That served its purpose and now it's like it never happened. The media would likewise ignore the lies in the book, the lies in their interviews, the anecdotal fables, the gratuitous embellishments and gaslighting.

When has anyone ever decided to notice that Tessa and Scott were in public together during the time they claim to have been completely out of touch, that they appeared on television for an interview, that a close associate of theirs, while commentating at Canadians, told us that both Tessa and Scott were away during her recovery, not just Tessa, because Scott was with her? Again, never.

There would be no can of worms. Fans would know their status, that's all.

It's power. They don't want fans to officially know (unofficially is fine) because Tessa and Scott want to hold onto the power they have to manipulate in petty ways and in what they once may have imagined are important ways.

There are no more important ways. There's no "the power to protect our privacy." Scott's own confused and inane explanations about getting side-eyed from fans (which doesn't bother him) while at the same time, keeping hands-in-pockets so as not to - what? Bump into somebody who also recognizes him but now he has to receive direct eye contact or suffer a greeting? - matched with their habit of baiting and stirring the pot, along with their correct insistence that they can go under the radar whenever - their privacy doesn't hinge on pretending to be platonic on social media. Their control of legit media has never depended on it either. The coy come ons and games they play show that's nonsense.

There's just pathetic and petty left. They like being one up, knowing something the fans don't, pulling fans' strings, reading how wrong fans are about everything, thanks to the lies they push on the fans, thanks to stringing fans along and setting them up to be wrong.*

How can you be convinced Tessa/Scott are wonderful people unless you believe the skating public are nobodies who don't count?

Social media happens mostly outside legit media, certainly broadcast media, so Scott and Tessa can treat fans with their characteristic mean spiritedness without it being held against them. Legit media prefers to ignore it because legit media is generally not a fan of social media either. Legit media prefers to control the narrative, and social media challenges that.

Virtue Moir go out of their way to remind fans of their pariah status. They could throw up a photo on www.virtuemoir.com, especially after Scott directed fans there once he left his fan facebook. It's not neglect. They do things like direct fans there and then ignore it on purpose. They don't want fans. They don't like fans.

(ETA - they've now changed the photo on www.virtuemoir.com, and lo, is it a new photo like the first two? Of course not. That would be sharing something. It's two stills from a gala performance everybody's seen from every possible angle already. It's Scott's fan facebook all over again.)

Some people have blamed the blog. Oh the blog has harrassed them.

Yes, because they never lied to fans before the blog. And because an ice dance team that wasn't together would let their buttons be pushed by some insane blog claiming they were. The only reason they let themselves react to the blog is they're together and married, have a child, and they're lying.

So let's say they're pissed because how dare some nobody (which is everyone who isn't them, someone they know, or someone of high status) call them out? So what you do is continue to treat countless well-intentioned people like garbage because you think it helps you score points against an anonymous blog.

If it wasn't the blog, they'd find another reason to piss on fans, believe me. They will always find an excuse.

It also makes Scott's friends feel important. So there's that. We all like to feel important by screwing with anonymous nobodies, or with people stupid enough to take us at our word.

Maybe Scott and Tessa are in the category of neurotic insecure people who aren't comfortable unless there's people they can look down on, and in the skating world and among family and friends, they're in a top dog position where this egocentricity is indulged. Maybe having extraordinary talent has made them believe they're extraordinary PEOPLE, superior to common people who have to pay for tickets to skating competitions, who can't skate the way Tessa and Scott can.

I think there's one category of people that don't excuse and rationalize Scott and Tessa, and that category is figure skaters. Figure skaters with more natural humanity and empathy than Scott and Tessa, skaters who don't resent it when they have to breathe the air others breathe. Skaters who are flattered when fans put together a video or some other shout out because these figure skaters are grateful there are people "out there" who notice and appreciate the work they put in. Figure skaters who see Scott and Tessa actively working to alienate a public other skaters would kill to have and don't say anything in public ... right now.

Scott and Tessa don't need the public. They don't care about post-eligible blowback. They're set. The judges will give them the points. They'll have money whether they suck up to the public or not - they're not financially insecure. Since they don't need fans, why bother treating fans with common decency? One of the axioms of good business is to allocate resources where it will generate the best return, and public good will isn't something Scott and Tessa give a shit about.

There's no incentive for them to be decent, so they're not. I know it's noticed by fellow skaters who'd make different choices even if they found themselves in Scott and Tessa's impossible-to-understand, unique position. You know what it is? Disappointing that they haven't the courage in their public life that they have on the ice, and it's fans who get the fallout from that.
______________________
*Callback to Scott saying anyone who thinks Tessa is too sweet and innocent for Carmen doesn't know her at all.

Isn't that what you both want, Scott? Nobody to know either of you at all, not even the basics about your marital status? How can you say something like that, when if people don't know Tessa it's because of her decisions and yours? You're the one whose used "sweet" as the go-to adjective for years whenever you were asked to describe her. Just because this year the promo spin for Carmen is different doesn't mean it makes sense to scoff at people who think of Tessa as sweet, mostly thanks to everything you've said.

Smiles

It's weird how these are exactly like the last year of Jessica/Scott photos. Face the camera in a public event or at some party/gathering with lots of people, smile and call it a day, minimize the body contact.

Giving Cassandra credit, she doesn't have that needy look in her eyes when she looks at the camera lens, so the ick factor goes way down. The connection factor is still as nil as ever. They don't even sit like they know each other - she could be a fan or friend of a friend.

Scott throws his arm around the shoulders of fans but with fake girlfriends, especially in photos of recent vintage, he's all eh and tentative.

And after posing with a couple of guys:



Wow Tessa, you go out without Mommy?

Tessa snuggles next to a girlfiend while horizontal to send the countermessage that the photos with the guys are OBVIOUSLY platonic because she's cozier with a freaking girl than with them. Who knew Tessa had friends? The way she portrays herself, she skates and studies and hangs with her mom. Has she ever described friends?

This all seems like it should get a Level 2, GOES - 3 for future-hindsight image messaging.

Present day message: Scott and Tessa have significant others off ice! Look!

Future hindsight message: nothing ever happened or went on with any of these fakes. Look, a photo with Cassandra from the time he was supposedly dating Jessica! Look, all of these photos are exactly like regular fan photos! Look, Tessa and her parents and Scott and his parents are all in collusion with it, there were no triangles and nobody was cheating on anybody!

What about protecting yourselves from the future hindsight of people looking at these and realizing just exactly how ridiculously arrogant and self-obsessed you were? How you couldn't stand it when the fans calmed down about your status, so you kept trying to stir the pot? How a blog about the lies you guys tell that was at first a pain in the ass became a last resort showcase for getting attention?

The fact that their kid is completely edited out of their official story for the Sochi Olympics and that they will never see a shout out from the Kiss'N'Cry or their name mentioned in any of the articles to show THEIR kids - who cares. Family scrapbooks are cool enough!

The hardest thing to explain to people about Tessa/Scott's sham? The stupid. People follow along to a certain point and then they get that rotten fish smell expression where it's not even outrageous enough to be funny or - outrageous. It's just - who do these people think they are? What's wrong with them?

Call Capurnicus - he was wrong. The sun revolves around Scott and Tessa.

Cannot WAIT for Canadians to hear that announcer announce at the gala that Tessa and Scott are all that role models should be.

Oh well, let's look at the upside. Since Tessa is now perfectly willing to show herself on the web in a bikini, to pose with buddies on a boat, surely she won't nix the facebook or internet publication of a photo that would show her at the Moirs, or at a party, or with Scott somewhere anymore. She must be growing up. That's a good move for a mom.

Isn't it amazing though, all these off-ice photos of Tessa in one rush, and this is her intimate, private life! But with her professional, platonic partner, she still behaves as if a camera lens will dissolve her. She's the one who says they golf, drive places together, work out together, "are always together" so why does the photo spam try to show them having totally separate social lives?

Yes, let's have more of them. More outing American figure skaters while protecting
 your own (or what you think is protecting), more mocking fans and setting them up for sport,
more double standards depending upon whose skater from what country has won or lost, 
and more bragging on how much more wonderful you are than other people while
lying your faces off. Let's have Moir of that.

Scott didn't like it anywhere

While Scott has engaged in plenty of icky sham behavior, it seems he has limits.

Last year, Jessica Dube participated in this breast cancer awareness outreach on facebook:

breast cancer awareness on fb

If you want to skip the link, here's the article:

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and while breast cancer is most certainly a disease worthy of awareness and fund-raising, sometimes attempts at raising awareness are a little… peculiar.
Remember last year’s Facebook campaign where all of your lady friends suddenly had status updates like “Black,” “Red,” or “Polka dots” and no one had any clue what was up? Oh, but then word got around that the updates were the bra colors of choice and the updates were meant to pique interest of those left out of the joke (read: males) in order to raise awareness about breast cancer. Um, ok?
While the logic of the trend didn’t quite connect–does titillating (no pun intended) men lead to cancer awareness? Or does it just titillate men?–it did raise a lot of speculation for a few days and at least the updates were breast-related.
This year’s Facebook awareness mission, however, is even more unusual.
You may have noticed several status updates in the past few days with phrases such as “I like it on the couch,” or “I like it on the floor.” These status updates aren’t referencing creative places the updater likes to, well, you know. Instead these locations are the places that the updater likes to keep their… purse.
Seriously.
But by updating their status with such a mysteriously evocative statement, women are, um, arousing attention to the breast cancer campaign. Right?
To reiterate, there is nothing wrong with campaigning for breast cancer awareness (or any disease, for that matter). In fact, quite the opposite is true–the effects of successful campaigning for the disease has led to a significant reduction in the disease. Yet what exactly does provocatively saying where you like to keep your purse have to do with a horrible disease that has challenged millions of lives?
So as well-intentioned as some of these updates might be, they seem a little misguided. My guess is that interest in breast cancer isn’t exactly what you’ll be piquing.

 So. Cutesy and titillating, and some of her friends were doing it. Right up Jessica's alley:

Barely an hour later, Scott is an emphatic spoil sport:

Kind of Johnny-on-the-spot for a guy who pretends he barely knows how to work the internet and neglects his own facebooks(s) weeks on end.

I wonder if he saw the update himself or if half his family/friends texted him. 

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.