Skate Canada, or: OMG, you're killing me
Why is it that Skate America always has a lame field compared to the other competitions? OK, maybe not lame. In any case, I enjoyed Skate Canada way more. Which may have been thanks to a very few people. From the length of my bullet points, it should become obvious who I'm talking about. ;0)
- It's still strange to see skaters who still competed a few months ago now suddenly being in the coaching zone. Like Fabian Bourzat.
- It's even stranger to see those "I'm taking a year off" skaters in the audience and giving interviews and being featured majorly by their home networks. Gosh, I really miss Tessa and Scott on the ice ... (She looked stunning, BTW.)
- Satoko Miyahara is a crazy talent, Miss Saigon was brilliant.
- I'm glad that you can always count on Alena Leonova for an out-of-the-ordinary ladies SP. Charlie Chaplin and a suit!
- I really do find the music with lyrics choices quite interesting - a lot of them are surprisingly classical. And I was surprised how much I loved hearing Lana Del Rey's "Young And Beautiful" being used. When I first heard it here. When I heard another team use it as well, I went WTF.
- Speaking of which, my Top 5 WTF moments at Skate Canada:
5. More than 1 team skating to Lana Del Rey.
4. The wigs in the exhibition finale.
3. Confusing Lara Fabian with Il Divo. (That was a note for Team Pogorilaya.) Seriously, Lara does NOT sound like 4 guys!
2. Viktoria Helgesson's short program falling apart completely due to a costume malfunction.
1. Konstantin Menshov skating to Marc Terenzi. Yes, THAT Marc Terenzi. I actually googled to make sure there's no other Marc Terenzi. - Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro were so much in unison in their SP that you can't believe they only paired up this spring.
- It's crazy how Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford still work on maximizing their technical merit. Yay for Muse, although it did seem a bit arrogant to end with the words "we will be victorious" (which they were, but still).
- I also liked Max Aaron's old look, but the slightly longer, curly (!) hair is extremely cute. I instantly thought, sorry for complimenting your looks and not your skating, but I can't help it, I'm a girl. :0P
- Was Javier Fernandez's SP in-your-face or what?! :0D It was like the rock version of Yuzuru's SP last season.
- Loved Sara Hurtado and Adria Diaz's paso. It looked so authentic with their hands imitating the bull throughout. I just think that her skirt will shrink a bit over the course of the season. It was extremely long (well, authentic).
- Piper and Paul. :0) Well, you know I love them. After all those red-and-black Spanish costumes, I saw her SD costume in particular and thought it was way off (the front was very, very short). Until I realized she's the cape, and years and years of watching Let's Dance have taught me that the woman is supposed to represent the cape in a paso doble. Then it was of course brilliant. What I'm totally in love with, though, is their free dance. Aaaah, so great. I instantly loved the nuances they hit in the music, the change of tempo and rhythms is not only there, but given attention to. I thoroughly enjoyed the choreography, the lightness and joy they portrayed. I liked that they continue to push the envelope in their own style. I liked the mirroring twizzles. I liked their lifts. And my heart skipped a beat when they stopped for their ending pose and he kissed her on the lips. *swoon* Sorry, I totally dig kisses in figure skating routines (also off-ice :0P), maybe even more so when the skaters aren't dating. That made my day. :0) Even though I have yet to see many more new programs this season, I guess this will probably become one if not the favorite FD of mine this season! Oh, and I was a bit in shock when I watched their exhibition number to "Would You ... ?" because I only know one version of that song and I thought that it might be taking it a bit too far after that FD to go on by her asking him, "Would you go to bed with me?" Those weren't the lyrics, though, and I was kinda relieved. ;0)