Canada's golden couple aim for a comeback

Olympic and world ice dance champions Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir were at the Skate Canada Challenge event this week in Missisauga to support their team-mates, sign copies of their new book and to let people know that they will be back on the scene very soon.

The pair were forced to miss out on the Grand Prix season this year due to Tessa needing surgery to treat chronic exertional compartment syndrome in her legs. However, they have been back in training and hope to be ready to compete at the Canadian Championships in Victoria in January.

This is not finalised and they will likely leave the decision until they can be sure of being ready. The interview with them can be seen on Skate Canada's Skate Buzz website.

As for the other reigning Canadian champions-

• Patrick Chan will be competing next week at the Grand Prix final. He's had good scores so far this season but a number of falls so will be looking to gain consistency.

•  Jessica Dube competed singles this week at Challenge finishing seventh. She is skating on her own this season as her pairs partner Bryce Davison recovers from major surgery to his knee and femur. Bryce was at the event to cheer on Jess and also spoke with Skate Buzz. He hopes to be back on the ice around late March and states they are very keen to continue competing together and aim for Sochi 2014. 

• Joannie Rochette will not compete at nationals this year. She is touring with Stars on Ice but also states she has not given up competing. Despite missing the grand prix series she still has the highest free skate score of any international lady this season, from her single appearance at the Japan Open. 

The results from the Skate Canada Challenge can be seen here.
The Canadian Championships will take place Jan 21-23 in Victoria BC

All That Skating

The 2010-11 figure skating season doesn't start proper for another 3 weeks, but most of the stars from Vancouver are busy this weekend with 4 major shows/competitions taking place.

First -3 of the 4 Vancouver olympic champions can be seen at the Staples Centre for Queen Yu-Na's All That Skate LA.

Yu-Na's first major show in North America and Michelle Kwan's first time performing for a home crowd since 2006. There is no doubting Yu-Na is an international star - but she may not be the biggest star in LA. The full cast includes.

Kim Yu-Na
Michelle Kwan
Ashley Wagner
Patrick Chan
Stéphane Lambiel
Johnny Weir
Shen Xue & Zhao Hongbo
Aliona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy
Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir
Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto

Aunt Joyce has linked to videos from the show here.

Also State-side, the Skating and Gymnastics Spectacular is taking place in Texas. The cast for this is somewhat more limited (as many skaters are in Yu-Na's show and many gymnasts are busy training for worlds) but includes Evan Lysacek, Nastia Liukin, Meryl Davis and Charlie White, among others.

On the other side of the world. The Japan Open was taking place with Team Japan taking the honours (barely) over a very strong looking Team North America. Joannie Rochette put in the best Ladies performance and Adam Rippon topped the men. Mao Asada debuted her new free skate which had some lovely qualities but the jumps aren't all there yet.


Videos for many of the Japan Open skaters can be found online already - follow these links to youtube.
Joannie Rochette, Miki Ando, Mao Asada, Daisuke Takahashi
Adam Rippon, Cynthia Phaneuf, Jeffrey Buttle, Evgeni Plushenko, Takahito Kozuka

And Finally, the JGP Great Britain is wrapping up. The medallists were: -

Ladies
Adelina Sotnikova (RUS - 166.70)
Yasmin Siraz (USA - 161.75)
Yuki Nishino (JPN - 135.58)

Men
Joshua Farris (USA - 187.74)
Zhan Bush (RUS - 172.80)
Liam Firus (CAN - 166.38)

Pairs
Ksenia Stolbova/ Fedor Klimpov (RUS - 151.64)
Narumi Takahashi/ Mervin Tran (JPN - 144-69)
Natasha Purich/ Raymond Schulz (CAN - 126.98)

Dance
Ksenia Monko/Kirill Khaliavin (RUS - 155.04)
Victoris Sinitsina/ Ruslan Zhiganshin (RUS - 133.86)
Nicole Orford/ Thomas Williams (CAN - 133.66)

Bouncing Back.

Two skaters looking to bounce back from disappointing 09-10 seasons are Mira Leung (of Canada) and Caroline Zhang of the USA.

Mira recently took part in the Heart Truth Fashion Show, looking elegant and mature in a one-of-a kind designer red dress. Mira gave her own story of how heart disease had affected her family.

“My grandmother is active and has never worried about her health, yet she suddenly had a heart attack. Seeing her so sick in the hospital was very shocking, especially in such stark contrast to her usual vivacity. Today, she is back to her usual self, but that experience made me realize how important heart health awareness is, and how vital it is to look after your heart no matter how healthy you are. I am excited to be taking part in the Heart Truth fashion show and supporting this wonderful foundation. It means the world to me to be able to help spread the message about heart health awareness!”


Joannie Rochette also took part in the show in honour of her mother, and looked down right fabulous!

I personally have been a big fan of Mira's skating. She's recieved a lot of slack over the years for her odd jumping technique and lack of maturity, but I've always found her fun to watch. I also feel the Canadian Skating Federation turned its back on her as soon as she stopped winning national medals - not giving her a single international assignment to try and prove herself. I felt she was much improved at the last 2 Nationals but they didn't seem to think so.

I hope she bounces back and can show some of this new found sassy-ness on the ice.


Caroline Zhang had a disaster at the 2010 nationals - finishing 11th, but revived her season by winning a bronze at 4 Continents. She too has a lot of technical issues to fix if she's going to stay competetive. But I hope she can as she still has beautiful qualities.

This is still all unofficial but word is that Caroline's coach Ming Xu Li has moved back to China and she is now being coached by Tammy Gambill. If this is so, it should all be confirmed at the US champs camp later in the summer.

Caroline has bounced around coaches before, but I hope she can settle down and make it work this year.

(Mira & Joannie's photos came from the Heart Truth show's Flikr Account. Caroline's photo was taken by my friend and skating photographer Phil Culhane)

Dinner with the Queen

Canada's olympic ice dance champions, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were invited to dinner with the Queen in Toronto, during her recent visit to Canada.

Tessa wrote about the experience for Skate Canada/Skatebuzz. Follow the links to see photos of their outfits!

Sunday night – 9:30 p.m.

It was surprising enough to receive an invitation from the Prime Minister to meet the Queen of England and The Duke of Edinburgh, but on the eve of the big event, we got an official invitation to join the Royals at the HEAD TABLE! WOW! We were floored! What an incredible honour - but what could we have possibly done to deserve this privilege??!!!

Monday morning
Scott rented a tux - very 007; classic and sharp. So after picking that up - and waiting while the sleeves were lengthened - we were on our way to Toronto for the big adventure. Scott was driving and we had the tunes blaring – even our new free dance music was on the CD I made for the trip. We made good time, probably because there was very little traffic (not because Scott was driving fast J) -- we even had time to grab lunch at East Side Mario's beside our hotel – The Intercontinental. Everything was going smoothly! Until.....

Monday afternoon
…immediately after I got out of the shower - before blow-drying my hair - the power went out!!!! Getting ready without much light and sans hair appliances was challenging to say the least. Of all times for a power outage!!! Scott and I have a little experience handling stress and managed to pull ourselves together as you can see in the photos!!! Off we marched, in the sweltering heat, across the street to the Royal York.

Monday evening
We registered and entered an opulent grand ballroom. At this point my main concern shifted to not spilling anything on my dress and to not tripping. There was a sophisticated reception abuzz with glamorous guests – we met so many distinguished people! It was great to see one of our friends, Jennifer Heil, Olympic mogul skier and reminisce about the Games!

The time came to proceed through the receiving line - Prime Minister Harper, Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, Mrs. Harper. Hand shake, curtsy/bow, curtsy/bow, hand shake - did that really just happen?????

Dinner was incredible - we were two of ten people at the head table. This once-in-a lifetime experience was better than I ever dreamed it could be - the grace, charm and kindness expressed by Her Majesty and His Royal Highness was astonishing and heart-warming!

The Canadian Tenors performed three songs after dessert- the energy in the room was so united and electrifying! The night ended with the Tenors singing O Canada and everyone joining in. What a proud moment! Scott and I were absolutely overwhelmed by the magnitude of the entire evening!!!

Monday night
We exited the Royal York Hotel on cloud nine (and carrying Your Majesty The Queen and Your Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh's place cards from the dinner table). We'd met so many inspirational people and experienced something most people only dream about!

Scott added his thoughts about the event as well.

“Oh my, it was an unbelievable evening. Of course Tessa looked stunning in her green dress and it was such an honour to be seated at the same table as Her Majesty, His Royal Highness and The Right Honourable Stephen Harper. I really enjoyed the company of General Walter Natynczyk who had fascinating stories about inspiring our troops overseas and his experiences with the Snowbirds. The whole evening went by so quickly and it was just another opportunity for us to realize how lucky we are to be Canadian and celebrate that with The Queen of Canada herself!”

Tessa and Scott weren' t the only skaters to meet the Queen during her visit to Canada, Joannie Rochette was also invited to, and gave a speech at the royal celebrations of Canada Day on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

Skating News and Tweets

Joannie Rochette has been busy - this week she attended the G20 ceremonies as a guest and sat next to Michelle Obama for lunch. She also was at the Canadian Grand Prix and will be a special guest for the official Canada day celebrations in Ottawa on Thursday. Oh and on top of all that she was nominated for an ESPY award for 'best moment'. I hope she wins, she deserves it.
Read more here


Evgeni Plushenko will not be in the Grand Prix this season or in the 2014 olympics. He has lost his ISU eligibility by competing in professional ice shows. Read it here.

Mao Asada has a refreshing new exhibition at Dreams on Ice. The kind of beautiful programme you can just sit back and enjoy. She has become an elegant young woman. Also Daisuke Takahashi unveiled his new exhibition choreographed by Stephane Lambiel.


Adam Rippon will skate to Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet for his SP and Rachmaninov Piano Concerto number 2 for his LP. He was interviewed by Icenetwork.

Changes to jump values under the new ISU rules.
The value of quad toe was raised to 10.3 (from 9.8), tripe Axel to 8.5 (from 8.2). Base value of double Axel lowered to 3.3 (from 3.5).
Jump under-rotated by 1/4 to 1/2 revolution gets 70% of base value. Jump under-rotated by more than 1/2 gets downgraded to next lower jump.

Ilderton, ON honoured its olympic champions, Tessa and Scott.


Scott Hamilton is recovering well after his surgery. He tweeted this
Thank you, everyone, for your love, support & prayers during my recent brain surgery! You lifted me up & gave me strength to get through it!

Denis Ten tweeted

I need new feet for my new skates. Can anybody share them with me?

Mixed emotions on the Vancouver Podium

The Olympics were only 4 months ago but over the weekend the assignments came out for this seasons international competitions. (If interested - view them here) Both the ladies champion and silver medallist are planning to get back on the ice again this autumn, which is great for the sport as I'm sure they have more to give.

Vancouver Medallists - looking back.

Gold for her country

Until a few years ago, South Korea was known for some great speed skaters, but never for figure skating. One talented teenager changed all that - Yu-Na Kim. Within a few years she won every title there is to win and broke every record there was to break in figure skating. In the process she became her country's number one celebrity.

Her coach (and himself a Canadian skating legend), Brian Orser described travelling with Yu-Na as like being with Princess Diana. In Vancouver photographers were hiding in the lockers overnight to to have a shot at getting near the ice to photograph her olympic moment. With all this pressure and the eyes of her country on her, Yu-Na delivered, hammering the competition and winning her country's first olympic medal in skating.

When Only Gold Will Do.

Silver medallist Mao Asada looked in serious need of a hug on the podium. Rather than proud of her achievment she was devistated. 2nd was a loss.



Mao was perhaps cursed with bad luck and a bad birthday. In 2006 she was 87 days too young to compete in the olympics in Turin. In that year at other competitions she beat all 3 of the torino olympic medallists. She may have been the best in the world at 15, but she would have to wait her turn.

Over 4 years she definitely improved and developed, breaking records and winning gold medals in the process. But by the time Vancouver came around most of the world was already counting her out. Her skates in Vancouver were great- but not quite as great as Yu-Na's.

Mao didn't dwell on her disappointment for long. She was back practicing just days after the olympics so that, a month later, she was able to win the world championship gold (Coincidently- in Turin). Then she could smile again.

As good as Gold.

Without doubt the most courageous performance of Vancouver 2010 was that of Canadian Joannie Rochette. Rochette was woken by her father in the olympic village 2 days before her skate to be told her mother had died of a heart attack. Thérèse Rochette was in Vancouver ready to watch her daughter compete- their life's work and dream.

In honour of her Mother, Joannie bravely decided to go ahead and compete. She kept it together and skated personal best scores in both programs to win a bronze medal, for herself, her mother and for Canada. The Canadian team honoured her for her bravery and Joannie carried the Canadian flag at the closing ceremony.



So anyway, there was no particular reason for me to write this little summary, and no particular reason for you to read it. But if you have - thanks and I hope you enjoyed it! Hilights of the figure skating from vancouver (as well as all the sports) can be found here.