New Year's Eve Spotlight: Paul Wylie's "On the Waterfront"

New Year's Eve Spotlight: Kurt Browning's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" by Elton John

One of my favorite Kurt numbers.

New Year's Eve Spotlight: Scott Hamilton's "Don Quixote"

Vintage Scott!

New Year's Eve Spotlight: Nancy Kerrigan's 1994 Madonna Medley

Who doesn't love Madonna on ice?

Day after Christmas Bonus: Elvis Stojko's Techno Hip-Hop Short Program

As Verne Lundquist introduced him at the 1994 Olympics: "A combination Martial Arts exponent, dirt bike racer, terrific figure skater."

Day After Christmas Bonus: Nathan Chen's Philip Glass Medley

Otherwordly.

12 Days of Christmas Countdown: Day 1: Adam Rippon's "Arrival of the Birds"

Picture of the author with Adam Rippon at a fall of 2019 book signing event in Philadelphia for his book Beautiful on the Outside. The perfect example of how Olympic dreams do come true!!! Adam Rippon overcame adversity, naysayers, and a broken foot to make the Olympic team and lay down his dream performance to win Olympic team bronze. Pure magic. Adam is a swan on ice!

12 Days of Christmas Countdown: Day 2: Aliona Savchenko & Bruno Massot's "La Terre Vue Du Ciel"

One of the best Olympic performances of all-time. Simply sublime perfectly.

12 Days of Christmas Countdown: Day 3: Madison Chock & Evan Bates' Snake Charmer Free Dance

One of my favorite programs from all of last season. Seductive, creative, captivating.

12 Days of Christmas Countdown: Day 4: Michelle Kwan's "Spartacus"

En route to winning her 9th U.S. Championship title. Love the passion!

12 Days of Christmas Countdown: Day 5: Jeremy Abbott's "Lillies of the Valley" Short Program

I was in the audience to see this program at the 2014 U.S. Nationals in Boston. The feeling in the arena was electric!! Love Jeremy Abbott and love this!!

12 Days of Christmas: Day 6: Nancy Kerrigan's "Desperate Love" Short Program

This program is a triumph! Still amazes me that she overcome a brutal attack to deliver this performance a month later. Amazing!

12 Days of Christmas Countdown: Day 7: Nathan Chen's "Land of All" Free Skate

Super human. Commentator Johnny Weir pointed out that Nathan has an almost spiritual connection to this music. A signature piece.

12 Days of Christmas Countdown: Day 8: Paul Wylie's "Schindler's List"

An absolute masterpiece.

12 Days of Christmas Countdown: Day 9: Aliona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy's "Out of Africa" Free Skate

Beautiful choreography seemlessly woven amid beautiful, sweeping music. This was a truly special pair. One of my favorite programs of theirs.

12 Days of Christmas Countdown: Day 10: Meryl Davis & Charlie White's Notre-Dame de Paris Free Skate

In 2013, Meryl Davis and Charlie White won their second World Title on Canadian soil over the homecrowd favorites, Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir. That season, Davis & White had momentum on their side and shifted the trajectory away from the Canadians and toward their run at becoming the first U.S. ice dance champions to win an Olympic gold medal. The following year, they accomplished just that in Sochi, Russia, at the 2014 Olympics. This performance is filled with passion, precision, and power-- the perfect combination of strength & beauty. I love how the performance builds and they finish with an unbridled flourish that left no doubt that they were the best ice dancers in the world.

12 Days of Christmas Countdown: Day 11: Philippe Candeloro's D'Artagnan Freeskate at the 1998 Winter Olympics

Philippe Candeloro always put the crowd first. As Scott Hamilton said, "The judges didn't pay to get in. They're incidental." Ever the showman, Candeloro was capable of creating riveting characters on the ice with The Godfather in 1994 and 1995 and D'Artagnan in 1998. In 1998, Candeloro was considered a long-shot for a medal, not with other far more consistent and reliable athletes in the mix, but, as always Candeloro proved everyone wrong. After not medaling on the World stage in two seasons, he delivered two of his strongest programs in recent memory, along with a dazzling array of swashbuckling and sword fighting. I remember watching the straightline swordfight sequence in awe--I had never seen something so clever and entertaining and funny on Olympic ice. Afterward, he stumbled on a second and late-attempt at a Triple Axel. Hamilton Quipped: " I think he might be a litlte bit tired after all that sword fighting." Tired or not, Candeloro deliverfed the goods again, winning his second consecutive Olympic Bronze medal. Trés magnifique!

The 12 Days of Christmas Countdown: Day 12: Michelle Kwan's "Winter Song" by Ingrid Michaelson and Sarah Barreilles

In 2010, Michelle Kwan made a rare appearance on the ice, performing in Yuna Kim's star-studded "All That Skate Tour." It had been a solid four years since anyone had seen Kwan on the ice (the last time I can remember was in the December of 2005 at a made-for-tv event. She skipped Nationals that year due to injury, received a bye to the Olympics, then sadly withdrew before the event began in Torino), so it was such a thrill to see her skate again! What struck me about this program is how even with so much time away from performing, Michelle was as fluid and radiant as liquid gold. As Dick Button once described Michelle, she was "luminous with joy." After Michelle Kwan's historic 1998 Nationals freeskate to "Lyra Angela," which earned a record-breaking perfect scores of 6.0, skating legend, and Kwan's inspiration that year, Janet Lynn, found a passage in her bible from the Letter of Jude, that summarized Kwan: "Faultless...with exceeding joy." Kwan's "All That Skate" performances remind me of a shooting star: A brief, magical, dazzling moment in time to be savored and remembered. I never saw Michelle perform again on TV after this, but this moment of exceeding joy will never be forgotten. (Side note: for those of you with Instagram, follow Michelle Kwan. She often posts clips of herself skating!) https://youtu.be/IGmlMmMs4B4

Flash Dance: Flashback to 1998's Top Dance Teams

In 1998, skating was great.

Not the most epic ice dance competition we've ever seen, but when you look back on the names, it was pretty darn good.

Four years earlier, Oksana ("Pasha") Grishuk and Evgeni Platov got flack for winning gold over Maya Usova and Alexander Zhulin and Jayne Torville and Christopher Dean in Lillehammer in 1994 (and I was one of the ones giving them flack. I couldn't stand that rock-n-roll schtik: ), their incredible 4-year winning streak cannot be denied. There was simply not another team that truly challenged them at the top. They skated with confidence and command over the years and embodied their winning ways.

In 1997, Oksana cut her hair and dyed it blonde. She started getting confused with Oksana Baiul, who at the time was in hot water for a drunk driving arrest, so Grishuk legally changed her name to "Pasha." She also got purple skates. Hey, maybe Pasha wanted to create more buzz around her team going into the Olympics, though she really didn't have to go to all that trouble--their 1997 material was excellent. Even though G&P were never my favorites, I always liked Evgeni's skating, and their 1997 "Feeling Begins," free dance was brilliant.

Their "Requiem" program in 1998 was an over-the-top Russian monstrosity, but it's so hypnotic, you can't look away. You also can't look away from the giant bedazzled crosses on their chests, Pasha's likeness to Marilyn Monroe, and her purple skates...but at least there's good, 'ole, normal Evgeni to balance the whole thing out. (Evgeni is a wonderful skater).

What I like about the program is the repetition of moves three times-- Pasha swizzles in between his legs in leapfrog position-- the pulsing, blaring, almost Bolero-esque rhythm of the music, and of course: the passion. I love the ending knee slide and Tatiana Tarasova's scream. (And really, what skating program is complete without a large Russian woman in fur screaming at the end?)


On one of the broadcasts I've watched, when put on the spot about if this team is the best team in the world, commentator and Olympic dance medalist Tracy Wilson is silent for a long moment, before saying: "Technically they're excellent. I can't questions their speed, the use of the running edge. I don't think they have shown up here polished. I've seen their unison better. I believe they are beatable."

In the Kiss and Cry, Tracey comments that the most important thing to Tarasova is the emotion that her teams portray, but she feels that it was at the expense of the technique here, as the program was a little ragged.

Still, when I watch this again, I love the passion of the music, and I long for the days of name-changing divas, repeating leap-frog swizzles, and purple skates:



Nagano's runner-up team was Anjelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsyannikov. I was a big fan of their 1997 "Masquerade Waltz," free dance, but this "Carmen" free skate was a miss for me. As one of the commenters on YouTube wrote, this should have been an amazing program because Krylova was "made to be Carmen," but the choreography made them look like they were puppets. It was as though their arms and legs were being pulled up and down at bent angles, and their facial expressions too histrionic.

I like the first half of the program, most notably the part when Oleg runs across the ice after Anjelika, but the second half feels like it should have sailed, but instead, was stuck in the harbor. I appreciate that they were trying to portray a warhorse in a new way, but this vehicle didn't display their talents as effectively as it could have. Anjelika obviously gets all the attention with her striking face and expressions that can be seen from the top of the rafters, but Oleg is so underappreciated---I had forgotten what a good skater he was and how he moved with such abandon (not unlike teammate Artur Dimitriev).



Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat were third. Maybe not their best performance ever here (I remember Tracy Wilson saying they skated a little tight), but still a very powerful and innovative performance. I love this team: the combination of the Russian drama with the French avant garde. And let's be honest--Gwendal's hair is amazing, and she lifts him twice. What more do you need to know??




Fourth place was Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz of Canada. I know there was a lot of talk around this team getting robbed, but I have to be honest that this free dance isn't my favorite, either. It is certainly more accessible than some of the top teams, and showcases their musicality, staccato steps, and their trademark hydroblading, but it feels slightly cheesy to me. Maybe I'm just a little tired of River Dance--even though back then it was a fresh concept-- but they still skated very well here, and had the crowd on their side. In a skating world when the judges were still block-judging and Russians reigned supreme, there was no way a non-Russian team skating to light-hearted Irish music was going to win.



My favorite free skate of ALL of 1998 is Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow of the U.S. This program is also on my list of top skating programs ever. Every time I watch it I'm blown away by the musicality of the choreography and the fact that it has everything: passion, intricacy, creativity, and smooth gliding edges. Their skating was smoldering and fluid. As Dick Button said, "They are superb skaters and dancers..."marvelous lines. It's what ice dancing is all about."

Commenters from YouTube wrote:

"I just love it when dancers give space for the flow, the music and choreography to breathe!"

"As opposed to the top teams, this had the look and feel of more "modern" (post 6.0 system) ice dance. Very similar to Davis and White with explosive lifts, speed and athleticism."

And my favorite comment of all: "This was PHENOMENAL!! Stupid block judging!"

Despite this marvelous showcase of everything this sport should be, P&S were only 7th at the Olympics and 6th at the Worlds. Perfect example of how medals are not everything and some of the best skating is not necessarily on the podium:

(This particular video is from the 1998 Worlds in Minneapolis, the event following Nagano. The video quality on the Nagano video wasn't as clear.)





What was your favorite dance program of 1998??

A Reawakening: Skating Inspiration in a Time of Trouble

Last night I watched Julie and Julia. It's been a few years since I indulged and boy was it just the boost I needed. In this strange, uncertain, time of world-wide pandemic, when anxieties are running high and meltdowns are imminent, it's good to partake in whatever makes us feel distracted, happy, and rejuvenated.

Julie and Julia is the movie that inspired me to start this blog more than a decade ago. In the film, when struggling writer Julie Powell's husband Eric points out to Julie that "Julia Child wasn't always Julia Child." In other words, she was once a struggling-something, also. She had also started from scratch and worked her way up in the world. These words not only encouraged Julie Powell, they also inspired me.

Last night's viewing reminded me that we all have to start somewhere and it's important to find your joy and share it with others.

I've been away from blogging for awhile, due to career transitions and side hustling up to whazoo, but also because the world of skating hasn't sparked as much inspiration in me as it has in years' past. I still love it, I just haven't felt the urge to write about it.

Lately; however, visions of ice skaters have been dancing in my head. Maybe it's the extra time we've had lately, or maybe it's the removal of distractions that have kept me from my passions, but in any case, I'm back!