COI - San Jose

Pictures!

So Champions on Ice was my very first ice show, and it certainly isn't going to be my last!

I went with my mom (y'all know her here as RavynRant) and we were 9 rows back, center ice and *squee* the show was amazing!! I know a lot of this is old hat to you guys, but going from a strictly couch-side fan to getting to see all these world class skaters in person, it's restored my faith. So much more comes across in the performance without getting interrupted by sportscast editing. For the most part my eyes were glued to the ice, well... I lost a little bit of interest during Alissa and Kimmie, they were pretty.. but boring.

Anyways, we got seated early and managed to catch a little bit of practice, which was cool. There was much in the way of girlish squealing.. "OMG they're so close!! Eeee!" :-D Since other people have broken down numbers in other reviews I'm just going to give my highlights.

Rudy: No need for a last name, he's timeless, like Madonna and Cher. Seriously though, he rocked the f-ing house down!

We got special guests Inoe and Baldwin at our show, and it was nice to see them live. Even when mom and I are crossing our fingers and holding our breath as they're leading into a jump. They landed though, and all was right with the world.

Pang and Tong: They almost made me cry. They came on, and it's like no one else was in the arena, it's like they cast a spell. They are just so beautiful. Sadly, she fell after the throw and it broke the spell for a bit, otherwise they really would have brought tears to my eye.

Johnny: I'll admit, I screamed like a rabid fangirl. But I'm okay with that, because he really deserves it. He's an artist on ice, and he's in total command when he's out there.

And that brings me to Fallen Angels. I hadn't seen this even on TV before (mom taped it, but I've been lazy with my FS watching this season) and Oh. My. God! Simply amazing, absolutely beautiful performance. Standing ovation, all the way.

Anissina and Piezerat: I love these two. I really do, and Gwendal was like 20 feet away from us!!! Since he came down onto the ice from the audience. Cue more fangirlish squealing.

Tannith and Ben... I laughed when I realized just what they were skating too.

Come on... SexyBack? Yes Tannith, we get it, you're attractive... but please, I didn't want to watch Hoochies on Ice. Fun number, but they still could of pulled it off without the streetwalker costuming.

And then there was Shae Lynn and the Chair. I must say she made that chair look good. Rock on Chair!! Woo!

Evan's INXS number was fun, as was Hollander's "Hero" number. Irina Grigorian was awesome, that's some crazy talent there. Rock me Amadeus was really cool too.

I know I'm totally going out of order here but Shizuka was absolutely gorgeous, and I'm really really glad that she was at our show.

Plushenko and Sasha were both good, and I really did enjoy their skating even though they're really nowhere near my favorites list.

I know I'm leaving people out, but it really was a damn good show overall, and the finale was crazy, but a lot of fun.

But I'll be there next year, only this time, Front Row baby!

Thanks for the review. How lucky for you and your mom to see Shiz and I/B.
I am jealous.

Thanks for the post, Amazonprincess.

Great pictures! (I liked the zoo animals, too. )

Mathman said:

Thanks for the post, Amazonprincess.

Great pictures! (I liked the zoo animals, too. )

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Thanks, sadly I took close to 100 pictures and those were the only ones remotely focused!

Thanks for the review.
In fact, Shizuka's knee was injured at PIW in Japan, so her fans are worrying about her long run.

yaph said:

Thanks for the review.
In fact, Shizuka's knee was injured at PIW in Japan, so her fans are worrying about her long run.

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Wow, I totally couldn't tell she was bouncing back from an injury. So either she's damn good at hiding it, or she recovered quickly!

Thanks for the review and pictures. I liked your zoo pictures as well (especially the penquins and the peacock).

Hoping that Shizuka will be OK in the long run, and have a long pro career.

yay for Fallen Angels (that sounds so weird lol) !!!!

I think she covered it all...

...but did she mention there was lots of fangirly squee-ing?
I'm in a position (unlike my Spawn) to compare this to last year's show. Compared to last year's show, this was a bit of a splatfest. Poor Alissa went down for no apparent reason, Tong threw Pang and she hit the boards and took out a light bulb...and those were the memorable falls.
I spoke with a staff member at the Shark Tank who mentioned that only 5,000 tickets were sold - which would have been half the house at a skating show - and complained that the show wasn't promoted properly because they didn't mention that Rudy Galindo would be appearing. After all, they'd sold out last year and they promoted Galindo. I brought up that last year had been an Olympic year, and maybe the Olympians were what had brought the crowd in, but no, the man was having none of it. Way to root for the homeboy 11 years after the fact! But it appeared that quite a few tickets were sold at the door because I would have guessed the house to be 2/3 full.
My favorite random moment was looking to my left during the finale and seeing Rudy throw Johnny. Or Ben yelling at us to "make some noise!" - and us being close enough to hear him!
If I had to offer any criticism, it would be that the show was a little Aguilera heavy. That's not such a terrible thing - at least for someone who appreciates X-tina - but there's a lot of music out there and a little more variety would have been nice.
And I'm with Toni - yay, Fallen Angels! I'd love to see more collaborations like that.
xoxo
Rave
PS - thanks for the review, honey!