Sandra Bezic and Scott Hamilton

[hikki]

who's the canadian commentator who only speaks good of canadian skaters and uses the tacky phrase "second to none" all the time?

I ASSUME it's Kurt Browning? He does say lots of tacky phrases IMO.

[Tonichelle]

he's not biased towards Canadian skaters, though, he's into entertaining skaters (he really likes Ryan Bradley, for instance)

it sounds, somewhat, like Sandra, but I don't remember that being one of her catch phrases

[i love to skate]

I have no idea who says "second to none" and all I watch is Canadian TV - can't stand Scott or Sandra.

[jettasian]

It could be PJ Kwong?

I like Tracy Wilson the best....she has lots of insights and never take sides (I sometimes wish she does, lol). I really like the way she said about why Crone/Piorier got higher marks than Weaver/Poje despite the big mistake.

[Tonichelle]

Tracy DOES take sides... holy cow... she was borderline cold in 2006 when commentating Ice Dance and it came to Melissa and Denis... (though most of NBC was like that)

[jennylovskt]

Hamilton is fine for me to commentate the Nationals (except when his comparison dragged the king of the skating into it.). But when it comes to the international competitions, I couldn't stand his biased comments and sometimes unreasonable praise on American skaters. Bezic is OK, though I am not crazy about her either.

[Tonichelle]

biased comments? how is "he nailed it" biased? LOL

[jennylovskt]

Well, the worst thing he did was during 2002 Olympics men's skating. I still haven't forgiven him yet.

[Tonichelle]

the worst he did in 2002 was the pairs competition... the men's event was fine (?) I don't remember that being controversial... (other than the fact that Plushenko got higher marks than I thought he should )

[Dyan]

at least Scott came back with a cool head later that night and the rest of the competition and apologised for his outbursts, that he was caught in the moment and he took it to far, and that he felt that their commentary, in part, was the reason Elena and Anton were getting a lot of negative things spout out on and about them.


of course, no one's commentary was worse than Rosie O'Donnel's on the pairs competition that year saying she'd wished that Elena's partner's blade had dug in farther so that Elena'd not even been in SLC... I was so disgusted by that comment (as were Sale and Pelletier - they refused to come on her show, and that also ticked her off.)

.....

The only problem with Scott coming back later and regretting his commentary is that many people probably only remember the initial statements right after S&P's marks came up that the media focused more attention on. Even though cooler heads may have prevailed in the aftermath, that seemed to get lost in the shuffle. Especially with the U.S. networks constant replays of Scott and Sandra's initial comments and shots of Jamie in tears.

I've never liked Rosie O'Donnell. It seems her job is to just sit in front of her computer blogging and talking crap about various people. I'm glad I missed that disgusting comment she made regarding Elena yet coming from her I'm not surprised. She always comes across and bitter and unhappy with an ax to grind.

[jcoates]

Actually, I like Sandra Besic just fine, too. She makes interesting comments on choreography, especially for pairs, that other commentators don't always bother with.

I agree that Sandra is best at calling pairs (despite 2002), given that was her own competitive discipline she has more insight than the usual commentators who are almost always ex singles skaters. She is at her most technical as a commentator with that discipline.

I hope Tracy Wilson will be in the booth next weekend. It would be nice if Suzie Wynne were there too. Along with Wylie, they are all very good at explaining COP relatively concisely and don't harp on it's drawbacks all the time. For Tracy and Suzie, they are probably used to restrictive rules and constant changes in standards more than singles or pairs skaters are, so they can accept what they have to work with and make the best of it. Just a thought.

who's the canadian commentator who only speaks good of canadian skaters and uses the tacky phrase "second to none" all the time?

That's definitely PJ Kwong. She usually does CBC internet commentary. Just watched some of her work and she used the phrase then.

[Tonichelle]

The only problem with Scott coming back later and regretting his commentary is that many people probably only remember the initial statements right after S&P's marks came up that the media focused more attention on.

how is that HIS fault?

NBC tried very hard to shut his apology down, I'll grant you that, and many haven't forgiven him for that night, but I think it took a lot of guts for him to stand up and take responsibility.

[MK's Winter]

Yeah, I don't like Bezic. Fine with Scott. He was so happy for Chen Lu in 1998. I liked that.

I loved his excitment at the end of her program! Sandra is too blah for me to listen to, even when she's happy she sounds monotone. I feel like I should be in mourning whenever she talks.

[Arianne]

I love SH and his commentary. I love how excited and passionate he is about skating. I did think it was comical at the men's event when Sandra keep saying something like: "the energy and passion that the skaters have will not be reflected in their marks." Scott then would try to remind her about the second mark and Sandra would say something like "yeah, but it doesn't usually count because of the technical marks." Sorry, those aren't official quotes, just what I'm remembering. She seems to be argumentative and doesn't take into consideration anything that isn't her own opinion.

[Tonichelle]

she and Dick Button are alike in that way - and she just absolutely HATES the CoP (still don't get why, it would have really helped with that little bobble with the Russian team in 2002, judging by her own pickiness) - Scott is slowly coming around to at least trying to understand it because the 6.0 system ain't never coming back... I give him a lot of credit for sticking up for it the other night.