The Tackiest Idea Ever ; panties for Patrick

I was really stunned today, to hear pj , on CBC , going on about plans to flood the ice with panties after Patrick's FS at the GPF.
The plan was apparently started by someone at FSU, but pj is right on board with it, and CBC is going along with promoting it.
Oh , and pj insists they should be called "Chanties"...isn't that too clever ?
( Which is cuter , Chanties or Word Broker ? You decide. )

Oh, I visit FSU, and I'm certainly not against a little irreverence , or suggestiveness ( as many of you may know ) and really enjoy the banter ( except when vitriol takes over ), but I think the Boards are the place for it, not at an international competiton on international TV..There are cultures that consider throwing panties at someone a really vile insult. And the shame attaches to the recipient , not the flinger.

But even if those cultures are not very mainstream, and most of us take it as a joke, surely the place for such a gesture ( if people simply can't restrain themselves..count 1 , so far ) would be a show, or exhibition..or maybe Battle of the Blades.

When someone threw panties on the ice after Patrick's performance at SC , it was, depending on the observer , silly , funny ,embarrassing,titillating or stupid..whatever ..But that was one instance, and fans will do what they will do..even if a group of fans did it on their own.. well, that's up to them and the commentators could do their best to make light of it. As a spontaneous prank, OK. Let it live or die on it's own.

But it's a whole other thing for CBC ( and by extension Skate Canada ??? ) to more or less endorse it, and promote it across the country weeks in advance to be sure to get a really good response. PJ said the reasoning behind it is it's silly to throw teddy bears at grown men.. Anybody ever hear of a ball cap or a scarf ?...Oh. You mean that's not the real reason...nudge , nudge , wink wink...but what will the children's hospitals do with all those women's underpants ? and will they be racey ?

Pj is thoughtfully informing the recruits that the Ch..(no, I refuse )..the PANTIES must be in a plastic bag.. and salad tongs must be provided for the little flower monitor girls to pick them up with.. Good Grief ! What impression does that give ? Inappropriate , much ?

It will only fan the flames of Chan-gate ( the embers are never fully out ). It could also make us have to wear our maple leaf pins under our lapels for a while. ...I wonder what the fans of the other male skaters will do to compete ?

Shame on CBC. Shame on Skate Canada , if they don't try to discourage it....
I don't say shame on pj, if she just decided to jump on the bandwagon on FSU, recruit her friends and acquaintances privately..go for it. I think it's poor judgement , but that's her business .

However , her employer, our national broadcaster, ought to know better, and not allow themselves ,or their employees, to be a party to it.

Chances are, nothing will come of it.

A while back, Charlie White said that what he really needed for Christmas was socks, and that no one ever gave him any. The D&W fans at FSU decided that at US Nationals, they would throw new socks for Charlie after their skate. People said they'd do it. However, at US Nationals last year, there were lots of stuffed toys and few if any socks.

And that didn't involve buying tongs and plastic bags, just the socks.

This is an excellent example of an idea that's funny at its conception, but no further. :|

I still say Grushina and Goncharov's 2006 FD costumes were the tackiest idea ever.

You have a point there! Those tassels were embarassing. I don't remember a thing about that dance, other than the costumes.

Try this experiment.
Take a pair of panties, and throw them as far as you can.

.................. How far did they go?

But in a plastic bag, they go farther.

This is a lousy idea. It's redolent of a bad Las Vegas act, except it's televised.

I think I just internally vomited.

PolymerBob said:

Try this experiment.
Take a pair of panties, and throw them as far as you can.

.................. How far did they go?

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Wrapped up with a pair of tongs? Pretty far

claphappy said:

This is an excellent example of an idea that's funny at its conception, but no further. :|

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Yeah, especially since Patrick said in K&C "I don't want her number". Why would someone still want to throw panties to him after that.

There is not enough shudder in the world to explain my feelings about this.

Good heavens but you people are taking this whole thing WAY too seriously. Throwing stuffed animals to adults is tacky. Throwing flowers endangers the skaters unless they're wrapped properly. This is very light-hearted and Patrick certainly saw the fun in it at Skate Canada. In fact, he expressed disappointment that no one threw him underwear in Paris. The male Spanish dancer complained that no one threw him underwear.

This isn't the opera, or a state dinner, it's a sport where athletes dress in sequins and perform to music. By definition, the sport is tacky, and I say that as someone who loves figure skating.

Dragonlady said:

In fact, he expressed disappointment that no one threw him underwear in Paris.

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Exactly. That is what started this whole thing. So now Patrick can have what he wants. It's all in good fun. There's no need to make such a big deal about it.

^One pantie I guess is fun, but if I see a bunch of them, really?
I prefer the rain of roses the fans of Lambiel threw at him in a moscow KOI. There must be something between teddy bears and panties to show skaters your appreciation, if flowers are dangerous..It is not a rock concert either. I cant imagine throwing panties to gymnastics arena..ouch

Still reading in a fan forum is ok and funny, seeing someone on tv to prompt fans to do it, i dunno, i would be insulted. It would be more nice to be a spontaneous act anyway.

Dragonlady said:

Good heavens but you people are taking this whole thing WAY too seriously.

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You're not one to talk.

Dragonlady said:

By definition, the sport is tacky.

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Oh rly? I'll be sure to bring this up any time your agenda feels otherwise. This is something you constantly harp about, actually, so thanks for even more ammunition to use when showing how hypocritical and illogical you are.

I was forgetting G/G's costumes... ( and that one wasn't even the worst )

The original panties were kind of amusing ( who would have predicted that ?).. There's nothing wrong with fans having a bit of fun..and hey , fans are inventive..who knows what they'll think of next ? I'm not crying out for some heavy-handed censoring of the fans, if that was even possible..

My objection is to the CBC becoming involved with helping it gain momentum , and making it an event..That's the tacky part..

I mean , will they do a follow -up ? Will there be a panty count ? .. Who got more , Patrick or Javier ? How many had hands printed on them ? Did any of them have cut-outs in surprising places ?

Maybe next they could have a camera on hand for the FSU PSoTY awards, and have pj explain it to the viewers at large ?

Isn't the skating enough of an event for the CBC ?

colleen o'neill said:

My objection is to the CBC becoming involved with helping it gain momentum , and making it an event..That's the tacky part..

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I wonder if CBC and so many people would be so on board with this idea if a gay male skater were involved and a mass number of gay male audience members were planning on showering him with jockstraps in appreciation and "to have fun". :think: It's no surprise so many people are for the idea of trying to make male figure skating appear as heterosexual as possible. It reminds me of how US television always makes it a priority to showcase fluff pieces of Michael Weiss and Todd Eldredge with their wives and families. How come we never saw a fluff of Johnny Weir or Rudy Galindo with a significant other? All we got instead were commentators mocking their costumes and how outlandish they were. :disapp:

FWIW, CTV is showing Nationals this year, so I don't know how much CBC should be blamed.

If you read about how this all came about on FSU, you might look at it differently.

Like many things, what starts out as a simple and light-hearted idea (no big fuss), can snowball and transform in unexpected ways. Ziploc bags and tongs?

I have no idea if anyone will throw anything at the GPF - the whole idea may have fizzled out by now, as these things usually do. I'm just surprised at all the harsh judgments. I think that this sort of thing works better when it is fairly spontaneous, but from what I've read, I'd say that everyone involved (including PJ) meant well.

OK, is it April first already? I just watched the PJ episode...this goes way beyond tacky....this even goes beyond the crack-a-toe-ah butt in the air spin.
We do this kind of thing at the Reno Air races every day but at a figure skating event????
If someone has a link showing that the CBC is promoting this, I would like to see it.
In the last century, there was an announcer (Bryant Gumbel's brother) for the Olympics that suggested there should be nude pairs skating...but that didnt
mean the network endorsed it.

Chris who likes the crowds in the 1950s black and white skating videos