Skating Commentating: What "should" or "should not" be said?

[Buttercup]

Speaking of Dead horses....

if you don't want a tweener or teen described as playing a character that's sexy, don't give them one.

1. That's nowhere near the dead horse SLC is.

2. Are we even talking about the same thing? Because this and this don't strike me as an attempt to play up the sexy. Mind you, I didn't appreciate some of the comments about Tukt's green dress last season either - even though that actually was rather tacky. Anyway, it was an unfortunate comment; FWIW, I think it was due to a large degree to inexperience. But this brings me back to my original point: don't try too hard when commentating, just be informative and try to be interesting.

Must say it was fun watching that LP, I'm not sure I've done so before and sometimes it's nice to take another look at skaters' early performances.

[Bluebonnet]

If 6.0 was so vague atleast a viewer understood immediately why a skater won.

I don't think so. I think there were as many cases in 6.0 that the results were not expected by some skating fans.

Anyway - I did try to learn more about the CoP this morning but did not come away as satisfied as others.
Maybe it's because I don't automatically believe something just because I read it on the internet

Maybe you just can't change your 6.0 way of thinking? People who were attached to 6.0 too deep have been having hardtime to adopt the new IJS.

[Tonichelle]

1. That's nowhere near the dead horse SLC is.

It's older by how many years? And I remember it being debated even in the early years of skating fandom of the internet. To each their own, though.

[Bluebonnet]

Should they have kept quiet and told us everything was fair and square...

No one has said that don't point it out means that you have to say it was fair and square. They could have explained the facts that 4 judges gave them first but 5 judges gave them second. So they've gotten the second. Despite they've skated cleaner, some judges felt that the Russians still won. All facts, no judgement. Leave your judgement out means to leave your bias out. JMO.

[golden411]

Andrea Joyce is not exactly a commentator, but every time she reports on skating, I have a flashback to the following cringeworthy anecdote:

Joyce was anchoring some of 2010 Worlds for Universal Sports, and Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir were providing commentary.
Joyce started joking that Lipinski and Weir could join forces and become a great new pair.
To their credit, Lipinski and Weir squirmed mightily, tried to avoid responding, and attempted to change the subject.
But Joyce didn't get the hint, and she kept returning to her own joke, which she alone found amusing and clever.
Lipinski and Weir were too polite to scold her and say something like, "Even in jest, suggesting that two singles skaters could instantaneously succeed together as a pair is quite insulting to those who have devoted many years to a partner and to the unique discipline of pairs. You clearly have no idea how disrespectful and wrong your joke is, and we want no part of it."
They finally managed to skirt around the topic by soberly making comments like, "We couldn't even begin to imagine performing those throws and lifts ..."

I'm sure that Joyce did not mean any harm, but she did appear clueless.

[Macassar88]

I like commentators from Brit. ESP because most of the time they provide positive opinions. You can feel that they are excited to watch these performances. This kind of comments make you appreciating the efforts the skaters put in their performance.
As a commentator, one should not force his/her own opinions (specially those negative ones, and very subjective ones) into viewer's head, even if they were experts.

I agree with this - the BESP commentators almost always have nice things to say about each team and seem to be the only ones who can actually appreciate that these skaters are in the upper echelon of the sport and that none of them suck by any means.

I also like the style of Chinese and Dutch commentators - they shut up during the performances and give their own commentary afterward so that people can actually watch the programs uninterrupted.

[Macassar88]

I often find Judy Blumberg's commentary very informative in ice dance, particularly when she gets into the more technical minutiae of ice dance that most commentators skim over. Blumberg's background as an ISU tech specialist definitely helps here.

Terry Gannon may not have the strongest skating background (esp. when it comes to tech), but it's kind of heartwarming when his love for the sport shines through in his commentary when he gets excited.

I think Tracy Wilson is generally OK but she's definitely had her moments of extreme bias (cough, Nagano ice dance, cough).

I also thought Josee Chouinard was hilarious when she commentated at Canadian Nationals a few years back

I actually find Judy to be pretty American biased - see her remarks on Virtue and Moir vs her remarks on Davis and White at the 2011 worlds.

[skatingfan4ever]

I am sick of commentators right now!!! I LOVED Terry, Dick, and Peggy. From them I learned what each jump looked like as well as what made good spins, steps, and lines. As I was growing up, I enjoyed their enthusiasm for the sport.

Now that I am older and have had access to other countries' commentators via YouTube, I've discovered that the current American commentators annoy me a lot. Peter Carruthers is my least favorite. I find him loud and obnoxious. He does better with pairs commentary than singles. For instance, during Patrick Chan's 2012 SC FS and during the marks, all Carruthers did was comment on the mistakes and then he incessantly talked about Patrick having a modern dance coach and how "bad" that is. It very well may not be the best choice but do you really need to scream it to the world? I felt like he was telling me what to like and how to think and it irked me. I love Patrick Chan's skating, thank you very much, and I am perfectly able to see the mistakes for what they are without them having to be harped on. The commentators made a big deal about him coming in 2nd, as if it was the end of his career or something. Andrea Joyce isn't great either. Without commentary, I can just sit back and enjoy the skating and make my own evaluation of each program.

Is there a website where you can watch figure skating events without commentary? I used to love it but right now I don't.

[WeakAnkles]

Dick Button and Peggy Flemming were the best good cop/bad cop combo in television history! Though Peggy did have some bitchy moments too. Maybe Dick rubbed off on her (hmm, perhaps I should rephrase that...).

[dorispulaski]

skatingfan4ever, welcome to goldenskate. We hope you post long and often!

Often you can find commentary free skating on youtube these days, and chances are you can always find it in at least one language that you don't know well or at all.

All of the Jr Grand Prix, posted by the ISU as the youtuber ISUJGP2011, is commentary free, and every one of the young skaters competing at every JGP event is shown.

Most of the skating events are shown on Russian live streaming tvteka, as far as I remember. They also have commentary, but if you don't speak Russian, that works.

[os168]

The Bad: BBC Eurosport
Right of the bat, they signal a pretty massive bias with their "Spot of trouble comment." They're actually silent throughout the entire performance and they you enjoy it which is a definitely plus. But there's so little content in what they actually say. They keep emphasizing how the audience reacts ("are they all wrong?"), how nice they are ("just for their character they should win it"). There is massive booing from the audience ("not one of the judges has given them the verdict) and they say "needs no more words from Chris and I."

WRONG. We need to know why the judges (unanimously, I might add) prefered the G/P over the Finns. Leave it dangling like they did, you're inclined to view it as an unfair result.

Uhh.. sorry to interrupt but Eurosport has nothing to do with the BBC. They are 2 different channels, one is on the national waves (we pay £200 annual TV License for), one is on cable (which we pay additional £xxx sum to get, but is a free air channel) although both employees British commentators. Nowadays BBC mostly have Robin Cousin as the commentator who's fantastic (and Sue Baker, who's employed for her blond hair, fake tan and doing little else), who's respectful and very knowledgeable. Europe sport, you have Nick and Chris, who are my fav pair, who are more on the ball than not, and they always make entertaining banter that I appreciate.

I love Kurt Browning's commentary, especially when partner with Dick Button (even though at times he is soooooo US biased). It is like share the living room with an energetic wise@ss overachiever of the class teamed up with his old mad professor. I might disagree often with them, but I still respect them. Love Sandra Bezic, she is a sentimental fav too (Choreographer to Lu Chen's Butterfly lovers). You can always tell there's a great deal of good will in her personal take on the performance, with little negativity. I think it is important to have some aspect of personality, credibility and view if it might not be agreeable. The worst type of commentary is too gushy, sensational, pro nationalist and jump to the gun sort, though we have certainly all been guilty of that doing that at home, but commentators are being paid doing it professionally, so act more professional please.

The Chinese broadcasts are highly scripted, highly researched, little adlibbed and highly structured which is probably why it is mostly silent during the performance. It feels like public education rather than for entertainment purposes like you'd get in the western broadcasts. As a result you don't get the strong emotional feedback as you would from a stunning performance as you'd get in western media, though I think it has been improving a lot over the last 2 years. I personally really love the 4CC broadcast from Taiwan with David Liu and random ditsy lady.

[skatingfan4ever]

skatingfan4ever, welcome to goldenskate. We hope you post long and often!

Often you can find commentary free skating on youtube these days, and chances are you can always find it in at least one language that you don't know well or at all.

All of the Jr Grand Prix, posted by the ISU as the youtuber ISUJGP2011, is commentary free, and every one of the young skaters competing at every JGP event is shown.

Most of the skating events are shown on Russian live streaming tvteka, as far as I remember. They also have commentary, but if you don't speak Russian, that works.

Thank you for the warm welcome and the information! I am happy to be here. The only other figure skating forum I've joined was the one at sale-pelletier.com, but sadly, their website closed recently. (If any of my S&P Forum friends are members here, HI!!!) I checked around and decided to come here. It seems very friendly. I like what I am seeing so far!

[dorispulaski]

Well, it's skating fandom; sometimes exchanges get heated. If you feel any post doesn't meet the GS guidelines (link at the bottom of my post), please report it to the mods (use the little triangle to the left of the offending post to report a post).

[Tonichelle]

Thank you for the warm welcome and the information! I am happy to be here. The only other figure skating forum I've joined was the one at sale-pelletier.com, but sadly, their website closed recently. (If any of my S&P Forum friends are members here, HI!!!) I checked around and decided to come here. It seems very friendly. I like what I am seeing so far!

I wondered when they'd finally close it. Such a bummer to hear it's gone! I haven't been an active member over there in years, but remember the days on ezboard before it became official. Erica did a fantastic job!

[StellaCampo]

I have to say that, in Italy, we often have good commentators, especially Mrs. Bianconi (former Olympian, now Berton-Hotarek's coach), she sometimes is too passionate about figure skating, but I she knows very well the IJS and she is very good at explaining it!

I too watch Raisport FS coverage on my satellite and find the commentators very knowledgeable. They spot errors that British Eurosport guys miss (though I love the latter too). Raisport has Bianconi commentate even on pairs' events, and has had S/S and B/H sitting with them during pairs' performances. All this would probably be frowned upon in the anglo-saxon world as conflict of interest but they seem to know how to remain discreet throughout and it's a lot of fun.
The Rai commentators are generally very enthusiastic but also fair and impartial, except when fellow Italians are skating.

I desperately wish to know the commentating styles of Russian broadcasters. From youtube videos they often appear to be talking a lot and I wonder what they are saying.