- Joined
- Jul 28, 2003
Joy of 6: The thrill is gone
It'll be computerized scoring at next Worlds
Here is an excellent article on the 6.0 marking system.
Joy of 6: The thrill is gone
It'll be computerized scoring a
By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
DORTMUND, Germany -- This is where they deep-six the 6.0.
This is where they'll hold last rites for all the wrongs.
This is where they'll leave all those magical moments when 6.0 said what adjectives couldn't completely communicate - and, yes, those other nights when it spelled out how sick this sport has been and, until proven otherwise, remains.
The Canadian storyline at the World Figure Skating Championships, which open here today, is the possible end of a streak of 22 consecutive Worlds with Canada putting people on the podium. But the end of the run for 6.0 is a Canadian story, too.
It's a Canadian-made "solution" which will be put into play through the world next year if the whole deal is ratified at the ISU Congress in June as expected. The system was used for Grand Prix events this year.
If there is a 6.0 skate at Worlds next year in Moscow or the year after in Calgary, not to mention the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy, it'll be spit out of a computer as a 247.3, or some such number, which will send no one into rapture or have them look for the French judge, either.
That the Russians are dead set against the new system is enough for me. If they don't like it, I love it.
"If you do an informal survey with the figure skating community here, the vast majority will be very glad to see this week over with and the current system dead and buried," says Paul Martini, the Canadian skating legend who will be back behind a microphone as CBC returns as World Figure Skating Championship rights holders.
"Everyone has reached the point where this system tastes really bad," he said.
True enough. But there's going to be a feeling of loss, too. Maybe somebody here will get the last 6.0.
I, for one, am going to miss ol' Six Point Zero. So many major memories in this sport are hooked to the number.
The first time it moved me was at the Sarajevo Olympic Winter Games where Torvill & Dean strung 6.0s across the board.
SOME SPECIAL NIGHTS
Figure skating fans from coast to coast in Canada have memories of special 6.0 nights.
In Edmonton, they'll always remember the 1996 Worlds when Lu Chen of China put up two 6.0s and American Michelle Kwan put up four 6.0s to beat her.
Kwan, incidentally, won her first Worlds that year. She's here this year to try for her fifth.
I flew from Frankfurt to Dusseldorf with her and brought the subject up.
"Of course, that's a moment I'll never forget," she said. "I don't know that it'll be the same without that number."
Maybe she'll be the one to get the last 6.0 here.
The fans in Calgary at the 2000 Canadians saw one to treasure, too.
Kurt Browing's Casablanca routine was the acknowledged Canadian classic until Jamie Sale and David Pelletier perfected their Love Story that year.
It was five 6.0s. No Canadian pairs team had ever been given one before. But mostly it was the feeling, the realization you had experienced something exceptional, something extraordinary, something exquisite.
I'll always remember Canadian skating great Barbara Underhill sitting in the stands that night.
"I wasn't just crying. I was sobbing uncontrollably," said the former skater who has also hooked up with the CBC crew here.
UNFORGETTABLE FEELING
"It was everything I miss about skating. How can I explain it? I was out there. I was remembering what it felt like to bring the audience in. It was unlike anything I have ever seen in pairs skating. I've never seen anything like that anywhere, ever. I've never seen a pair have an audience in their hands like that."
Will it be the same without the 6.0s as exclamation marks?
Then there were the other ones when even the Canadian judges started to use the number to try and promote Canadian skaters.
Like that night at Canadians in Saskatoon last year, the year after the Sale & Pelletier Salt Lake Olympic judges scandal when longtime figure-skating announcer Guy Cormier read out the numbers one by one for Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz - 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0 - but had no illusion Torvill & Dean had been reinvented.
Or the time in Hamilton when Elvis Stojko was given six of them - two for artistic impression, blowing the Canadian judges' credibility.
Maybe the new system will be more fair. But will it be the cure? Will a new system prevent the same judges from cheating? You can make the case that now it's easier. Now they're anonymous. In the 6.0 system, you could finger the French judge the minute the scores went up.
Until the ISU gets its head out of the sand and realizes that as long as national associations appoint and bring their own judges to these events, they'll continue to commit the crimes.
In an honourable world, the 6.0 wouldn't have had to go.
It'll be computerized scoring at next Worlds
Here is an excellent article on the 6.0 marking system.
Joy of 6: The thrill is gone
It'll be computerized scoring a
By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
DORTMUND, Germany -- This is where they deep-six the 6.0.
This is where they'll hold last rites for all the wrongs.
This is where they'll leave all those magical moments when 6.0 said what adjectives couldn't completely communicate - and, yes, those other nights when it spelled out how sick this sport has been and, until proven otherwise, remains.
The Canadian storyline at the World Figure Skating Championships, which open here today, is the possible end of a streak of 22 consecutive Worlds with Canada putting people on the podium. But the end of the run for 6.0 is a Canadian story, too.
It's a Canadian-made "solution" which will be put into play through the world next year if the whole deal is ratified at the ISU Congress in June as expected. The system was used for Grand Prix events this year.
If there is a 6.0 skate at Worlds next year in Moscow or the year after in Calgary, not to mention the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy, it'll be spit out of a computer as a 247.3, or some such number, which will send no one into rapture or have them look for the French judge, either.
That the Russians are dead set against the new system is enough for me. If they don't like it, I love it.
"If you do an informal survey with the figure skating community here, the vast majority will be very glad to see this week over with and the current system dead and buried," says Paul Martini, the Canadian skating legend who will be back behind a microphone as CBC returns as World Figure Skating Championship rights holders.
"Everyone has reached the point where this system tastes really bad," he said.
True enough. But there's going to be a feeling of loss, too. Maybe somebody here will get the last 6.0.
I, for one, am going to miss ol' Six Point Zero. So many major memories in this sport are hooked to the number.
The first time it moved me was at the Sarajevo Olympic Winter Games where Torvill & Dean strung 6.0s across the board.
SOME SPECIAL NIGHTS
Figure skating fans from coast to coast in Canada have memories of special 6.0 nights.
In Edmonton, they'll always remember the 1996 Worlds when Lu Chen of China put up two 6.0s and American Michelle Kwan put up four 6.0s to beat her.
Kwan, incidentally, won her first Worlds that year. She's here this year to try for her fifth.
I flew from Frankfurt to Dusseldorf with her and brought the subject up.
"Of course, that's a moment I'll never forget," she said. "I don't know that it'll be the same without that number."
Maybe she'll be the one to get the last 6.0 here.
The fans in Calgary at the 2000 Canadians saw one to treasure, too.
Kurt Browing's Casablanca routine was the acknowledged Canadian classic until Jamie Sale and David Pelletier perfected their Love Story that year.
It was five 6.0s. No Canadian pairs team had ever been given one before. But mostly it was the feeling, the realization you had experienced something exceptional, something extraordinary, something exquisite.
I'll always remember Canadian skating great Barbara Underhill sitting in the stands that night.
"I wasn't just crying. I was sobbing uncontrollably," said the former skater who has also hooked up with the CBC crew here.
UNFORGETTABLE FEELING
"It was everything I miss about skating. How can I explain it? I was out there. I was remembering what it felt like to bring the audience in. It was unlike anything I have ever seen in pairs skating. I've never seen anything like that anywhere, ever. I've never seen a pair have an audience in their hands like that."
Will it be the same without the 6.0s as exclamation marks?
Then there were the other ones when even the Canadian judges started to use the number to try and promote Canadian skaters.
Like that night at Canadians in Saskatoon last year, the year after the Sale & Pelletier Salt Lake Olympic judges scandal when longtime figure-skating announcer Guy Cormier read out the numbers one by one for Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz - 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0 - but had no illusion Torvill & Dean had been reinvented.
Or the time in Hamilton when Elvis Stojko was given six of them - two for artistic impression, blowing the Canadian judges' credibility.
Maybe the new system will be more fair. But will it be the cure? Will a new system prevent the same judges from cheating? You can make the case that now it's easier. Now they're anonymous. In the 6.0 system, you could finger the French judge the minute the scores went up.
Until the ISU gets its head out of the sand and realizes that as long as national associations appoint and bring their own judges to these events, they'll continue to commit the crimes.
In an honourable world, the 6.0 wouldn't have had to go.
