COI - Cleveland

Just saw Champions on Ice. Had very good seats in section 125. For the second half, I moved down to the first row on the aisle! My best seat for an ice show in my life. I was like a kid. So a quick review, not necessarily in order, and I may leave some out that didn't grab me.

Jenny - The Chicago routine really suits her. She sparkled, connected to the crowd and had a good skate.

Fumie - Beautiful beautful flow over the ice. Looked steady and more stretched out.

Shen and Zao - Wow wow wow. My first time to see them live. Fantastic. Romantic ballad, great skating, their usual amazing technical elements, and great performing and emotion. This team has come amazingly far artistically in the past 3 years.

The Acrobats - Good job here - more skating. Some new tricks, some tweaked old tricks, and more movement over the ice. Very enjoyable.

Johnny Weir - Not his best skate of Imagine, but good. He is beautiful. All he needs is more power, speed and strength, to create some contrast with his wonderful lyricism. I can't wait to see what he does in the next two years.

Tim - A rough night. His posture is still really poor - no wonder he's having problems. I wish him well, but he still really needs some physical repatterning.

Sasha - She is so beautiful you almost don't see the skating. I know that sounds odd, but it still seems too much about being beautiful somehow. She skated wonderfully to I Could Have Danced All Night and it was over too soon.

Plushenko - He is really stands above all the other guys. Such presence, confidence, command, great technique. He was having a ball and so were we.

Michele - What can I say that hasn't been said. Her skating is a perfect blend of action and awareness, of technique and grace. She is present. She brings you on the ride with her. There is not one skater that came close to her magic.

Oh, my God. I think I know you, I was sitting right in the front row too screaming my ass off for Plush! In that section too! You know, curly hair, and um..screamed really LOUD for Plush...I was the only one standing up at the end of his performance and he WAVED to me... I had so much fun, not to mention all of the other skaters (they were right in front of me, you know, so I tapped Philippe Candeloro on the shoulder and told him he was hot and blew him a kiss, and I got lots of high fives too!)

Hahaha your story reminds me of when I went to COI in 98 (I think?) and I screamed at Illia Kulik "Will you marry me?" really loud in the middle of his program... when he was done he turned in my direction and got on one knee!!!!!! It was great.

Longhornliz said:

Hahaha your story reminds me of when I went to COI in 98 (I think?) and I screamed at Illia Kulik "Will you marry me?" really loud in the middle of his program... when he was done he turned in my direction and got on one knee!!!!!! It was great.

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Wow that sounds fantastic! I would have died!

Hey, Rixis. I am not sure if I saw you. I was the one doing stretches during intermission, so you might have noticed me.

I left out some good performances, as my husband wanted me off the computer.

T & M - They looked fantastic. I think touring is great for them. She was smiling, big, almost the whole time. Their line is gorgeous. I always found them a little cold and too studied and slow. But this performance made me like them a lot more. They connected with the audience, and the speed was good.

Ben and Tanith - Didn't care for the theme (Green Acres), but their skating is great. You can really see why they are in the top 5 - good speed, unision, and that special something that makes good performers. Their lifts are great, and I really love watching them.

Oksana and Artur - Passion, intensity, emotion. Yes, he's rather heavy, and they depend somewhat on old tricks, but I still love them. They are very connected to each other and it radiates out to the crowd.

Oh, that's too bad, considering how CLOSE we were (Small world, isn't it?) I was in the bathroom line for intermissions. I'm kind of surprised because it seemed like everyone in the 100 ft. radius was staring at me Did you see that Philippe C. was taping the 2 guys' performance? He was sitting in our row! I was about to die! (Again) Well I thought CoI was fabulous. But I think, maybe SoI was better. I think CoI had a lot of good names (PLUSH) but, I don't know, SoI just seemed to have more pizazz. Plus then I wasn't sick so I could scream even LOUDER. For Alexei!