"Inside Edge" excerpts

[Spirit]

Over the years, I thumbed through Christine Brennan's book Inside Edge several times in the book store and read long passages from it, but for some reason I can't describe, it never quite grabbed me.

But I finally bought a copy because I was running out of figure skating books and wanted more, and I have to admit -- it's highly entertaining and very well-written. Now I don't know why I waited so long.

I figure that almost everyone here has read it, but I'm stuck at work writing documentation (BORING!) and I need something to help break the monotony, so I decided to post as excerpts passages that have made me laugh out loud.

[Spirit]

From page 46:

As it prepared for the 1992 Winter Olympics, the USFSA was trying to figure out who would room with whom in Albertville. Three women made the U.S. team: Yamaguchi, Kerrigan, and Harding. Yamaguchi and Kerrigan were paired up and became fast friends. Harding was left. U.S. skating officials decided to put her with pairs skater Calla Urbanski, a thirty-something waitress who was known for screaming four-letter words at partner Rocky Marval as they skated.

"We decided that Calla would kill Tonya, or Tonya would kill Calla, and we really didn't care either way," one U.S. skating official joked.

[Spirit]

From page 53:

Hamill was next after Lynn and easily won the 1976 Olympic gold medal. Then came a long drought [of U.S. Olympic champions], one that Debi Thomas cynically blames on Hamill and a mythical collection of voodoo dolls. Thomas's joke goes that Hamill, realizing the commercial value of being the reigning women's U.S. Olympic gold medalist, stuck pins in a doll resembling Fratianne, a four-time national champion who narrowly lost the 1980 Olympic gold medal. Hamill, Thomas said, had a Sumners doll in 1984 and jinxed her, too. In 1988, it was a Debi Thomas doll.

But, in 1992, so the story goes, Hamill had two dolls: Kristi Yamaguchi and Midori Ito. Hamill got confused, Thomas said, and was unable to tell the Japanese-American skater from the Japanese skater. She stuck pins in the wrong doll, and Yamaguchi won.

[soogar]

From page 46:

"We decided that Calla would kill Tonya, or Tonya would kill Calla, and we really didn't care either way," one U.S. skating official joked.

All I have to say is that the USFS is composed of a bunch of snobs and they probably typecast Calla because she worked as a waitress and didn't wear Vera Wang. I know Calla and she's a fantastic girl.