Apologies in advance: I've been watching skating for nearly 40 years, so this is going to be long.
John Curry: For elegance, line, perfect technique, and encorporating dance vocabulary into skating vocabulary. Don Q in 1976 was only the beginning for Curry.
Michelle Kwan: For grace, musicality, and control. Not a superfluous movement in her performances.
Gary Beacom: For unsurpassed creativity and curiosity, with presence and virility.
Janet Lynn: For grace, speed, fluidity, musicality, and ease over the surface of the ice.
Kurt Browning: For versatility, being a full-body skater, and amazing footwork.
Protopopovs: For unsurpassed one-ness, grace, edges, and elegance.
Gordeeva/Grinkov: For speed, grace, transitions, control, and synchronicity.
Mishkutienok/Dmietriev: For the tension they kept throughout each program, skating as equals.
Denise Biellman: For the strength and amplitude of her skating and great technique.
Usova/Zhulin: Because she was the balance between emotion and restraint and she had the most beautiful, deep edges of any skater I've ever seen. For skating "Summertime" to perfection (91 or 92).
Klimova/Ponomorenko: For line, passion, and one-ness.
Denkova/Staviyski: For skating with equal strength, authority, energy, and blades nearly on top of one another. In person, I've never seen any other dance team that affected me as viscerally.
Berezhaia and Rodnina: Neither were part of my favorite pairs, but Berezhnaia's speed and line and Rodnina's speed, control, and athleticism make them among my favorite skaters.
The creative skaters I would pay to see if they were the only one on a roster I recognized, regardless of their competitive history: Rakhama/Kokko, Kristina Czabo, Abitbol/Bernadis, Ilia Klimkin, Blumberg/Siebert, Katherine Healy.
Among the current skaters (other than Kwan):
The ladies with edges, flow basic skating skills, and booming jumps: Sebestyen and Volchkova.
The ladies with edges, blow, basic skating skills, and inconsistent jumps: Poykio, Drei, Kettunen.
Carolina Kostner: For resurrecting Janet Lynn's freedom and flow across the ice. Despite the flaws in her long program, for doing three turns into the loop, as many turns and twizzles as most ice dancers, and four spirals with change of edge, leg direction, and/or direction, one of which was a straight leg ronde de jamb without dropping her leg as she moved it from front to back. This is hard enough to do with a ballet slipper or pointe shoe, and she had the strength to do it with the weight of a skating boot, on a moving edge.
Ifs: Plushenko, if all of his programs are like St. Peterburg 300 -- no cha chas or breaks in front of the judges and musical end to end -- or with the creativity of Sex Bomb or this year's exhibition program. I love that he shows range, sense of humor, and the self confidence not to have to play the heroic character.
Totmianina/Marinin, if they would put together a long program with the speed, flow, and musicality of this year's Peer Gynt or the form-fitting sultriness of their exhibition blues number. I love her stunning jumps, throws, and all-around technique.
Belbin/Agosto: If they can keep up the forward momentum and the sense of joy in their movements.
