Igor Shpilband fired

[dorispulaski]

I expect Igor to land on his feet.

Anyone who had no family, limited English, no money to speak of, and no plan to defect,who suddenly had to defect at once, and who managed to land on his feet can definitely do it again. I'm not sure how long it will take him to do it, but this is the less hockey season. Ice time should be able to be found--the problem is getting the rest of the stuff now required for a really first class program.

I don't expect he wants to be an undercoach at this point in his career...it may take him a while to get it set up, but I expect him to be in business again quite quickly.

 

[DianaSelene]

Well, yes and no. When an elite skater or team makes a "fluke" mistake, could it be that he/she/they lost concentration for a split second? And maybe thinking ahead to trickier parts of the program is what caused the momentary "distraction"?
I agree that a "stupid" mistake doesn't mean a skater is "bad" ... but if Shabalin was not immune from a fall during the Finnstep CD, then none of the top ice dancers will be immune during the upcoming Finnstep SD.

As Doris says,

Personally, I don't know what the reason for Shabalin's mistake was. I'm just saying it could have been just a silly mistake. Lots of skaters have them. I don't think it proves that it happened because the finnstep is difficult.

 

[nevergonnadance]

If you go by what the management said and the skaters' decisions, Shpilband was weak on loyalty to the "kids" he had with Zoueva. If you go by what Zoueva said, Shpilband was weak on loyalty to his business partner with whom he had tremendous and on going success. Right now he gets no loyalty from anybody, deservedly or not. Skaters have to decide what's best for themselves, which should also be the priority of their coaches. When a coach can't give his best to his student, it's time to resign or be fired.

Right. It rather seems valid to speculate Igor was using the famous skaters as pawns to get new students of his own, leveraging the fame he got from that to set up his own school, on Arctic Edge ice. The Canton training center is a team of Zoueva/Shpilband, not the Zoueva/Shpilband team and the separate Shpilband School. Arctic Edge never contracted for an Igor Shpilband Training Center. They're not paying him for that, but he's using their ice and the time they're paying him to coach Arctic Edge skaters for his own enterprise with "his" skaters.

Customarily, you don't use company resources to set up your separate business. If Igor has a fleet of skaters who are his and his alone, that are out of ice now that he's fired, leaving him searching for a new place to train, that alone supports what Marina's said. It means he's purloined resources from Arctic Edge without authorization. Resources being ice as well as his time. If he had managed this diplomatically perhaps it wouldn't have come to this. However it appears possibly Marina refused to accomodate his conflict of interest and went ahead and scheduled the real Canton teams according to what was appropriate, and didn't factor in Igor's lack of availability when he was busy with his "own" skaters. That was crazy for him to expect to be accomodated. Would any of us want to hire somebody, however good, and have them use the space we provided for their service to do some other job, and do it on our time, neglecting our clients and the job we were paying them to perform? I doubt it.

People who become very successful sometimes think "they" are the success, they "are" the training center, for instance. He wouldn't be the first to learn differently.

What Marina does giving choreography to other skaters isn't coaching or training them. It's a transaction. She cuts the music and works for a few hours on program layout. The skaters go back to their own coaches and train it. Dollars to donuts she's not doing it when she's supposed to be training her top ice dance teams. It's not - "I can't schedule you for 7 a.m., I've got Denny/Coughlin booked." Her pairs and singles choreography as well as her association with Battle of the Blades is moonlighting. That's different than setting up a separate business and pursuing it during the same hours that you're supposed to be at your main job.

If I fired somebody for doing their own business during the time I was paying them to do my business, would it be unfair of me if it put that person's separate business in disarray? Why are they conducting their own separate operation on my time and property anyway?

 

[Violet Bliss]

It is not uncommon for someone to get fired and shown the door the same day, in other words blindsided. It happens all the time in my profession. Of course the individual's infractions have been well documented with the Human Resources Dept. but once the decision is made to fire the individual, you call them into your office, you say you are terminated, you tell them why and security is waiting outside and assists said individual to their office or desk space to pack up their belongings and bye bye. It is not pretty by that is how we handle it. Just saying....

It is so cold hearted these days but there is not much mutual loyalty between corporate employers and employees any more. It's all about business. Once an employee is fired, s/he is assumed disgruntled and is not allowed to have sabotaging and/or poaching opportunities, especially access to computers with confidential records and contacts. The psychological counsel is outsourced and fulfills any humanitarian obligations and substitutes for expression of care, ironically all very impersonally.

In Shpilband's case, he was not allowed opportunities to get set up and to entice existing Canton skaters. He will be back up, but he is deprived of some critical time ahead of the upcoming Olympics.

 

[nevergonnadance]

That's a good additional point SkateFiguring. Suppose they had let Igor's side business - conducted on Arctic Edge ice and Arctic Edge time - go on. Looked the other way. Suppose Marina and the top figure skaters had put up with the possibility that Igor's side business (which benefits only Igor and his personal skating students) was detracting from their own technical training because Igor was often unavailable when they needed him? Suppose they rearranged their off ice training, their time in the gym, in the dance studio, off ice work, because Igor's schedule was so tight due to his flourishing sideline business (remember he says he has a lot of skaters - HIS skaters) they suddenly had to make themselves available when HE was. It's okay he makes his sideline business a priority?

They make these accomodations for him in the season prior to the Olympic season, disrupt a routine that had been very successful. It's Igor - we can look the other way and work with him. Meantime, he's negotiating with another rink where his personal students wouldn't be a sideline to his team coaching with Marina, but the central program. He makes that deal and doesn't need Arctic Edge anymore. Bye and thanks!

Would what he's doing look like that to you? I bet it looked like that to Marina, Arctic Edge, and was troubling to the skaters. What would the skaters get out of letting themselves be used for the purpose of Igor setting up his own program if it meant he was neglecting them? So his business can expand while everybody else pays for it? Arctic Edge, the skaters, and it hurts their own training to boot?

 

[Tonichelle]

Anyone else think one could make a killing selling "Team Igor" and "Team Marina" tshirts?

 

[DianaSelene]

Anyone else think one could make a killing selling "Team Igor" and "Team Marina" tshirts?

YES! They could be sold in Michigan.

 

[nevergonnadance]

Scroll to the bottom for the article. What this article does not say is that Vodorezova later wrote a letter to CSKA defending Zhuk but it didn't matter anymore. She could not change anything.

That's pure tabloid though. The entire web page is just a hornet's nest of rumor, always has been.

 

[Violet Bliss]

That's a good additional point SkateFiguring. Suppose they had let Igor's side business - conducted on Arctic Edge ice and Arctic Edge time - go on. Looked the other way. Suppose Marina and the top figure skaters had put up with the possibility that Igor's side business (which benefits only Igor and his personal skating students) was detracting from their own technical training because Igor was often unavailable when they needed him? Suppose they rearranged their off ice training, their time in the gym, in the dance studio, off ice work, because Igor's schedule was so tight due to his flourishing sideline business (remember he says he has a lot of skaters - HIS skaters) they suddenly had to make themselves available when HE was. It's okay he makes his sideline business a priority?

They make these accomodations for him in the season prior to the Olympic season, disrupt a routine that had been very successful. It's Igor - we can look the other way and work with him. Meantime, he's negotiating with another rink where his personal students wouldn't be a sideline to his team coaching with Marina, but the central program. He makes that deal and doesn't need Arctic Edge anymore. Bye and thanks!

Would what he's doing look like that to you? I bet it looked like that to Marina, Arctic Edge, and was troubling to the skaters. What would the skaters get out of letting themselves be used for the purpose of Igor setting up his own program if it meant he was neglecting them? So his business can expand while everybody else pays for it? Arctic Edge, the skaters, and it hurts their own training to boot?

The timing supports the theory of the management's action from the business perspective. He was fired right on the eve of the skaters returning, not a moment before, so he could not have used a single minute of their vacation time to set up his new school. He was treated completely as a major competitor. It amazed me somewhat that he had not thought that the others would have problems with his innocent plan and not be supportive.

 

[Ravensque]

Naivety is a form of arrogance. That's what this sounds like to me.

 

[DianaSelene]

That's pure tabloid though. The entire web page is just a hornet's nest of rumor, always has been.

Isn't everything rumors, though? The article itself was real- the person who translated it just has this website. And if you don't believe the article, then that is your choice. The letter that Vodorezova wrote is true, though. She said so herself in an interview. Here is the video. http://rutube.ru/tracks/2900101.html
Go to 39:00 minutes. Since you can't understand, I will translate:
Commentator: Elena Vodorezova decided to defend him. She wrote a letter to CSKA and when Zhuk found out, he got very emotional and cried in front of her. But the letter could not globally change the situation. His enemies wanted to get rid of him.
Tarasova then goes on to say how she met him later and felt sorry for him when he told her he was falsely accused.

Is this not reputable enough for you? I'm sure the documentary is pure tabloid too.

 

[ice coverage]

nevergonnadance, your posts lead to questions about slippery, slippery slopes, such as:

When Zoueva "moonlights" as a choreographer for non-Canton skaters, isn't she also "leveraging" her success with the Team Canton world and Olympic champions?

When Zoueva choreographs for non-Canton skaters, where does she work with them? Is at least some of her "moonlighting" conducted on Arctic Edge ice?

Doesn't her moonlighting benefit only her and her personal non-Canton choreography clients? (As opposed to having any benefit for Arctic Edge and Team Canton skaters.)

Skating does not operate on a conventional "9-to-5" schedule, does it? For skating coaches, wouldn't "hours that you're supposed to be at your main job" be quite a grey area?
​

I hasten to add that two wrongs don't make a right. Unfortunately for the Team Canton skaters, deciding between Shpilband vs. Zoueva seems like a matter of choosing the lesser evil.

 

[Violet Bliss]

Naivety is a form of arrogance. That's what this sounds like to me.

And there was an element of glee in O'Neill's statement that Shpilband was floored and in shock.

 

[bekalc]

It is so cold hearted these days but there is not much mutual loyalty between corporate employers and employees any more. It's all about business. Once an employee is fired, s/he is assumed disgruntled and is not allowed to have sabotaging and/or poaching opportunities, especially access to computers with confidential records and contacts. The psychological counsel is outsourced and fulfills any humanitarian obligations and substitutes for expression of care, ironically all very impersonally.

In Shpilband's case, he was not allowed opportunities to get set up and to entice existing Canton skaters. He will be back up, but he is deprived of some critical time ahead of the upcoming Olympics.

He was denied a few weeks but it doesn't mean that he eventually won't get things organized. I suspect he will absolutely be a major force in Sochi. I don't think it was a great idea for Team Canton to treat him this way. Look I think Marina and co have a right to be annoyed with him, but the fact of the matter is that its never a good idea to burn bridges. I find Team Canton's we want to keep the top skaters not the top coaches to be a very short sighted approach. It is top coaches who attract to top skaters. Those three teams have how long left on the top? But Igor is a young coach who has a lot more time to develop top students.

And at this point I have no doubt the Russians are going to swoop in and help him set up, whether in Russia or in the United States. The reason Russian skating has struggled is because they had very few skaters, but now that is changing and skating is huge part of that country. It also subsidized so its not just rich kid/well off kids who get to take up that sport. Igor will have the most talented of the talented shipped to him.

 

[mskater93]

But, Bekalc, if it is as O'Neill reported (the skaters said him or us), it makes sense that he would support them (the skaters) over him. No skaters = no revenue no matter who your coaches on staff are. There's much missing from this story that we may never know, such as (how hard) did Marina work to iron things out with Igor and did his top teams SAY something to him or attempt to work it out with him but he wasn't listening or disregarded their concerns? I think those teams are way too classy to air their dirty laundry (if there is some) regarding what happened/didn't happen, but I doubt Arctic (who needs to generate revenue or else would have to close because they would be unable to pay their bills) would just go on Marina's say so (same for USFS - I am sure they had discussions with DW and SS as well when the situation surfaced) so there had to be some truth to the skaters feeling neglected/shafted/treated shabbily and perhaps tension WAS mounting in the rink prior to vacations with Igor's new business opportunity and a change in dynamics (ie less time from the technical coach where they felt it was time when they needed more). I suspect this is similar to what forced B/A out of Canton before 2010. It takes 2 to tango and there's probably fault on all sides in this situation, as much as people are trying to paint Arctic management/Marina/D/W/V/M/S/S as the "bad guys" and Igor as the "victim" here, like any divorce.

I didn't read any glee in O'Neil's remark (further up comment from SF), more incredulity that Igor had no idea this was a problem.

There's plenty of ice in and around SE Michigan that Igor can at least fill in the gaps nomadically in the short term if need be until he gets a new situation set up. Marina better go find another co-coach quickly to fill in her blanks for the teams...

 

[Violet Bliss]

He was denied a few weeks but it doesn't mean that he eventually won't get things organized. I suspect he will absolutely be a major force in Sochi. I don't think it was a great idea for Team Canton to treat him this way. Look I think Marina and co have a right to be annoyed with him, but the fact of the matter is that its never a good idea to burn bridges. I find Team Canton's we want to keep the top skaters not the top coaches to be a very short sighted approach. It is top coaches who attract to top skaters. Those three teams have how long left on the top? But Igor is a young coach who has a lot more time to develop top students.

And at this point I have no doubt the Russians are going to swoop in and help him set up, whether in Russia or in the United States. The reason Russian skating has struggled is because they had very few skaters, but now that is changing and skating is huge part of that country. It also subsidized so its not just rich kid/well off kids who get to take up that sport. Igor will have the most talented of the talented shipped to him.

I agree with much of what you say here though I try not to make character assumptions and judgements but to see things as they are. I don't know if Team Canton, specifically Zoueva, aimed to oust him but it seems clear the club and rink management wanted him out, with the tacit consent of USFSA, and they did it the current American business way, brutally and swiftly at the most opportune time so as to delay his re-establishment as much as possible. It seems their main goal is keeping the top teams and winning Sochi medals. These are great for branding the club and drawing top talents. Surely they know those aiming for the next Olympics would weigh their options differently and there is no stopping Shpilband from successfully building another school. The Russian federation will no doubt jump at the chance of getting him to train the Russian skaters and they will help him whether in Russia or the US. However, the Russian federation is also focusing on Sochi, not the next Olympics, so time is of the essence here for Shpilband to set himself up ASAP.

I also wonder how much the Detroit skating community know about the inside dynamics and how they view Shpilband, which will affect how well received he will be and how much cooperation he will get to set up his school quickly. Rink owners will likely view through similar lenses as Canton management. But then they might just want a tighter contract with him, the American way.

 

[Serious Business]

I'm also reminded of Steve Jobs being fired from Apple, as another pioneer visionary who gets fired by the company he co-founded. In that case, things worked out horribly for everybody involved. Apple floundered, Jobs' NeXT computer went nowhere. Fortunately, the two entities later reconciled and went on to remake the world. Of course, Igor vs. Marina is a much different situation on a far smaller scale. But potentially, we may also see both the Arctic Figure Skating Club and Igor ending up worse off than they were.

 

[bigsisjiejie]

nevergonnadance, your posts lead to questions about slippery, slippery slopes, such as:

When Zoueva "moonlights" as a choreographer for non-Canton skaters, isn't she also "leveraging" her success with the Team Canton world and Olympic champions?

When Zoueva choreographs for non-Canton skaters, where does she work with them? Is at least some of her "moonlighting" conducted on Arctic Edge ice?

Doesn't her moonlighting benefit only her and her personal non-Canton choreography clients? (As opposed to having any benefit for Arctic Edge and Team Canton skaters.)

Skating does not operate on a conventional "9-to-5" schedule, does it? For skating coaches, wouldn't "hours that you're supposed to be at your main job" be quite a grey area?
​

I hasten to add that two wrongs don't make a right. Unfortunately for the Team Canton skaters, deciding between Shpilband vs. Zoueva seems like a matter of choosing the lesser evil.

Maybe a slippery slope, but maybe not. One thing none of us are privy to is whatever was in the contracts these two coaches had with each other (if any) and with the rink/management. What was allowed, what was not allowed. Particularly in the case of management, I'd have to believe they had something of solid legal basis to stand on, when they made the decision to fire Igor. Not Marina's whim, jealousy, ego, emotion, or whatever you ascribe to, but something that could be construed as breach of contract. (I am of course assuming that Igor was not fired for anything such as violence, harrassment, inappropriate relationship, etc.)

 

[Violet Bliss]

I'm also reminded of Steve Jobs being fired from Apple, as another pioneer visionary who gets fired by the company he co-founded. In that case, things worked out horribly for everybody involved. Apple floundered, Jobs' NeXT computer went nowhere. Fortunately, the two entities later reconciled and went on to remake the world. Of course, Igor vs. Marina is a much different situation on a far smaller scale. But potentially, we may also see both the Arctic Figure Skating Club and Igor ending up worse off than they were.

It is always unfortunate and risky to break up a highly successful partnership. But we don't know much of what went on. Maybe things had deteriorated badly due to Shpilband's insensitivity. Maybe the management was all business and truly brutal when they saw the situation as unsalvageable. I can't say from the sources we have if Zoueva actually wanted to get rid of Shpilband, as frustrated and angry as she might have been, even suggesting possible future cooperation after Shpilband's dismissal. Ditto the skaters who might well have expressed their concerns to Zoueva and the club manager. But the skaters and the coaches, including Shpilband, are not business people and might all have been shocked at the decision and action taken by the business operators. Or, maybe they all knew what was coming and had to be mum about it.

No, this is not good for anybody and needs quick restoration on all sides.

 

[blue dog]

Maybe a slippery slope, but maybe not. One thing none of us are privy to is whatever was in the contracts these two coaches had with each other (if any) and with the rink/management. What was allowed, what was not allowed. Particularly in the case of management, I'd have to believe they had something of solid legal basis to stand on, when they made the decision to fire Igor. Not Marina's whim, jealousy, ego, emotion, or whatever you ascribe to, but something that could be construed as breach of contract. (I am of course assuming that Igor was not fired for anything such as violence, harrassment, inappropriate relationship, etc.)

Oddly enough, at the Skate Canada meeting where Marina and Christy Krall spoke, Tessa's father, Jim Virtue (an attorney), spoke about contracts...