Kwan, Cohen, and Plushy not PERFECT

Recently I have gotten very tire of Peggy's and Dickie's drooling over the above mentioned names. Those two act like no one else in the universe can skate. Yes Sasha is awesome, Plushenko is energy and Kwan whatever. The point is that there are many skaters out there that are great. Honda, and Timmy can outjump Plushy, A spiral doesn't have to be a full split to be pretty. Cohen is not the only one in the world with great spins. In fact Cohen doesn't look any stronger to me this year than last year. Where are all the triple-triples. If you look closely she's had errors in all of her outings this season. We know her style is great, it's been great for years, thats not new. Kwan is only a novice level spinner at best. At Skate Canada I saw many wondeful short programs for the men, but the constant drooling over Plushenko kept getting on my nerves. I also hate the comparisons of other skaters to COhen, Kwan and Plushenko. I mean do we really want all the skaters to look the same? No , because now all we hear is that too many people have copied Yagudin's footwork. Do I need to buy Peggy and Button a drooling Bucket for xmas?

Oh, I don't know about that, Master F. I just saw the Skate Canada short programs last night, and Sasha was so much better than anybody else, while Plushenko handily beat Honda, Buttle and everyone else, while going at only half speed. As for Michelle, maybe she's not perfect but, as the five time world champ she must be going something right.

Figure skating is a personality-driven sport. We shouldn't be surprised that the people at the very top get the most publicity. We'll see at the end of the season who deserves the hype and who doesn't.

Mathman

The only pont on which I will agree is that Peggy does tend to drool. In case of Ladies skaters she usually drools over someone American, but in other disciplines she is more even. She just has her favorites -- she would always gush over Berzhnaya & Skikarulidze, for example. I think it's just her commenting style.

As for Dick -- he has been EXTREMELY harsh on Plushy in the past. If anything, I think Dick contributed to the myth of Plushy being technician-not-artist myth. Though he does, indeed, have a soft spot for Sasha.

I think what bothers me about their commentary is that it's unbalanced. Not everyone needs to be amazing or by the contrary, mediocre. They could focus on different aspects without gushing or slamming the skaters. And yes, comparing skaters all the time can be annoying as well.

Personally, I don't enjoy American commentators that much. They usually babble throughout the routine and the feeling I get is that there is so much hype about the skater and in the end, the program and the performance loses with it. I supose they want the public to be interested in the performance and in the skater, but really, it's worse this way because the audience gets bored with their endless talking. We know, we recognize something good when we see it. I started watching skating accidentally, there was no commentary at all, just the names of the jumps and spins and one or two technical aspects while the skater was in the K&C. And it was enough to leave me hooked.

I think it would work so much better if they talked less. Most of what they say is always repeated anyway, they don't say anything new.

I strongly suspect (the cynic that I am) that ABC is demanding praise for those mentioned to keep the interest in competitive skating. Ya kno what happened to Pro skating.

What got me giggling was Dick's over praising Sasha's flutz.

Joe

i have to agree that dick and button do really have favorites.

i just think theres waaay too much commentary to begin with. I can't watch a skating program nowadays without practically the whole performance being talked about and analyzed.

dick and button are the same person

I agree that they are bad with favorites... but hey we all have them...

what gets me is Dick's holier than everyone else in my commentary booth voice... he loves to jump on to Peggy's sentences... it's annoying... it's like shut up and let someone else talk... I Don't want to hear you say that you LOVE a young girl one more time, Peggy has something interesting(well more than Dick) to say

oh well there's my rant for the year

I have to agree with that. I, too, would like less commentary sometimes. Though the 1st prize for tastelessness goes to that guy who was commenting the ladies at SLC. During Sylvia Fontana's skate he started talking about her father's suicide! Talk about tasteless! By comparisson, Peggy and Dick are perfect!

Ptichka,

Are you referring to Tom Hammond? He really irritates me as a commentator.

No, none of them are perfect. But OTA is!!!!!!

bad commentating

I love dick, Peggy, Suzie, Tracy, and even Sandra(by herself)

I can't stand Scott Halmilton, Roz, Kurt

Peter is on the margins.

My dream team of figure skating broadcasting would be Brian Boatanio and Michelle Kwan... Just imagine we'll be watching 2013 worlds and complain "Michelle and Brian just keep yacking thought out so-and-so's program" ahhh those will be the days.

opps i meant peggy not button... wow its sad what 3 hours of skating can do to a girl.

hey dont hate on Scott Hamilton, i guess im just biased because ive loved him ever since i could remember watching skating.

Of course those three skaters aren't perfect. Anyone whose even slightly familiar with the general concensus among posters in this forum knows that the only two perfect people are Jesus and Yuka Sato...Boy, would those two make a great pairs team or what?

[url]http://www.interq.or.jp/venus/toshiko/nagano/n-yuka/sato.gif[/URL]

I, too, noticed Dick kvelling over Sasha's flutz combo. He should take a look at the detailed scores and he'd see she gets minus points for every iteration of her flutz.

I think Dick and Peggy do gush too much over Sasha, but so far, her only real competition has been Arakawa (and we haven't seen the SC FS yet). Sasha faces Shizuka again in Paris. Shizuka's performance in Canada was much improved over SA, and now she's had another 2 weeks practice. Maybe she can give La Cohen a test this time.

I agree with RIskatingfan, a problem is that they are not balance, I recall last season when Vika missed one jump, they talk about her inconsistency and then Sasha missed one jump and they said "it was perfect with one little mistake" and they just did the same thing! or the whole Euros ladies vs USA ladies that Dick and Peggy did at the last Euros competition.

The whole gushing about Plushenko is really really new, but even now Dick still points Plush weak points, so it is still a balance commentary to me, unlike what they do with Sasha that it seems for them that Sasha has not mistakes at all, when she actually flutz. They are kind of the same with Michelle but at least they have call Michelle beatable.

I like Suzie (ABC), Tracy(TSN) and the Eurosport commentators (Nick and Simon) I wish I could always find the programs done by them, sadly I'm not that lucky.

I get a little tired of Peggy's gushing and drooling. I personally like Dick. I really missed him when he was recuperating from his accident.

I too love Chris and Simon!

Although it is probably because I haven't heard as much commentary from them-so I'm not sick of them. But I really enjoyed their commentating on Worlds 2003 over the internet.

I guess out of all the American commentators-my favorite is Suzie Wynn.

I personally really enjoy Dick's commentary. I think it's kind of sweet how he sometimes gets so excited by the skating that he becomes incoherent! Just shows how much he really does love this sport. Dick can be harsh in some of his commentary, but as he says himself, it's because he has high expectations of those with talent.

I do have to agree, though, that Dick gushes inordinately about Sasha. One thing I just don't understand is that he's always saying Sasha is a great technician. I just don't get this. I think Sasha is great artistically, but she is often a little off-kilter in her jumps, and surely if she were a great technician, this wouldn't be happening. (Michelle, on the other hand, truly *is* a great technician. She must have one of the lowest fall-per-attempted triple ratios out there, if anyone even tracks that.)

Dick is also a bit of a softie when it comes to Michelle. He seldom criticizes Michelle, even about aspects of her skating that really could use improvement, such as her layback. Peggy is actually a littler harsher with Michelle than Dick is. But I think it's because Dick just really respects Michelle's skating and her record.

I've noticed that Dick tends to become less critical of skaters once they become national or world champions. I think maybe he feels they're due a certain amount of respect for what they've achieved. Perhaps this explains his changed attitude toward Plushenko. But it's not true across the board. He remained quite critical of Maria Buytrskaya and Irina Slutskaya over the years, for example, despite their many titles.

I agree that Peggy gushes too much. She could stand to be a little more critical sometimes. But I'd rather listen to Peggy than someone like Sandra Bezic, who goes overboard with severely critical remarks that are often quite biased and personal in nature. Peggy is always fair and gracious--nice qualities to have in a commentator.

Drooling

I use to like Sandra Bezic's commentary, but there is coldness about her commentating. Robin Cousins always gave me a chill when he commentated too. They never seemed impress with anything the skaters did. Boitano on ther other hand was more fair in his judgement and quite acurate in his comments.

"Talk, talk, talk, they talk too much..." That's why I enjoy Canadian coverage better. In the past, when a skater is really giving a great performance I have seen Debi, Rod and company reserve their comments for the end.

I think Dick and Peggy feel they have to keep talking throughout the performance. It's not a football game.