2016 An Evening With Champions, Sep 9-10

[ice coverage]

2016 confirmed cast of An Evening With Champions:

Additional skaters to be announced

HOST
- Emily Hughes (Harvard Class of 2011)

LADIES
- Polina Edmunds
​- Kimmie Meissner
- Courtney Hicks
- Christina Gao (Harvard Class of 2017)
- Yasmin Siraj (Harvard Class of 2018)
- Selena Zhao (Harvard Class of 2020)
- Emily Hughes

MEN
- Nathan Chen
- Shawn Sawyer
- Douglas Razzano
- Shotaro Omori
- Kevin Shum (MIT Class of 2019)

PAIRS:
- Alexa Scimeca and Chris Knierim
- Ludmila and Oleg Protopopov

SYNCHRO:
- Haydenettes
- Team Excel Senior

http://www.aneveningwithchampions.org/cast.html​

Disclaimer:
Last year, the cast had quite a few changes (both deletions and additions) after the original announcement.

 

[iluvtodd]

Wish we lived in the Boston area! We'd attend this show in a heartbeat!

 

[ice coverage]

Wish we lived in the Boston area! We'd attend this show in a heartbeat!

:agree:

---

Occurs to me that my inclusion in the OP of school affiliations could be open to misinterpretation.
To avoid a repeat of a weird discussion that took place in a previous year's thread:
For me, I like the idea of worlds colliding. In this case, I like that Harvard is fortunate to have skaters as successful as Emily, Christine, Yasmin, and Selena among its student/alumni body (with Kevin nearby at MIT).
I certainly do not mean that their skating cred alone would be insufficient reason for them to be in the cast. (I believe Emily, Christine, and Yasmin first skated in the show well before their admission to Harvard.) Their Cambridge connections are icing on the cake.

 

[mrrice]

Holy Cow The Protopopov's!! Me and my dorky friends used to try all of their lifts in Ballet Class. Guess what we called our competitions........"The Protopopov-Off's"

Get It!!:dance::disapp:

Here's a short video of this wonderful couple from way back in 1964. Talk about posture. Bravo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B42suRXKdk

 

[skateluvr]

You know it is not boring at all even though the tricks were not spectacular in 1964. The way they skate is just not seen under CoP. Their unison is amazing and they are so fortunate they have had each other and health and an incredible life.

A thought occurred to me. I know Sergei wanted to do so much more than skate and Katia was the one who could not leave the ice. She and Ilia there have done very well and Katia has to be a rich woman skating when SOI Stars flew private planes and had limos and stayed in top hotels and we all know her books were a smash. Strange to think Sergeis death made her a household name for a while.

I guess maybe Heaven had a plan for Liza Kulik to come- who knows why anything happenedd as it did but I could not help but think these to were the prototype for G and G. I wonder if Katia grew up in awe of them. Their style was soft like like the P's. They certainly never had the power of Rodnina and partners.

Would Katia and Sergei being doing Champions in Boston? We can only wonder if they would have skated though life or if Sergei would have moved them away from the ice.

Thanks for the clip. Anyone who loves ballet would love this couple. Now it's all about quad twists and throws and for me the last really artistic Russian gold medalists happened in 2002.

I liked Tat and Max and Stolbova/ Klimov very much but pairs skating doesn't really move me at all in competitions. In exhibition we see that pairs really can slow it down and do great choreography. I am not following pairs much anymore.

I would love to see Jamie and David reunite and Lena and Anton and reprise their Olympic programs. That would be awesome. Ice dance even has lost so much of what made skating beautiful. The protopopovs remind us of what simple basic skating was and how satisfying it is to see two moving as one. I don't dare ask their ages but I am thrilled they still do this. Boston loves them a lot. Enjoy the show everyone.

 

[charmblade]

Bought my ticket tonight! I've been the past two years, it's a great show for a great cause. There aren't quite as many big names performing this year (no Johnny Weir ) but Polina and Nathan are big draws for me. Plus, like ice coverage mentioned, last year the cast changed quite a bit after the initial announcement, with several exciting additions, so I'm looking forward to potential updates to the cast list.

 

[clayray3290]

https://youtu.be/WFnP3R7oDS0

New promo video for EWC!

 

[charmblade]

I'll post a full report later but it's half time at the show right now and it's been great so far! I just met Kevin Shum and he's very nice. He also skated beautifully. He's a very charismatic skater.

 

[annzee703]

Thanks for the video of the Protopopovs. You really have to take yourself waaaay back to 1964 (I wasn't even watching skating then) but you can still appreciate that incredible unison. As Dick Button always said, "Two skating as one" and they did, and they do.

snip: from mrrice post:
Here's a short video of this wonderful couple from way back in 1964. Talk about posture. Bravo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B42suRXKdk[/QUOTE]

 

[charmblade]

Ok, back from the show and it was awesome. I want to post a quick report before i forgot what everyone did, which will probably be by tomorrow morning.

First I do have one gripe. And I'm perfectly willing to admit that this might just be me being tired after working all day and then having to kill a bunch of time before going to the show, but there was way too much time waiting for skating to happen. The show started 20 minutes late, and then the intermission was 25 minutes long. Again, maybe I was just tired and grumpy, and if I hadn't been there by myself and had someone to chat with it probably would have been fine. Anyway, enough about that.

The skating! It was a lot of fun!

Emily Hughes was the host this year, and unfortunately Paul Wylie was not here to co-host. He did send a taped message saying how sad he was to miss it, and he looked great in the video, so hopefully he's doing well.

Early skaters included Selena Zhao, Yasmin Siraj and Shotaro Omori, who were all nice to see, and Kevin Shum skated his Eleanor Rigby SP and he was great. It's always nice to see Christina Gao, who skated to some sort of slow pop ballad. The Haydenettes closed out the first half nicely. The second half started with the Protopopovs who are always amazing and so incredibly elegant. They got a standing ovation. Douglas Razzano skated a beautiful program to Disturbed's cover of Sound of Silence. It was so nice to see him skate again! Courtney Hicks did Adele's Hello, she has enormous jumps and very impressive spins live.

So up to this point I think everyone had skated to very slow music, mostly pop and ballads. Lovely programs, but nothing upbeat or particularly fun. Then Shawn Sawyer comes out and does some sort of wild animal crazy ridiculous fun program. He really brought the energy up and was amazing. He skates down through every fingertip, he is just so expressive. Alexei Bychenko was also there, which I was very excited about because I have a soft spot for him, and he skated to something upbeat that sounded familiar and it was fun. He had the audience clapping along. Kimmie Meissner skated to Ave Maria, and it was a very lovely, expressive program. Next up was Nathan Chen, who skated to something pop-ish that was upbeat. I find him to be much more expressive in shows but a little more stiff in competition, and that was true tonight as well. He put on a great show (and don't worry, he didn't try any quads) and the crowd loved him. And then closing out the show was Polina Edmunds, who skated a very fun, spunky program to some kind of electronic dance music. She didn't do any jumps, mostly just dancing, but it's probably the most personality I've ever seen from her on the ice. She had a cute moment where she tripped and fell randomly, and she just totally went with it and skidded across the ice on her rear and laughed. Hopefully this new fun, mature Polina will show up in her competitive programs as well.

All in all a good show! I admit i was initially slightly disappointed by the cast list, which was missing some of the big stars they've had the past few years, and it would have been nice to have some pairs or dance teams, but the show itself was really great and I'm glad i went. The skaters all put on a great show and were very impressive, even the ones who haven't been competing for years.

:agree:

 

[iluvtodd]

Thanks for the report!!!! I have a soft spot for Alexey, too! Happy to know that Christina, Yasmin, Kimmie, & Nathan participated in it. Just curious, did Harrison Choate (a friend of Ross Miner, and former junior level competitor) skate in the show?

Re: Paul Wylie, he is in Sao Paulo, Brazil this weekend for several ice shows - that cast includes Plushy, Brian B., Todd, Yuka, Mike Weiss, Ryan Bradley, Katia, Kiira Korpi, Steven Cousins, & Isadora Williams (who skates for Brazil). The pictures are on FB (the page is in Portuguese). Yuka Sato posted some pics through her instagram account.

 

[charmblade]

Ah, ok, that explains Paul's absence. I'm glad it wasn't health related. Last year's show was fairly soon after his heart issue, but he still managed to not only host but also to do a little skating.

Harrison Choate didn't skate but he was there as one of the co-chairs for the event. He helped introduce the board and all the sponsors and people who help make the show happen.

 

[iluvtodd]

Oh, glad to hear that about Harrison! We got to see him skate for several summers @ the Liberty Summer Competition in Aston, PA. We really enjoyed his skating. I was over the moon for him @ 2012 US Nationals in San Jose when he medalled in Juniors. He was on the podium with Nathan (and what made it even more special was that he had had a tough time with his short program, but skated really well in his free skate - he was 9th or 10th after his sp, but finished 4th over all)! It was sweet to see very tall Harrison with tiny Nathan on the podium!

Paul & family will be skating in the Disson Family Skating Tribute show on October 30, in Pittsburgh, PA. Road trip for us, but we're going!