All Things Ice Dance: Canadian

[blue dog]

He's thinking, "Never pick up a waitress in a cheap bar in Kodiak, AK. Who thought when I went out for a quick drink, that I'd wake up with this?"

If he wakes up in Kodiak, we can send Toni to talk some sense into him.

 

[skatingfan04]

I won't spoil the results, but apparently Paul/Islam took a really nasty spill on a lift at the LPIDC during the FD. Poor kids can't seem to catch a break. They've both assured everyone that they are OK via twitter.

 

[dorispulaski]

Huge relief that they are OK!

 

[chuckm]

Sad to say, spills seem to be an ongoing fact of life for P/I.

P/I are now in their 3rd season as seniors, while Orford /Williams are just moving up from juniors. It doesn't help P/I that Orford / Williams had such a great showing at Lake Placid, beating P/I in the SD by more than two points before P/I's disastrous fall in the FD.

 

[colleen o'neill]

What a rousing first showing for O/W..They might become the little steamroller that could.

I saw some progress for them last year , and I'm dying to see how they might be building on that. I'm really looking forward to the week of the great skatebuzz BC/YT SS / Thornhill blowout. I'll be glued to the computer.

I feel like O/W were overlooked a bit by many last year , mostly because of things beyond their control. They won their first Jr.GP , but maybe because it was the first one, was in Australia (oh, the time zones ) and didn't have as strong a field as ,say Austria , there wasn't a lot of excitement..then , at their second GP Thomas had a fall along the lines of Scott at GPF .. at Canadians , though their marks put them in line with skaters in the prime time competition , they got stuck in the early competition ( Never do that splitting again, SC ! )...

As a result , and because it's their first senior year, I think it would be easy for people to leave O/W out of their calculations..but I don't think they should.

chuckm..I hope P/I can fight get out of the clutches of the Spill Demon . I think they need to stay in Detroit . The road they have to travel this year requires focus and continuity.

 

[slipslidin]

The Wing and Lowe skaters had a very strong showing( IMO ), at Lake Placid. It may be time to admit that there is a fine ice dance school in B.C.

 

[dorispulaski]

The photos from the FD's are up for both seniors and junior at ice-dance.com
Links are in the LPIDC thread.

 

[skatingfan04]

Unofficial reports from LPIDC seem to suggest that P/I's SD music is "La Vie En Rose" by Edith Piaf. *shudders* Love the song. HATE the singer. I'm praying most of the program is instrumental. Also, I'm having trouble picturing that song with the Yankee Polka steps. But,I'll reserve judgement until I see the pograms at Thornhill. That beng said, I LOVE their FD outfits. He loooks classy, and she looks gorgeous. And the costumes fit in well with the Legendof 1900's theme.

Counting down until Thornhill. SO EXCITED to see P/I. And the others.

 

[Dragonlady]

Unofficial reports from LPIDC seem to suggest that P/I's SD music is "La Vie En Rose" by Edith Piaf. *shudders* Love the song. HATE the singer. I'm praying most of the program is instrumental. Also, I'm having trouble picturing that song with the Yankee Polka steps. But,I'll reserve judgement until I see the pograms at Thornhill. That beng said, I LOVE their FD outfits. He loooks classy, and she looks gorgeous. And the costumes fit in well with the Legendof 1900's theme.

I can't help but agree about La Vie en Rose. My first thought was "For the Yankee Polka?????".

 

[dorispulaski]

That may be just one of the selections...

 

[Dragonlady]

The Wing and Lowe skaters had a very strong showing( IMO ), at Lake Placid. It may be time to admit that there is a fine ice dance school in B.C.

Unless and until their skaters start winning Canadian Championships and senior international medals, no school will get the recognition you seem to think the BC school deserves. That hasn't happened yet. It may happen in future, but a school isn't built in a season. The Lanes have been at it for close to 20 years to get to this point. Mariposa even longer.

Reputations are not built overnight and they're not built on one team.

 

[colleen o'neill]

Oh , yikes! What have the Lanes got to do with it ?

ETA : So often, when you mention anything good about anyone else , it's taken as a slight against the Lanes...Next thing you know, it's a discussion of the Lanes.. :scowl:

Of course this is only the first competition of the season for these teams..but judging from the results , they've come out well prepared and are putting up some very good scores for early in the season.

Wing and Lowe have been coaching full-time since 2007. I believe they've had the JR. teams that were seen here from the get go.

That's not one season, that's the cumulative effect of their time with W&L ..I think it's very good. The young teams had excellent results on the JGP last year in their Jr. debuts.... I thought SC gave them a bit of short shrift in their JGP news bulletins last year .. e,g. at one of their GP's ( in a very tough field ) Bruser and Lum, just up from novice , came second in the FD .. a notable acheivement . No mention.

Last year at Canadians, W&L had two teams in the top four. E/P second by a very narrow margin, B/L fourth even after a mishap their SD . I say this not , not , not to say wuzrobbed , or to take anything away from Poulin and Servant , but these are excellent results on their own.

O/W have 2 GPs this year in their Sr. debut ( tough fields both ) and I imagine ,for them , it will be the scores, more than podium that will be important ( they won't be expecting or expected to medal ). That they have produced these results from LPIDC , with room to improve ( by reports)..is , I believe an excellent start for them. This encourages me in regard to the improvements they needed to make in the off season , so I'm greatly anticipating seeing them at BC summer skate on skatebuzz..

Another very good thing is , these are not home cooked scores.

 

[slipslidin]

As Colleen might say, "Holy Doodle". Well, for the record, I didn't mention the Lanes, although they did send some skaters to Lake Placid. I was moved to comment because of the amusing reluctance of some Easterners to give credit where credit is due. A couple of years ago, Wing and Lowe's school had some remarkable success at Canadians, including gold medals, and Skate Canada, in their infinite wisdom, saw fit to give Wing and Lowe an award as well. I thought, that must be a sharp stick in the eye of 'established' eastern coaches and/or their faithful fans. Ever since, in my opinion, Wing and Lowe's skaters have been damned with very faint praise indeed. They are always 'little skaters' pushed ahead too fast without learning the basics, etc., but I think it's reasonable to suggest that nobody has twenty years to develop a junior skater, tempus fugits, you know, and any coach may see one member of a team get too tall for the other.

ETA: Would a gold medal at a JGP count as international? Just askin'?

 

[dorispulaski]

Just because W&L have a good dance school, it doesn't mean anyone was claiming that Scarboro & Mariposa & Quebec & etc. don't have good dance schools.

I don't think anyone was claiming that?

As an interested (American) bystander, I would think that Canadians would be happy that there was one more good dance school in Canada!

(Apparently not, though :slinkaway

 

[colleen o'neill]

Thanks , doris .. No, it certainly was not my intention to denigrate any other school .

As it happens , there are teams in whom I see lots of promise from right across Canada.

Here's the thing ( or part of it ) : The population is much larger in the east, so there are more schools ( and schools that have been long established ) W/L themselves had to cross the continent at a young age to get the training they needed (which they've said contributed to their forming the goal of opening a school in BC).

Now that they've done it , they appear to be doing it up right . I'm delighted for them , and all the young teams who can now get excellent instruction without having to wait until they're old enough to leave home , or who can stay at least closer to home. ( In the intervening years , who knows how much talent was lost to us , because the logistics and cost were simply too much for families to bear ? )

I'm thrilled that they appear to be good teachers. ( and yes, I think the standard shown by their Jr. skaters , alone ,proves this ) I know from my dance background that the very best dancers are not always good teachers . Teaching is an additional skill , and one to be respected.

I know , too, that any school can go through years when there's a wealth of talent, and years when there's a real dearth( as well as the variables slipslidin' mentioned ). We don't know what standard W&L will reach when they've been at it for 20 yrs. ( will I even live to see it ? ). * shrug *..There's no point in making those sorts of comparisons.

They're doing well right now , and people ought to be saying Bravo...

 

[Dragonlady]

The Wing & Lowe teams are coming along just fine but it's still to early to crown the school the Great Canadian Hope just yet. We've been prepared to do this for a long time, first when Bruno Marcotte went out there to start the Pairs School, and then when the Kraatz's first started coaching out there. To be honest, O&W are the only team I've seen from this school so I can't really comment on the school when I haven't seen the students or how they skate, and to be honest, I wasn't that taken with what I saw of O&W at Canadians. I'm more impressed with the 6th from Jr. Worlds for O&W than their Lake Placid results because the field was tougher.

Yes, the Lake Placid result was very good and we'll get a chance to see O&W on the GP circuit this fall and see what they look like. A"very fine dance school" to me is one which is consistently putting skaters on the top podiums. We don't have any schools in Canada doing that. We have some decent schools and some promising schools, but no very fine dance schools.

 

[Dragonlady]

Double post deleted.

 

[slipslidin]

Dragonlady, I understand your reluctance to comment on Wing and Lowe's school. I'm sure you'll get a chance to hear of their skaters very soon. Just an example; one of their very good junior teams, Edwards and Pang, had the highest score of any junior team at Lake Placid. Stay tuned for further developments!

ETA: Yes, we'll see Orford and Williams at two GPs in their first year as seniors. They earned enough points last year to qualify.

 

[colleen o'neill]

Dragonlady ...No one said anything about the Great Canadian Hope ... It's too bad you saw nothing of the Jr. competition at Canadians last year, there was lots of talent on display, and it was easier to get to see than it's ever been, between TV , skatebuzz and Ustream.

Why would you compare O/W's Jr World's finish with the first summer competition of their first full senior year ? Perhaps Jr World's compared to 6th place finish at Sr. Canadians ( fifth in the FD ) would be more apros pos..that being a competition where the first two couples were unassailable , and O/W's overall marks were very close to the 4th and 5th place teams ( surpassing the overall 5th place team in the FD )...and it was their first Sr. competition.

Unlike Wing and Lowe's JR .teams ... which are all pretty equal in ability , partner to partner, having been with W/L from the beginning..O/W have only been together 2 yrs..Thomas having come from other schools. Last year, you could see that they'd made some progress bringing Thomas up to Nicole's level of polish .. I'll be watching to see what the progress is this year.

What is promising to me is the meeting with 2 different ( I think ) judging panels at LPIDC..no Canadian judges , let alone BC judges , and that they were given some very creditable scores.. even though by the few reports that have come out so far, they didn't have completely error free skates.

 

[ImaginaryPogue]

It seems like it's a semantics debate, at this point.