Colgate Skating & Gymnastics Spectacular

[nerdexpress]

Is anyone planning to go to Colgate Skating & Gymnastics Spectacular on December 7th? It’s being held at the University of Massachusetts Mullins Center in Amherst, MA. My home club, the Skating Club of Amherst is also located there. We are partnering with the Mullins Center to help promote the event and they are offering $5 off each ticket sold with the promo code: SCA2016. Anyone can use this code and in addition to $5 off, using the promo code with benefit skaters of the Skating Club of Amherst.

I wanted to share this here in case anyone is planning to attend. Please, please feel free to use this promo code if you are!
Meryl & Charlie will be performing which is reason enough to buy tickets! Also, Alissa Czisny, Caydee Denney & John Coughlin among others. Kristi Yamaguchi and Michael Weiss will be hosting. The gymnastics cast hasn’t been announced yet but a member or members of the 2016 Olympic Team will be performing from what I’ve heard.

Not sure how many of you live in the area but maybe I’ll see some of you there! Tickets can be purchased through ticketmaster http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0...mullinscenter&camefrom=CFC_MULLINSCTR_Website

 

[Skater Boy]

I have to say I am not a big fan at this attempt to make gymnastics figure skating. I appreciate they want to widen the market for gymnastics and try to open up a pro career which really didn't exist for gymnastics and of course has taken a nose dive in skating but it isn't skating. It really looks like a cheap gimmick to try to get pro opportunities or market the sport. But it just looks awkward, cheesey and a cheap cousin to skating. At the olympics using music to attempt to create more emotion and personality just didn't work. And the strip show by that one guy - I am sorry it looked like he was horsing around and it was meant for practice not a "show". One reviewer said it looked like bad porn on parallel bars. Not that good porn would be desirable I suppose lol Sadly even the women's floor exercise really was not meant for show or music - it is an athletic sport with grace. Adding sequins, bugle beds, feathers and bedazzling faces and adding hair ornaments make these gymnasts look more like audtioners for Circus Soleil than some exhibition.

 

[noskates]

Have to agree with Skater Boy. I've watched these for the past couple of years and generally end up turning them off. The skating is challenging because of the weird shape of the ice and the gymnastics just doesn't lend itself to this kind of format.

This would be one I'd pass on if someone gave me a free ticket.

 

[ragsy]

Thanks for the info, nerdexpress. I'm from the central part of the state. I haven't decided if I'm going to the event, but I appreciate the info about your club and that the ticket discount will benefit your skaters.

 

[Mathman]

I like these shows OK. The problem, for me, is that the gymnastics stage is too small for the gymnasts to do any real "performing" beyond just some primping and posing between tricks. If they had the room for a full tumbling mat, then they could do an entertaining floor exercise, watered down from a competitive routine, but still with a couple of eye-popping tumbling passes and a lot of in-between dancing and strutting.

This is the ladies, of course. The men can replace the strutting with a flashy high bar routine. (I was going to says rings, but they probably can't do an iron cross while they are resting between competitive seasons. )

I hope they get Ally Raisman. Laurie Hernandez is the best entertainer, but she is busy with Dancing With The Stars. Simone Biles probably has a lot of commitments.

Speaking of circus, what would really be cool is a pairs routine on some kind of bar apparatus. This would feature throws (like a trapeze act), side by side loops around the bar, lifts, etc. (Do not try this without a net. )

 

[Skater Boy]

I was reading that the men in gymnastics were desperately trying to figure out how they could raise men's gymnastics profile as the women got all the money, audiences and accolades. Ironic in some ways. They even suggested competing without shirts and sent selfies and instagrams of them on the beaches of Rio sans shirt and some in skimpy bathing suits. Yes, we have women's beach vball going that route. Ah sport and money and entertainment sometimes they seem so contrary. I like what one fan said. Maybe they should try to get viewers simply by winning gold lol. Its a new concept. But seriously the American men did well at Rio. Their treatment by the fandom / media/pro sport world is kind of like men's and women's hockey. It isn't fair but it is life. They better learn to play football, baseball, basketball or hockey if the male gymnasts want to make a living from their sport. We know they are great athletes and in great shape but sometimes that isn't enough. I mean, now I am being sarcastic and this will make some mad, think about it there are men and women hitting a ball into a hole (golf) being paid millions and people pay through the nose to watch one guy try to beat the snot out of an other guy in boxing. Sometimes logic just doesn't exist. But I am not a huge fan of sexualizing something purely for viewership and essentially money.