- Joined
- May 15, 2009
I would only be thrilled had they never been allowed. :scowl:
Skate Canada leadership changes
- Thread starter ice coverage
- Start date
I would only be thrilled had they never been allowed. :scowl:
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2003
You think it doesn't matter who's in charge? When Pam Chidlow was CEO of Skate Canada, she changed the policy for junior GP skaters to one where skaters who were not in contention for a spot in the Jr. GPF after their first event, didn't get a second one. This is one of the reasons why we have no women who are competitive at the international level at the moment. A generation of skaters lost opportunities to develop and learn to compete on the international stage. The policy was rescinded after she was fired, but the damage was already done.
It matters very much who is in charge of Skate Canada.
- Joined
- May 15, 2009
Doubt if the head of Canadian skating will have much do with whether Patrick wins gold in 2014. That is what I said and stand by it.
Also Canadian skating wihtout any doubt whatsoever will continue regardless of who is calling the shots.
Other factors that you mentioned might be true. How successful the program will be depends on many factors and good management certainly helps.
But that is something you brought up.
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2009
I don't think this bunch are any great shakes.
Google says Pam "Coburn" was CEO before Thompson. Was she Chidlow then or now? I just read a ridiculous article that blames Salt Lake City and the pairs "scandal" for alienating the Canadian and U.S. audience. That's right, we all shunned figure skating because S&P were denied gold. This article was quoting Thompson and others as if that were a fact.
Canada's women are in deplorable shape but how can Pam C be blamed completely? Thompson was CEO six years and the women's program isn't growing. Under his administration, I've had the impression they're a lot more focused on men than anything else. Very eager to make figure skating appealing to men on the ice and in the audience. Yet they always seem to have a world-calibre male champion ready to step in for the current champ, while the women flounder. I believe a couple of years ago the Canadian junior women's champion had a double axel. That's pathetic. Girls and women dominate the membership at all the training facilities but they can't produce any who can jump. There's got to be a problem there. Far fewer men go into figure skating yet from that limited group Canada regularly produces world champions. They're overflowing with women and the women can't jump. True or not, my impression from the past Olympic cycle and briefly before is Canada is obsessed with males in figure skating and women not so much.
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- Joined
- Nov 3, 2006
If recollection serves .. I believe when David Dore left Pam Coburn and Marilyn Chidlow took on interim co-leadership and things evolved from there..I'm fuzzy on the details between then and William Thompson...so jump in and correct me.
"New leadership structure" also seems code for restructuring now that the Vancouver Olympics fueled financial circumstances are probably drying up. Would expect to see something similar happen after the Sochi Olympics. While I don't know the figures for Skate Canada per se, there have been multiple quotes that start with a healthy purse of $3BN which has gone into the Sochi effort by Putin & Co. Skate Canada enjoyed the largess of funding support from various sources. That kind of environment is not "forever" and now approaching 3 years past Vancouver, it seems natural for things to need to change. Not just politically or with names/people, but because of financials. Just my perspective.
