From: kim@guppy.uucp (Isaac Kim)
Newsgroups: rec.skate
Subject: Re: Professional Ice Skating
Date: 8 Jan 1993 08:04:30 GMT
Organization: UC San Diego
NNTP-Posting-Host: guppy.ucsd.edu

In article <1993Jan7.225512.16579@leland.Stanford.EDU> iceskate@leland.Stanford.EDU ( Lin) writes:
>
>       Does anybody have any comments (reviews?) about the Durasoft 
>Professional Champions?  I am speaking of the one in which Paul Wylie got
>first place (I'm interested in comments from all four categories though, not
>just the men's).  I didn't have access to a computer for three weeks and mossed
>whatever was posted, if there were any.  Please email me anything that you
>have to say about the competition, including when they'll be shown on TV.\
>                       Thanks a lot.
>                       Alex

I had a friend in LA who had some extra tickets.  She told me about it
5:30 pm that Thurday.  I live in San Diego so it is a good 2 hour drive
to the Forum.  I an not really a figure skating fan, but I thought,
what the heck.  It was strange seeing the GW Forum without the hockey 
glass and with black velvet covering up the boards.  My first instinct
when I enter the GW Forum is to yell: "MCSOREY SUCKS!!"  I could tell
immediately from the looks of the people around me that the crowd which
watched figure skating is alittle different than your typical hockey 
crowd.

I was expecting a little more power from the women who competed.
I guess I have heard that women's figure skating is slowing changing
from a power multiple triple jump sport to more of a graceful sport.
I have heard that too many women have been getting injured from trying
and practicing all of those triple jumps.  Well, I guess it was 
graceful but since Kristi only attempted one really difficult
jump, the event seemed to lack drama.

The dance and pairs were dominated by Russians, as I expected.
I wonder why that is?  There was one american brother-sister combo,
but they did not look like anything special.

I was alot more familiar with the competators of the men's event.
I had the misforture of sitting right next to Paul Wylie's two
louded fans.  They just would not shut up during his warm-up 
and individual performance.  During Paul's warm-up, he looked like 
he was having some trouble and these women were yelling at him to 
"reach out" more during his takeoff.  I almost asked them to go
to the ice to show me exactly how it is done.  Oh brother!

Well, being Canadian, I thought that the judging was FIXED.
Brian Orser skated a very good performance with one slight poor
landing (but he didn't touch the ice).  Then Boitano goes 
out there and screws up two jumps, touching the ice both time.
Yet, he received consistently higher marks than Orser.  I really
hope Orser goes out in the '94 Olympics and whips Boitano's butt.
Another thing that pissed me off is than they kept annoucing
Orser as "two-time silver medalist" instead of a "Three-time
World Champion".  Oh well.  Petrenko seemed to skate OK as well
as Wylie.  It was tough to watching Paul skate with the screaming
Wylie fans yelling at his every move.  When Petrenko skated by,
they offered to do his bachelour party!  "Does anybody know if Victor 
Petrenko is related to the Petrenko that plays on the Moscow Dynamo 
ice hockey team?

Anyways, the most interesting part of the night was the exhibitions
which followed the competative part of the program.  The competators
looked like they were having alot more fun with their rather zany
routines.  They could have cut it alittle short since every skater 
did an exhibition.  Maybe next time they should only let the winners 
skate in the exhibition.  With the thought of a long drive home 
lingering, we hung around to the very end - avoiding the metal 
presentations.  It was 11:00 when we left.  I never dreamed that this 
figuer skating would take longer then a typical King's hockey game.

Anyways, I hope I did offend any of the true figure skating crowd,
from this hockey fan's perspective of the "Durosoft Championships".
It is always neat seeing world class competators close up, no
matter what their sport.

I saw in a NFL football game commercial that they are going to 
televise this event on ABC this Saturday.  I forget the times,
but they will probably try to squeeze it in between some of this
week's football games.

Isaac (kim@bull.ucsd.edu)