Battle of the Blades (season 6)
The sixth season of "Battle of the Blades" premiered on October 22, 2020, on CBC Television featuring eight couples. The venue of this season was moved to CAA Centre in Brampton, Ontario. Production. Ron MacLean returns as host, with Canadian singer Keshia Chanté joining as the new co-host. Previous host and judge Kurt Browning is the "Elite Battle Expert" this season acting as a correspondent, and provides colour commentary throughout the series. The judging panel saw a complete overhaul this season, with the additions of Olympic ice dancing gold medalist Scott Moir, Olympic  ice hockey gold medalist and season 5 runner-up Natalie Spooner, and Junior Canadian figure skating champion Elladj Baldé. For the first time in the series' history, a record three female ice hockey players and three male figure skaters, were cast as contestants this season, besting the number of two female ice hockey players in season 5. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, there is no live studio audience for the taping of the season. Instead, viewers were encouraged to sign up to become "virtual audience" members to attend the tapings of the series, and have a livestream  video of themselves broadcast via screens placed in the audience sections of the arena, to the effect of having these viewers being in the actual audience inside the arena. The season premiere date was originally scheduled for October 15, 2020. On October 7, 2020, all training and pre-production was halted, after a member of the production team was tested positive for COVID-19. The season premiere is then postponed and re-scheduled for October 22, 2020. Ratings. The re-scheduled season premiere on October 22, 2020 was broadcast up against the 2020 United States presidential debate between Donald Trump and  Joe Biden. The debate brought in over 3 million viewers and was the top rated television program of the week. The "Battle of the Blades" premiere drew in 455,000 viewers. For the first time in the history of the series, the season premiere did not place in the Top 30 for the weekly most watched television programs in Canada. Individual songs & scores. Individual judges scores in charts below (given in parentheses) are listed in this order from left to right unless specified: Natalie Spooner, Elladj Baldé, Scott Moir. The couples are listed in the running order of each episode. Week  6 - Finale. The judges' score from the performance this week combined with the viewer's voting from last week determined the 3rd and 4th placing couples. The top two couples then advance to the next round and reprised a skating performance from a previous week. The couple with the higher judges' score from the Reprise Skate wins the competition.