Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 02:18:38 -0500 (EST)
From: Sandra Loosemore <sandra@shore.net>
To: skatefans-l@udel.edu,
        rec.sport.skating.ice.figure-news@BABYBLUE.CS.YALE.EDU
Subject: Michael Chack at Skate America

I wasn't ambitious enough to deal with a lousy setup for my
computer in my hotel room and a flakey net connection to be posting
regular reports from Skate America, but I'm back and here's at
least the part of the story that has to do with Michael Chack.
I'll try to post some more general notes about the event later.
In the meantime, there are some spoilers here....

As usual, Michael looked great in practice on Thursday except for his
triple axel.  I think he only landed one clean one in the session.
Then in the short program he popped it, and started improvising a
triple lutz/double toe combination and then a triple flip that came
out as a double.  I thought Frank was going to kill him for trying to
rechoreograph his program on the fly (remember how he chewed out
Christopher Bowman for doing that??)  but Michael told me later that
Frank had *told* him to put in a combination somewhere else if he
missed the axel.  But the end result was a mess and I think he would
have been better off just doing the rest of the program as he had
planned it.

Anyway, my worries disappeared when I saw Michael at his Friday
practice.  He was cheerful, focused, and more relaxed than I've seen
him in a competition situation in a long time, and he skated all the
way through his long program when they played his music.  I went over
to talk to him afterwards and he told me the story about Frank and his
short program.  He mentioned that their choreographer Lori Nichol had
surprised him and Michelle by coming to the competition and that he
found her a calming influence compared to Frank!  Anyway, after this I
kept running into him and/or his mom every time I turned around, it
seemed, and it was getting so embarassing that I was actually trying
to avoid them by the time I left on Sunday. 

So on Saturday morning I go over to the rink and walk down the steps
in the arena in the corner where I'd been sitting all the previous
day, and there's Michael and his mom again, and I was hesitant to bug
them yet again.  But why's Michael just sitting around there, anyway?
He's supposed to be skating in about 10 minutes.  So I asked him, and
he said he thought he was in the second group of men, and I said no, I
thought he was up first.  So he scrambles down to check with the ice
monitor and runs over to tell Frank and get his skates on.  But instead
of panicking about having to do his practice with absolutely no time
to warm up or stretch, he skated over to the boards and cracked a joke
to his mom and me about it.  Like I said, he was obviously in a pretty
good mood.

Don't be misled by Michael's placement in the long program, because it
really was a major triumph for him.  He skated a clean program with 6
triples (intentionally doing a big, beautiful double axel instead of a
triple) and he got a **standing ovation** from the crowd in the arena.
His marks were in the 5.0-5.5 range and drew a lot of boos.  I can't
pretend to be impartial but I thought he probably would have placed a
lot higher had he skated in the final group -- for instance, he
certainly outskated Zaggy (who landed only two triples) and I think
Scott Davis as well.  Anyway, he had told me earlier that he was not
so concerned about his placement as about just skating well, and he
certainly did that.  It was so good to see him coming off the ice
looking happy, for a change!  I also thought it was neat that he made
such a hit with the audience -- besides the big ovation, he also
had a mob of fans wanting his autograph when he came out to sit with
his mom for the rest of the event.  

As for the program and costume details, the short program is an
Argentine Tango.  It's pretty macho stuff, full of strutting and
preening, similar in style to his "Strictly Ballrom" short from 1995.
It's not just posing, though -- it's got some pretty complex footwork
and connecting steps.  For this program he's back to the high-waisted
style of costume in black and burgundy.  It's quite simple, with
little or no beading or sequins that I can recall.  And he wears a
loose black scarf around his neck.

Michael's long program is to music from "Masada" and "Out of Africa".
I don't think the choreography for this one is as distinctive as for
the program he had last year, but it does have some really nice parts,
like the spirals into the triple loop.  And I observed that his spins
were more elaborate than in the past -- I have notes about stars into
a death drop and using a butterfly to change feet in his spin
combination, and he's doing both a quasi-layback and the catch-leg
spin he had in his short program in Nashville.  No one-foot axel this
year, though.

For the long program costume, he's wearing black pants and a loose
dark gold shirt with epaulettes and a vaguely military look.  From
where I was sitting it looked like it was probably silk or some
similar fabric that was lustrous without being shiny.  Again, no
glitter.

A couple other random news bits....  Michael said that he had been
having some blade problems a while back, with the wrong-size blades
mounted on his new boots, but once he got that fixed his training has
been going really well.  He will be competing next at Piruetten and
Pacific Coasts, but he's trying to focus on Nationals instead of
peaking too early in the season.

-Sandra