From: loosemore-sandra
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 09:53:40 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Sandra's REAL Boston Pro-Am report

I was able to schedule one of my regular business trips to Boston (to
meet with the people who pay my salary) to coincide with the Pro-Am 
competition being held there earlier this week.  Here's the scoop....

I'll start this report off with a nice note.  I ended up with a
front-row seat in the opposite lutz corner from the one where I
usually seem to wind up, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that
not only were Amy Webster and Ron Kravette sitting right across the
aisle from me Monday night, but they also remembered having met me
before!  Amy said that she had surgery on her shoulder two weeks ago
and is feeling good, and had just gotten back on the ice for the first
time.  They said they *are* planning to compete again next year --
they didn't want to end their competitive careers on such a
disappointing note as this past season turned out to be for them.

On a less pleasant note, my seat was just to the side of where the ABC
crew were sitting.  (Yes, this event will be on TV eventually, so if 
you don't want to see "spoilers", stop reading now.)  It's a good thing 
I didn't have any rotting vegetables handy to pelt Terry Gannon with or 
they might have had to throw me out of the arena.

I also have a couple flames to direct at the USFSA.  Flame #1 is that
apparently the entire US world team and their coaches and family were
put on the same red-eye flight out of Edmonton Sunday night in order
to make this event.  I would've thought that memories of 1961 would
have made people shudder in horror at this plan, but apparently not --
a sign that money rules, I guess.

Flame #2 has to do with the format of the event.  It's another one of
those hokey made-for-TV team competitions like the one last fall, with
pros and eligibles being judged under different (but still completely
arbitrary) rules, and the marks added up to determine "team" scores.
It seems pretty idiotic for the USFSA to be talking out of one side of
its mouth about how it has real judges and consistent rules while the
pro competition circuit doesn't, while at the same time they are
putting on their *own* equally dumb pro-style "competitions".  And
speaking of conflicts of interest on the judging panels, what was
Kathaleen Kelly Cutone doing judging her own coach Mark Mitchell?  I
know that the USFSA has contracts to fulfill with ABC, but it seems to
me like they could call a spade a spade and just make this an honest
exhibition and it would sell just as many tickets and get just the
same TV ratings.  At least, I was already treating this as an
exhibition and was pretty much completely ignoring the scoring except
to notice some particularly ludicrous examples of overmarking.

Anyway, on to the show.  The teams were the "Celtics" (Hollander,
Kwan, Eldredge, Hamill); the "Bruins" (Weiss, Bobek, Sumners, Wylie);
and the "Red Sox" (Kadavy, Kwiatkowski, Mitchell, Galindo).

Monday night's show started out with an exhibition by Tara Lipinski to
some vocal music I didn't recognize.  She skated OK but the program
itself bored me.  Next Shelby Lyons and Brian Wells did another
exhibition.  Their music was some new-age kind of thing and the
program included a lot of adagio-style stuff, carry lifts and the
like.  I found this one fairly interesting.  To me the program seemed
to show off Brian more than Shelby, which is a little unusual both for
them and for pairs teams in general.

The first actual "competitor" was Tonia Kwiatkowski.  She did her
Firebird program, and nailed everything.

Roz Sumners did "Hello Dolly".  I guess she skated it OK, but I really
noticed how slow and weak her spins are in this program.  And of
course she doesn't do any triples.

Next up was Dan Hollander.  He skated "The Barber of Seville", and
fell on his triple axel but still managed to get 5.8's for the 
technical mark.  Huh?  Like I said, the judging was corny.

After this came what was, for me, the highlight of the evening -- Mark
Mitchell, a skater I haven't seen in performing in person since he
turned pro.  He skated his saxophone concerto piece, and it's just a
gorgeous, well-choreographed program.  This is the sort of abstract
program I like best; no phony dramatics, just pure skating with
emphasis on flow and clean lines and matching movements to music.  He
skated the program cleanly except that he left his triple lutz in the
warmup and only did a double in the program.  I don't know how his
injury is progressing but he must be able to do more than one lutz a
day now since he was warming them up.

After this came Nicole Bobek doing her "Cotton Club" short.  I'm not
even sure she had any jumps to leave in the warmup.  She fell on a
lutz that was badly flutzed, put a hand down on a triple toe, and even
stumbled out of a scratch spin at the end of her program.  Barbara Roles
Williams was still with her here, but for how much longer?

What a contrast when Michelle Kwan came out to do her Spanish program.
The combination was a little slow but the program looked every bit as
good as it did in San Jose and Edmonton, and if Michelle was tired
from her busy schedule and all that travel, you sure couldn't tell
from the way she skated.

Next Ina & Dungjen did their "Grease" exhibition, and it was time
for intermission.  I snuck out early to the ladies' room (yes, there
is only *one* ladies' room in the arena -- can you say "lines"?) so
I missed most or it.

After the ice make, Renee Roca & Gorsha Sur skated their new paso
doble as another exhibition.  In some ways this dance has an
interesting concept, but it doesn't seem to translate well into what
the judges are looking for in a competitive program, and on top of
that they looked pretty slow and sloppy in performing it.  Frankly, I
think it was a mistake for them to abandon the dance they used at
nationals to try to slap this one together from scratch for worlds --
they just didn't get enough time to clean this one up.

Jenni Meno & Todd Sand came out next to skate "True Companion", which
is an old program for them.  Jenni was wearing what I think was her 
lacy black short program dress, and Todd was wearing a black T-shirt 
and pants, and they looked oddly mismatched because of the contrast 
between the formality of her costume and the casualness of his.  They 
skated OK, though.

So then it was on to the "competitors".  Caryn Kadavy was up first.
She skated "At Last" again -- I think when she gets a new program
*I'm* going to yell "at last!!!"  Interesting, she was wearing stretch
pants instead of a skirt.  I guess that wasn't against the rules at
thie event.  Anyway, she did only one triple and stepped out of her
double axel.

Michael Weiss, instead of doing his normal short program, showed up
with his face painted green and skated his "Frankenstein" program.  He
left his triple axel in the warmup and popped it big time in the
program.  The footwork in this program also seems fairly week (it's
mostly done on two feet).

Next was Dorothy Hamill.  Oddly enough, I believe this is the first
time I have ever seen Dorothy skate in person!  She skated to some
Barbra Streisand song.  It was a pretty typical kind of program for
her, with the emphasis on edges and stroking and a few easy jumps and
spins that are still among the very best in the business.  But she
lost her balance and fell on her butt just stroking backwards across
the ice!  Once again we saw a bit of her sense of humor as she rubbed
her bottom in an exaggerated kind of way while taking her bows.

Rudy Galindo was up next.  He and Michelle and Paul were clearly the
audience favorites here.  Unfortunately, Rudy too left his jumps in
the warmup (do you see a trend here?); he landed a bit forward on his
triple axel and was only able to pull off a double toe instead of the
triple he'd done in warmup.  And his triple lutz in the opposite
corner looked like it might have been two-footed, too.  Still, he
skated with such an air of confidence and serenity that the audience
didn't really mind the less-than-perfect performance.  He got a
standing O anyway.

So Paul Wylie skated "Apollo 13" next.  It was an interesting contrast
between Rudy and Paul; Paul skates with a lot more speed and has a
lutz that's a definitely *lutz*, by god, but OTOH you could also hear
how scratchy his stroking was.  Like the other guys, Paul did better
jumps in the warmup than in the competition; a triple axel in warmup,
but only a double in the program.  He also had trouble with a triple
toe that barely got up into the air, and he should've gotten frequent
flyer miles for that scratch spin at the end, which must have
travelled at least 10 feet across the ice.  Nevertheless, the judges
rewarded him with pretty much straight 6's on both marks.  Huh?!?  My
theory was that his team was so far behind in the standings (remember
Nicole?) that the judges thought they needed some extra help.

And the last skater of the evening was Todd Eldredge, doing his "Swing
Kids" short in the corny costume with the circus-striped shirt.  He
seemed to be awake and "into" his program, but you guessed it, he too
left his jumps in the warmup, and managed only a triple axel/double
toe and then fell completely out of his triple lutz.  The applause he
got was decidedly lukewarm -- he got more for being introduced as
world champion than for his performance, if you can believe that.

So that was Monday.  Tuesday started out with the same two exhibitions
by Tara Lipinski and Lyons & Wells, then it was Nicole's turn to skate.
She was wearing her "Lion King" costume but this was a different program.
It had a lot of intentional writhing on the ice a la Oksana Baiul and
a lot of unintentional writhing on the ice as in falling on her butt on
her jumps again.  She looked like she was crying as she came off the
ice, and with good reason, because this was another disaster for her.

Tonia Kwiatkowski skated next, doing her competition long program.
She scaled back a couple of her jumps and had a very definite 2-foot
on her second triple lutz as well as a bad landing on the loop.
Still, she got a big ovation and big hugs from her teammates Rudy and
Mark as she came off the ice.  Wish I could be so lucky.  :-)  It was
actually pretty cute watching Rudy watching Tonia; he was clutching
some sort of stuffed animal that must've been a good luck charm or
something.

Dan Hollander also did his normal long program.  He missed both his
triple axels but threw in a back flip at the end, and it was a
respectable skate.

Michael Weiss was up next.  No green face paint this time; he did his
Santana program.  He also had a little trouble with a couple jumps --
still no triple axel for Michael -- but I thought he skated the actual
program more convincingly than he did in San Jose.  It's a nice
program and I think it works just as well in an exhibition setting
as it does as a competition program.

Caryn Kadavy did her Rachmaninoff piano concerto #2 program.  It's a
nice program but not in the same class as Chen Lu's interpretation of
the same music, IMHO.  And Caryn did only double jumps.  

And next up was Michelle Kwan doing Salome.  If she's tired from all
of this competing and travel, it sure didn't show, because this
performance was a virtual carbon copy of the one she delivered in
Edmonton with the exception of a scary landing on the triple loop.
It was amazing, easily the class performance of the night.

Roca & Sur did some new exhibition program I hadn't seen before, but
it was full of their usual overwrought writhing.  The effect was
totally corny.  Here's another example of skaters who've become
complete parodies of themselves.

Then we were treated to the Haydenettes precision team doing
what I think must be their long program.  They were wearing black
velour with hot pink trim and hair scrunchies, and the program had
sort of a jazz theme.  This was a lot of fun to watch.  

After an ice make, Ina & Dungjen came out and skated the "Grease"
program I'd missed the night before.  It's a good program for them
but I think it's about time they got a new one.  Meno & Sand skated a
different exhibition program than before, in red and black costumes.
This one was vaguely familiar but I couldn't place where I'd seen them
skate it before.

Back to the "competition", Roz Sumners skated "Remember Me This Way"
in the gold beaded dress.  She did a nice job and got a good reception
from the audience.

Mark Mitchell was next, doing his retro-disco "YMCA" program, which
always gets a good crowd reaction.  He landed a beautiful triple loop
but fell on another jump.  One of the things I respect about Mark, BTW,
is that he seems determined to avoid getting himself typecast or stuck
in a rut.  He could easily have allowed himself to get pigeonholed as 
a skater who always does elegant classical-style programs, but he's
just as convincing doing fun stuff like this.

And then there was Dorothy Hamill.  She skated her "Requiem" program,
and it was just mesmerizing -- the audience was totally hushed while
she skated.  I want a scratch spin like Dorothy's!!!!  :-) Big
standing ovation, straight 6's for artistic marks.  This performance
alone was worth the price of admission.

Paul Wylie skated "On the Waterfront" next.  I know some people don't
like the program or the costume, but to me this was *infinitely*
better than his "Apollo 13" program.  It's the only program in his
repertoire that hasn't been completely over-exposed, and it's also a
little (just a *little*!) more original in its concept and
choreography, with some asymmetric and angular movements that fit the
jarring music.  Anyway, Paul turned in a great performance.

Rudy Galindo skated next.  He did not do his Tchaikovsky long program,
but rather I think this is the same thing he did in the exhibition at
worlds -- the vocal version of "Ave Maria" in the black velvet costume
with a giant red AIDS ribbon worn around his neck.  Again, a good
performance, although he landed forward on his triple axel again and
couldn't get in the triple toe.

Todd Eldredge came back apparently determined to make up for falling
in his short program on Monday.  He did his regular "First Knight"
program, wimping out on some of the jumps but skating it cleanly and
well.  I hate to keep hammering on poor Todd, but I *still* find this
program overly bombastic and couldn't really get very excited about
it.

If you want to know who "won" this "competition", you'll have to find
out from someone else, because I left immediately after Todd skated,
without waiting to hear the "results".  I wanted to get out early
because I had to drive all the way back home to New Haven afterwards.
As it was, I was getting a bit spaced out driving that final leg
between Hartford and New Haven, and it was after 1am by the time I
finally staggered in the door.  At least I didn't have to clean up any
cat barf when I got home -- that's the usual method my cats use to let
me know how much they miss me.  :-P

-Sandra