From: loosemore-sandra
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 13:04:42 -0400 (EDT)
To: rec.sport.skating.ice.figure-news@babyblue.cs.YALE.EDU,
        skatefans-l@UDel.Edu
Subject: update on Michael Chack
Sender: owner-skatefans-l@UDel.Edu

I had a chance to visit with Michael Chack in Lake Arrowhead earlier
this week.  I got to see him skate through both of his programs for
the upcoming season, and I talked with him a little about his status
and plans.

Michael is just starting to prepare for the competitive season.  He
says he only started doing runthroughs of his long program again two
weeks ago, and just got his new short program choreographed by Lori
Nichol last week.  Michael's triple axel is still pretty iffy right
now, but he's not too worried about it because it's so early in the
season.  He seemed to be landing most of his other jumps with
reasonable consistency (including that big triple lutz / triple toe
combination), and they're the way I remember them -- fast and high and
landed with wonderful flow and control.  Anyway, for now he is quite
happy just because "nothing hurts, for a change".  He said it was a
little hard getting back in the groove after nine months of doing
basically nothing, but he seemed to have a lot of enthusiasm and
confidence.  He also spoke very highly of the training facilities at
Ice Castle and talked about how nice it was that while he was there he
could concentrate exclusively on his skating.

His long program is the one choreographed by Robin Cousins last year,
to music from "Frankenstein" and "Much Ado About Nothing".  I hadn't
been sure if these pieces would really go together, but they do, quite
nicely.  I hesitate to say too much about the choreography since I
have only first impressions to go by, but I liked what I saw.  The
long program seemed somewhat reminiscent in style to his programs from
the 1994-95 season and the short seemed to come from the same place as
his 1993 long program, with the same sort of strong classical
approach.  As far as technical content goes, the one-foot axel /
triple salchow / double toe combination is back in the long, and I was
pleased to see that he's doing a change camel instead of a change sit
in the short.  (Michael has a really good camel spin, both in terms of
the position and the strength and speed of the rotation.  There are so
few guys who can do a good camel that it's nice to see Michael showing
his off.)

As for his future plans, Michael says he is going to do a competition
in Las Vegas in four weeks (it's called the Silver State Open or
something like that), and while he hasn't committed himself either way
yet he says he really does want to compete out of Pacific Coasts
instead of Easterns.  He was enthusiastic when I pointed out that
Pacific Coasts will be in Salt Lake City this year, until I told him
it was being hosted by Bountiful instead of Cottonwood.  His memories
of Salt Lake City from 1990 Nationals are apparently pretty good --
except for the experience of having to compete compulsory figures at
the Bountiful rink!  (That was his last year as a junior, when he
finished second in spite of winning the free skating part of the
competition.)

I mentioned to him about how somebody (was it Eda?) had joked last
year about having to get a volunteer to feed him oranges every day so
he wouldn't get sick again at Nationals, as he did in 1995.  Michael
asked me to reassure everyone on the net that he eats lots of fresh
fruits and veggies and is in no danger of coming down with scurvy.  :-)

Finally, a personal note.  I had been a little concerned that my
inviting myself to visit Michael at his training rink was bordering on
the kind of obnoxious fan behavior I try to avoid, but he was really
gracious about it.  He seems to be really well-liked and respected by
everyone at Ice Castle, too.  Towards the end of my second day there,
one of the skate moms from the Italian contingent tapped me on the
shoulder.  "Your fella is the best!", she assured me with a big wink.

-Sandra