Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 11:45:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: loosemore-sandra
To: skatefans-l@udel.edu,
        rec.sport.skating.ice.figure-news@babyblue.cs.yale.edu
Subject: End-of-season reflections

Since the end of the season is here and a couple weeks have elapsed
since worlds, I've had some time to reflect a little about the events
of this past season and some of my personal memories of them.

I think there's absolutely no doubt that the big story of this season
has to be Rudy Galindo.  I have a shameful confession to make: I've
adored this man's skating for years, but I was among the people who
was wondering why he was still bothering to compete this year, because
I thought the judges and public had lost interest in the artistic
style of skating, that he didn't really have the technical ability to
be competitive with the other skaters, and he was never going to get
anywhere in the sport as a result.  I have never been so glad to have
been proven wrong in my life -- and I'm willing to make a public
apology about it: I'm so sorry, Rudy!  Aside from the rags-to-riches
human-interest aspect of the story, I found it really encouraging
that, in spite of all the talk you hear about how image accounts for
everything in this sport, the fact that Rudy happens to be a gay
hispanic (gasp!) with a goatee and an earring (horrors!) has turned
out to be completely irrelevant with the judges and the public.

The other big story is no doubt the death of Sergei Grinkov, which
seemed to hit fans particularly hard as well as causing significant
disruption and difficulty, both personal and professional, for his
colleagues on the pro circuit.  For me, personally, I will have to say
that I was not affected so much by Sergei's death as by what I saw as
the completely unaccountable desire of so many people to donate money
to Katya afterwards instead of to people who really needed it, and
this (in combination with the revelations about just how badly off
Rudy was) is something that has motivated me to put my money where my
mouth is and start making substantial donations to support some of
those struggling eligible competitors.  I'd like to encourage other
fans to do the same, e.g. by means of donations to the USFSA Memorial
Fund.

I've commented elsewhere about how it's been good to see that the
eligible competition structure has been more than holding its own
against the over-hyped made-for-TV pro events, so I won't go in to
that here except to say that we had a great US Nationals and Worlds
this year and I'm happy to see that ABC and ESPN teamed up to give us
such good TV coverage of both events.

Perhaps not a major story, but something that's affected me
personally: this is the year that the Internet finally became
mainstream in the skating world.  I'm almost embarrassed to admit it,
but I've been on the net since 1982, when it was possible to read
every article posted to every Usenet newsgroup every day, and still
get real work done, too.  :-) And I remember back in 1990 when I tried
to get a press credential for Nationals, explaining that I was
reporting about the competition on the Internet.  "What's the
Internet?" they said.  I suspect I wouldn't have that particular
problem any more.  Before I always used to be totally anonymous when I
went to skating events, and now it's more like a sense of community
and there are so many nice people I've met through the net to hang out
with.  Anyway, maybe just because I've been here longer than anybody
else, I seem to have become something of a minor celebrity among
net.skatefans, and it's taking a little getting used to.

Next, my awards for the worst costumes of the season.  The winner
is....  Olga Markova's gold dress with the non-skirt consisting of a
few pieces of black string and dangly pompoms, with Renee Roca's blue
dress with the black trim that looked like pubic hair a close second.
Best costumes: the blue and green costumes that Nicole Bateson-Rock
and Jeff Tilley had for their long program.

Best programs and choreography of the season: Stiegler & Zimmerman's
weird tango, both of Chen Lu's competitive programs, Michelle Kwan's
short.  Worst programs:  too many of 'em to list, and I've already
embarassed the skaters enough by flaming about them before.  :-)

Best memories: Seeing G&G, Kristi, and Paul skating "The Seasons" in a
practice session in Lake Placid just a week before Sergei's death.
Watching Rudy nail his triple/triple combinations over and over again
in practices in San Jose, and the reaction when he nailed them in
competition, too.  Worst memories: coming down with the flu at Easterns,
and how totally gronked out I was for a week afterwards.

-Sandra