Wednesday, March 26, 2014

My work here is not done

So ISU president Speedy Cinquanta is looking ahead to his 2016 departure, and, as he notes in a recent communique, time's a wasting. A lot has been accomplished, but there's more to be done if the sport is to be irrevocably be stripped of its credibility before his final sayanara.

He shares his thoughts:

There's still time to make figure skating worse

Read that. Does anybody think a penetrating intellect like David Dore's would have trouble controlling this guy?

I don't know why Speedy's plans are so conservative. I've got some ideas:

For pairs:
Divide the rink in half and compress the routine.Two pairs teams compete at the same time, one at each end. Judges compare tricks, and the audience is on the edge of their seats in case one of the throws sends a lady sailing to the wrong end of the rink, decapitating the other guy.

For singles:
No more singles. Singles relay. One by one each skater in each flight races after the other onto the ice and does their opening pose and preliminary stroking. Repeat as each follows the other with their next sequence or element. Only half the footwork is done per turn, because the audience doesn't have the attention span for all that shit at once. The spirals can be completed in one go cause they're pretty.

For dance:
Two teams on the ice at once, but the rink isn't split. At a point to be determined by blind draw at each event, the teams must switch partners before a key, easily apprehended element such as the dance spin or the twizzles. The voting is factored so that the skaters are scored individually, not as a team. At the medal ceremony, it could be Alexandra Paul standing up there with Alex Shibutani.

7 comments:

  1. Might I also suggest "reverse pairs," and for the team ice dance program with a polka feel: "follow the lederhosen."

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    1. Reverse pairs is a winner. Half the routine the male lifts, throws and death spirals the female, then the team circles back to start and re-sets with the lady doing the throwing, lifting and death spiral support.This is where ladies who splat in the first go round can redeem themselves, and where traditional pairs with the big dude and the petite lady face challenges. If D&D were still competing you know Jessica could throw Bryce.

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    2. Can we work out some sort of event where Aliona Savchenko and Tatiana Volosozhar can be a pair? Maybe two pairs teams switch partners, with the ladies skating together and the men skating together? It's a real battle of the sexes on ice!

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    3. Nothing against Max and Robin, but the girls would kill them. There's not even a competition, Aliona and Tatiana are taking this home without a doubt.

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  2. If you think Speedy is bad just wait till Didier is taking over ! They might as well sell the ISU directly to the mafia.

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    1. I think if they staffed the ISU with monkeys from a zoo, the ISU would be run at least 100000X better than it currently is.

      The same could be said of Skate Canada.

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    2. Can a mafia be sold to a different mafia? Maybe the bigger mafia can fold the smaller mafia into its ranks?

      Probably someone will get fit with cement skates either way.

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