Update on Paul Wylie

He Facebooked from the hospital, and it sounds like he's doing much better!

The long and short of it - he had a freak cardiac arrest that was not a heart attack, and was put into a medically induced coma so docs could figure out what the heck happened. He's out of it now, and his heart is healthy. But there is no conclusion as to why the arrest happened.

See his FB update below. Hope he gets sprung from the hospital and back on the ice soon!

Update from Paul Wylie <3 After a whirlwind of a week, I am...
Posted by Professional Skaters Association(PSA) on Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Adult Skating Promo

Park City TV released a short video that takes a look at some of the personalities of adult skating during Adult Nationals last week. It gives viewers a great sense of how diverse and fun the community of adult skaters in the United States is, and several of the skaters interviewed really captured in words the essence of why I'm continuing with the sport.

One particular thought, by skater Michael Rubke really hits home:

"I had spent so many years working on the sport that it would be a waste of my talent to never do it again."

Tanith & Charlie Tie the Knot

Yay, figure skating's hottest couple just got married!

Olympic silver medalist Tanith Belbin and Olympic Gold (and silver) medalist Charlie White had their wedding this weekend outside Detroit, where they lived and trained during their respective competitive careers. According to People, Meryl Davis was a bridesmaid.

Congratulations to the happy couple!

It Figures!

The long lost art of figures--that archaic discipline that puts the "figure" in Figure Skating--is not all that lost after all. It has a pretty motivated following, actually, and competitions devoted solely to figures exist today. I just saw an announcement for the World Figure Championship, to be held in Lake Placid in August. 

Figures are essentially patterns you make with your skate on the ice. Loops, brackets, 3-turns, serpentines and counters to name a few of the technical maneuvers. If you're familiar with Moves in the Field, these terms should ring a bell. Figures used to be the core of the sport, but were axed from competition in the early 90s.

Watching them is like watching grass grow. But if you're really good at them, you have a talent on par with all the world's best jumpers and spinners. Figures are low-impact, but precision and perfection are demanded. And the pressure is turned way up when you compete, as the judges are right there on the ice next to you, analyzing every move you make, and every edge you take. (Cue The Police song)

I was briefly exposed to them as a kid, but I hated them with the fire of a thousand suns, and dropped them like a hot potato as soon as I was allowed. They didn't come naturally to me like freestyle skating did. My circles on the ice looked more like Mickey Mouse pancakes or the Blob than anything resembling a passable figure. I wish I'd tried harder at them, as I think the skill involved greatly improves freeskating technique.

Anyway, the competition in Lake Placid promises to offer "black ice," which makes seeing and tracing figures on the ice a lot easier. ORDA got rid of the Lussi Rink, a rink famously dedicated to figures with dark ice, so I wonder how they're going to offer it?

OMG the Tonya & Nancy Museum

This. Is. Priceless. Two Brooklyn hipster comedians took Kickstarter money and made a "museum" in their apartment hallway dedicated to Tonya and Nancy: The Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan 1994 Museum.

The NY Post called it the "worst idea ever." Rolling Stone called it the "Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan museum we never knew we needed."

I think it's HILARIOUS.  Of course the world needs a Tonya and Nancy museum. Of course it does.

IceNetwork went inside the "museum," and offers a cheeky look at the images ripped from the internet artifacts the inside of the apartment museum.

From the "museum" Kickstarter:

Part of the museum team's research has been the realization that everyone is either a Tonya or a Nancy (if you're thinking about it, you're a Tonya. This of course is made more confusing by the fact that, if you immediately thought you were a Nancy, you are most definitely a Tonya. The only real way to be a Nancy is to have very long lines in your body. If you thought you were an Oksana Baiul, well, aren't you just perfect, we see right through you).


I was gonna go, but when I learned tix were $75 a pop, I decided to go watch the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary again and call it even.

A Competition for Jumping Beans

Jumps are undoubtedly a hallmark of the sport of figure skating. They often overshadow the other technical elements during media coverage of competitions. I think with good reason--they are the hardest elements worth the most points after all. Skaters even tend to obsess over them, and consider perfecting them more of a milestone than anything else.

That's why I thought it was super cool that the Broadmoor Skating Club in Colorado is taking jumping competition to a new level. National Champ Michael Weiss is helming the star-studded operation, which is no surprise, given he is the poster skater for jumping. He was the first American to land a quad in competition (quad toe). Observe his majestic "tornado," a gymnastics-esque full twisting backflip on ice. (Sorry the video is a touch crappy.)


Michael Weiss also gives a great video tutorial on jumps over at MonkeySee.com.

Name the Olympic Cities!

Whenever I find myself procrastinating, I like to spend time over at Sporcle.com, doing quizzes and puzzles and other brain games. Specifically those that have to do with a certain sport near and dear to me.

So today (in the middle of an Olympic drought) I found myself doing this one. How many can you get? I got 38/49 Olympic cities (most of them winter).