What a scene it was late on this Prairie evening.
A hardy group of skating folk — coaches, fans, parents and such — sat in the terminal at John Diefenbaker Airport weary after an often frenzied week in Saskatoon. And what were we gathered around a flat screen television watching as we waited for late-night flights to take us home to destination points from coast to coast?
CBC's coverage of tonight's men's free skate, of course. Wasn't enough that we'd already seen it live. We just had to hear what Kurt Browning and Tracy Wilson had to say about it all and had to know how the people at home saw it unfold.
Yeah, it's tough to shake the Canadian figure skating championships out of your blood (for the record, your faithful blogger noted it was also available for viewing on the first of three Westjet flights that will eventually get him back to Ottawa).
More precisely, at least from this corner, there is always a touch of sadness when this little family reunion of sorts ends every year. Sure, I'm exhausted and can't wait to relax in my own bed again sometime soon.
But admittedly, there will be a few days of withdrawal ahead.
We may well see grander performances in Los Angeles at the world championships two months from now. There is a Winter Olympics moving closer into view, this one right in our own backyard in Vancouver.
And yet, I can help thinking I won't soon forget the magic that Patrick Chan and Joannie Rochette weaved before our eyes. But they're real people to me, too (lucky person that I am to say that), and it's always a treat to be reminded of that.
They did a rather neat thing today at the Credit Union Centre on the last day of the championships. Before the men's free skate final, the junior medals were presented before the Saskatoon audience. Hanging the hardware around the juniors' necks were the winners of the senior events — the very skaters the young ones certainly admire and may well even idolize. Talk about bringing it all full circle.
But that's the kind of thing you see at this event every year. Everyone who comes to nationals is a member of the Canadian skating family. It's the grandest of reunions when we gather each and every year. It is also a spirit you won't find at any other figure skating competition and it brings me back every year for more.
We head eastward next year to the John Labatt Centre in London, Ont., where not only will national champions be crowned but Olympic dreams will also come true. It should be an exciting time, indeed, and the blog surely intends to be there to chronicle it all one more time.
Thanks again to those who chose to follow this "alternative" path along with me, and especially those who took the time to share your thoughts.
Let's do it all over again in London in 2010, shall we?
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
The Best Birthday Gift
They serenaded the birthday girl with a rendition of the song that makes just about every birthday boy or girl break out the widest of smiles.
Cynthia Phaneuf, all 21 years of her, sat across the way at the Credit Union Centre and positively beamed when she heard the familiar refrain. As if her special day wasn't, well, special enough already.
"It feels good for my birthday," Phaneuf said after performing her short program at the 2009 BMO Canadian figure skating championships. "Even if I know I did make a mistake in my program, I was just feeling so good on the ice and having so much fun on my birthday.
"This was the best gift that I could give myself."
This was before Phaneuf even knew she'd skated well enough to land on top of the leaderboard with 56.16 points, just ahead of a pair of fellow Quebecers — four-time defending champion Joannie Rochette (53.58) and Amelie Lacoste (53.55). She's right in the hunt to regain the Canadian title she first won back in 2004 at Rexall Place in Edmonton.
But as Phaneuf spoke afterward, she made it clear such things wouldn't be on her mind during Saturday night's short program. She is after exactly the same thing she came to Saskatoon this week to claim — one of two women's spots on Canada's team for the 2009 world championships in Los Angeles.
"Even I know if my goal is not to win the gold medal, just to be on the world team, I don’t have a lot of pressure on myself," she said. "I just want to have fun on the ice on Saturday, just like I did today."
She will tell you this is the new Cynthia Phaneuf, finally free of the demons in her head that thwarted her dreams over the past few years. With the help of a sports psychologist, she now skates on the ice with everything in the right perspective.
"It was my confidence," Phaneuf said of her struggles to regain her standing as a women's contender . "When I was going on the ice, I wasn’t feeling good. I was all stressed out and I wasn’t using the stress well. I was using my stress in a bad way. Now I’m trying to use it the right way."
Certainly, it hasn't been the road Phaneuf imagined since the night in Edmonton when, at 15 years old, she became the youngest women's champion in Canadian figure skating history. Two days shy of her 16th birthday, everything seemed possible for the young girl who left everyone at Rexall Place breathless with her performance.
In London, Ont., a year later, all eyes turned instead toward Rochette, who seized the national crown with the best display of women's skating in years. An injury-shortened season followed, wiping out any chance of making the 2006 Turin Olympics team. Then a huge growth spurt that forced Phaneuf to pretty much start from scratch.
"A very bad period of my life," she called it. "I had to learn to jump all over again. For sure, I had some days when I wanted to quit because it will have been the easiest way."
Her deep love of skating simply wouldn't allow it and Phaneuf returned to the national championship stage in Halifax in 2007 with a fourth-place finish. Last year in Vancouver, she quietly climbed back onto the podium as the bronze medallist behind Rochette and Mira Leung. None of it, however, was seen as a sign she might contend again.
"I don’t think I’m worse than I was before because I’m doing the same jumps and everything is going as well as before," she said today. "What I had to work on was my head and my confidence and this is what I did before I came here to nationals. My new psychologist helped me a lot to be here and to be proud of myself at each competition."
Most of all, she is smiling again. Even after a short program which included a blown program, Phaneuf left the ice at the Credit Union Centre grinning widely as she hugged her coaches. She knows it is simply the way it has to be.
"I want to go out on the ice (Saturday) with the same smile I had today," she said with an eye toward Saturday's free skate final.
In that alone, Phaneuf is sure, she will have found her biggest victory.
Some birthday gift, indeed, we'd have to say.
Cynthia Phaneuf, all 21 years of her, sat across the way at the Credit Union Centre and positively beamed when she heard the familiar refrain. As if her special day wasn't, well, special enough already.
"It feels good for my birthday," Phaneuf said after performing her short program at the 2009 BMO Canadian figure skating championships. "Even if I know I did make a mistake in my program, I was just feeling so good on the ice and having so much fun on my birthday.
"This was the best gift that I could give myself."
This was before Phaneuf even knew she'd skated well enough to land on top of the leaderboard with 56.16 points, just ahead of a pair of fellow Quebecers — four-time defending champion Joannie Rochette (53.58) and Amelie Lacoste (53.55). She's right in the hunt to regain the Canadian title she first won back in 2004 at Rexall Place in Edmonton.
But as Phaneuf spoke afterward, she made it clear such things wouldn't be on her mind during Saturday night's short program. She is after exactly the same thing she came to Saskatoon this week to claim — one of two women's spots on Canada's team for the 2009 world championships in Los Angeles.
"Even I know if my goal is not to win the gold medal, just to be on the world team, I don’t have a lot of pressure on myself," she said. "I just want to have fun on the ice on Saturday, just like I did today."
She will tell you this is the new Cynthia Phaneuf, finally free of the demons in her head that thwarted her dreams over the past few years. With the help of a sports psychologist, she now skates on the ice with everything in the right perspective.
"It was my confidence," Phaneuf said of her struggles to regain her standing as a women's contender . "When I was going on the ice, I wasn’t feeling good. I was all stressed out and I wasn’t using the stress well. I was using my stress in a bad way. Now I’m trying to use it the right way."
Certainly, it hasn't been the road Phaneuf imagined since the night in Edmonton when, at 15 years old, she became the youngest women's champion in Canadian figure skating history. Two days shy of her 16th birthday, everything seemed possible for the young girl who left everyone at Rexall Place breathless with her performance.
In London, Ont., a year later, all eyes turned instead toward Rochette, who seized the national crown with the best display of women's skating in years. An injury-shortened season followed, wiping out any chance of making the 2006 Turin Olympics team. Then a huge growth spurt that forced Phaneuf to pretty much start from scratch.
"A very bad period of my life," she called it. "I had to learn to jump all over again. For sure, I had some days when I wanted to quit because it will have been the easiest way."
Her deep love of skating simply wouldn't allow it and Phaneuf returned to the national championship stage in Halifax in 2007 with a fourth-place finish. Last year in Vancouver, she quietly climbed back onto the podium as the bronze medallist behind Rochette and Mira Leung. None of it, however, was seen as a sign she might contend again.
"I don’t think I’m worse than I was before because I’m doing the same jumps and everything is going as well as before," she said today. "What I had to work on was my head and my confidence and this is what I did before I came here to nationals. My new psychologist helped me a lot to be here and to be proud of myself at each competition."
Most of all, she is smiling again. Even after a short program which included a blown program, Phaneuf left the ice at the Credit Union Centre grinning widely as she hugged her coaches. She knows it is simply the way it has to be.
"I want to go out on the ice (Saturday) with the same smile I had today," she said with an eye toward Saturday's free skate final.
In that alone, Phaneuf is sure, she will have found her biggest victory.
Some birthday gift, indeed, we'd have to say.
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