<p>He sexually assaulted a kid and got probation? What? Did they also send him a sternly worded letter?</p>
<p>This reminds me of the horrible story of Graham James. alwaysamom will remember this story I’m sure, but for the others: James was a junior hockey coach, which means he coached teenage boys. And he had a habit of picking a favorite boy and repeatedly raping the kid. This went on for years. </p>
<p>There were rumors, but James was a very successful coach with many of his players going on to the NHL, and parents didn’t want ruin their sons’ potential professional career by making waves. Eventually, far too late, he was convicted of his crimes and sent away to prison for 3.5 years. When he got out, he was not allowed to coach in the US or Canada, for obvious reasons, but he did coach youth in Europe. Then another adult came forward, a famous hockey player, accusing James of having assaulted him when he was a youth (before the first prison term) and James was put away again, for another two years.</p>
<p>A total of five and a half years in prison doesn’t seem like enough for having ruined these players’ lives.</p>
<p>Some people are saying that Davis/White’s routine was technically more difficult, and that’s why they won. I’m no expert, but also people are saying that Tessa Moir during the year had been struggling with a few of her technical elements, whereas for the last two years Davis and White had been virtually perfect every time they skated in competition. If I were choreographing a routine, and one of the skaters was having a bit of technical difficulty with the program, I wouldn’t make it harder. </p>
<p>I thought Virtue/Moir’s long routine was gorgeous in every way, and, in the ice dancing event, more appealing than Davis/White’s also fantastic program. I thought Davis & White performed their routine better when they did it for the team competition. But I don’t understand the scoring system.</p>
<p>Yes, CF, I do, indeed, remember the awful Graham James story. When Theo Fleury wrote that book, it explained a lot about the issues he suffered in his career. A terrible story. I think his life is better now. He was on a CBC show a couple of years ago called Battle of the Blades where they pair hockey players with professional figure skaters, some of whom are Olympic champions, in a competition. It was nice to see him looking happier with life and I recall that the charity he chose to donate his winnings to was one that provides support to men who have been sexually abused as children.</p>
<p>I liked Davis and White’s long program better than the Canadian couple - but all the medal winners’ performances were excellent. </p>
<p>The girl from my son’s school came in 50th in Giant Slalom today. I would have watched the race but it was on in middle of the night and no way I was getting up to watch a live stream. </p>
<p>I vividly remember Theo Fleury’s career. For Sharks fans, he was one of those players we loved to hate, because he always lit the Sharks up. He’d play along; he was a flamboyant player who would always make inflammatory remarks in the local San Jose press. And he loved being booed by opposing fans, apparently. At least, he had a tendency to react to boos with things like hat tricks.</p>
<p>No boy deserves to be abused by a trusted adult, but I, and other Sharks fans, felt particularly bad about Theo because he had meant so much to us.</p>
<p>Other than getting to see slow motion on the twizzles, there is nothing about ice dance that I see better on tv than I do in person. (Actually, fairly true for singles and pairs as well.) You could look at two skaters on tv, but you could entirely miss that one is tremendously more powerful and fast across the ice than the other – but live you’d see that very clearly. (Kostner simply flies across the ice.) I liked Davis & White’s free dance better in part because I connected with the music a lot better – it went places and told a story I understood. Virtue & Moir have fantastically beautiful skating skills, but the free dance was too one note and boring for me. I also thought that D&W had more interesting lifts, and faster twizzles. They’re both fantastic teams, and I hope that time gives V&M some better perspective. (Or having kids. Which kid do you love more?)</p>
<p>The whole Connecticut skating abuse case was an absolute scandal. Hard to believe that people would sign their kids up with this coach again.</p>
<p>“How important is it for you and Norway to have won the gold medal?” Such a stupid question to ask. I wish an athlete would tell these unimaginative interviewers exactly that.</p>
<p>I’ve noticed that sometimes – only sometimes – a skating costume that looks meh on TV looks fabulous in the arena. And, the colors represented on TV are sometimes way off the actual color. I’ve seen TV broadcasts of events I attended where I know really well that the costume was not really that color. </p>
<p>(And sometimes the costumes in the arena look every bit as bad as they do on TV. And the makeup garish.)</p>
<p>Women’s skating later!! I’m just as excited about Johnny weir and Tara. They are simply cute together, complementing one another. Watching hockey now, rooting for Finland (just because). Watched the snowboard slalom earlier. That was interesting.</p>
<p>I saw a segment last night on Vanessa Mae, a giant slalom skier competing for Thailand. She was a child prodigy violinist who has sold 20 million albums and has performed concerts all over the world. She is 35 and decided to take up skiing as a new hobby and attempt to qualify for the Olympics. Quite the story. </p>
<p>I’m sad for the Russian team and their fans.</p>
<p>collegealum, no one would have been at all surprised if Russia had beat the Finns today. Rask has been hot and he was the primary difference. All along, the analysts have been commenting that the Russian coach wasn’t playing the players in the right combinations or in what they considered the division of ice time that would have provided them with the best opportunity to win. Apparently, the KHL players had far more ice time and the NHL stars, and there are many on that Russian team, have not been used to the best purpose. I imagine that there will be a lot of contemplation of what could have been done differently. After the game, Ovechkin was the only Russian to speak to the press and he was clearly upset and tremendously disappointed.</p>
<p>That’s the thing with a one game and you’re out system. It’s possible for any team to win and move on.</p>
LOL, those damn Russians! </p>