Adios Nonino

I'll be the first person to admit that I haven't really followed Jeffrey Buttle's career too closely. I cheered for him at the Olympics and felt for him at 2007 Worlds, but it wasn't until what would become the last event of his competitive career that he became my favorite male skater.

So, although the news is about a week old, I figured I'd start the first entry of my new figure skating blog with an entry about Jeff.

In a skating world where most of the emphasis is put on a person's ability to rotate four times in the air, Jeff Buttle was sort of a breath of fresh air when he got onto the ice. The fact that he was able to win Worlds without a quad is a pretty extraordinary feat, especially when you look at the fact that the jump was in all of the other top competitor's programs. After 2008 Worlds, I spent a whole lot of time (which SHOULD have been spent studying...) looking him up on YouTube. People will talk about how he has an easier program because of a lack of a quad, but I think that any figure skater (including myself) would be able to tell you that his intricately choreographed, musical programs are not only works of art, but also programs that I doubt any other skater out there could perform. While he may not have always been consistant with the jumps, he was consistent with the performance, and that is something that is sadly lacking in figure skating today.

I only wish that I'd gotten a chance to see him compete live, but--lucky for us!--he's not returning to the University of Toronto just yet. I'm personally keeping my fingers crossed for the US tour of Stars on Ice...I'm sure that he'll do the Canadian tour, but now that he has all of this free time, I certainly hope that he stops by New York as well :-)

On the other hand, I'd like to welcome you to my blog...it's not very well publicized at the moment, so if you're reading this, I'll be quite surprised =], but expect lots of updates over the course of the season, because I'm a figure skater who's stuck at a college without an ice rink, so I've got lots of skating-related energy that I have to get out somehow :-)

So, I leave you with one of my all-time favorite Jeffrey programs.