Dancing with the Stars

As a result of my skating rather badly this morning (um...have you ever realized how riddiculously unforgiving this sport is? I travel for an hour to get to the ice rink nearest to my college and all that I get for my efforts is a flying sit that traveled from here to China and a bunch of double-footed doubles), I think that this would be a great time for me to talk about that lovely part of our sport that doesn't include jumps and doesn't become impossible past age eighteen.

I've never actually been this excited for the ice dancing season to start...in fact, I've never actually been excited about ice dancing period, the one exception maybe being Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto's silver-medal skate at the Olympics. I began getting into watching skating when Russia and Eastern Europe were still, thanks in part to the old 6.0 system, completely dominating the dance scene. The long, tacky skirts, boring music, and lack of jumps never really attracted my twelve year old self. However, this year, there are a bunch of North American teams that I'm really looking forward to seeing.

Meryl Davis and Charlie White
I was lucky enough to see these guys skate live at one of the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center's Saturday Night Ice Shows. They were phenomenal--so powerful and so in-sync on twizzles!!!!! I thought that their free dance last year at Nationals was amazing, and I really, really want them to move up in the ranks this year--in my opinion, they whole heartedly deserve it (and...um, I'm a nineteen year old girl who's been captured by Charlie White's gorgeousness...but I'll try not to talk about that).

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir
I suppose that they go on this list without saying. I think that they're great and definitely deserved that silver medal...but I also found their free dance a bit boring at worlds last year. I'd like to see some more power from them, but their connection on the ice really is extraordinary.

Isabelle Delobel & Olivier Schoenfelder
I'm interested in whether or not their level of skating will continue through next season. I'm glad that they're staying on until the Olympics, but I'm wondering if they'll be able to hold off the Russians, who were out on injury for the World Championships, and the North Americans, including, of course, the revamped...

Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto
I'm dying to see them. So many people don't like them, but I can't help it. They're the reason why I know what the heck is going on in the ice dancing world...I honestly think that their West Side Story FD was the first dance program I watched all of the way through and truly, truly enjoyed. I'm really interested in seeing what their new coaching situation has done for them and hope that we'll see it in their result.

Madison and Keiffer Hubbell
I think that these guys might be at the head of the next generation of American ice dancing (wow...a decade ago that would have meant nothing. Things have definitely changed for the better!!). I've always thought that brother-sister ice dancing teams were a bit...weird, considering they're supposed to be portraying a couple, but I have to say that I really, really like these guys. They're having success on the JGP (Mexico, anyone?), and they'll be making their senior debuts at Nats this year!!!!


Obviously, I do want to see the other teams, but if I were to list everyone that I was excited about, this would be a very, very long blog.

I'll probably be doing one or possibly two (depending on timing) of these commentaries about each discipline a week leading up to the start of the senior international season...Skate America!!!!!!