I started off my morning with an email from one of my regular e-mail pals - or as my most senior CBC producer likes to say one of "Pj's Army".  He was talking about the Short Dance results that had emerged from the Four Continents' Championships in Taipei City.  Olympic and World champions, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir had generated a less than one point lead ahead of closest rivals from the US Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who are reigning World and Olympic  silver medallists. Both teams are worthy champions and have been close rivals for a very long time. My email pal was not upset with the result but rather the fact that one of the judges had only awarded Virtue and Moir scores in the 5 out of 10 range for their program components where the rest of the field on average were in the '8s'.  Hmmmmm.  He wondered in his note if it was possible that we would see a recurrence of the judging scandal in Salt Lake City at the 2002 Olympics - the scandal that was the impetus for the creation of this system in the first place.  Hmmmmm i thought.   I am not a person who is prone to conspiracy theories typically - although I am always interested to listen. Frankly, the amount of time, energy, work and subterfuge that so many plots need to take make it beyond my ability to comprehend. ( I tend to get bogged down in the intricacies and the details - and with my Protestant background would be a TERRIBLE co-conspirator)  So in the spirit of satisfying myself - I sent off a couple of notes.  The information that came back make me believe that there is a series of nets in place to catch the errors that get made.  The first thing is the fact that the top and bottom marks get tossed out of the equation.  The 2nd line of defense is the meeting that takes place at the conclusion of event segments - "The Round Table " where judges discuss and defend their judging in fron of the rest of the panel and the referee. The 3rd thing is, there is a computer-generated report that reports anomalies and there is the further "net" of people working for the OAC (Officials' Assessment Committee) who are on-site and are watching the same event from the same place as the panel.  If all that fails, there is also the possibility of further investigation that is directed by the ISU Home Office where there exists the real possibility of an offending official receiving an "assessment".  As far as I could read in the ISU rule book - 4 assessments could result in an official being suspended.  I know LOTS of people are bugged by the anonimity of the judges.  I'm not and I will tell you why.  Skating is a very small world with many of the people tied together (for better or worse) for their whole lives - anonimity guarantees that an official isn't  "gotcha'd" for a slight (real or imagined) that might have taken place years before.  So back the the V/M '5s" - I'm stumped. These two are amazing skaters so by my estimation, even with their guards on, they still get high 7s for components. Is there a conspiracy?  I hope not.  I think if there are shennanigans - it's a very dumb 'shennnanigator' who comes up with 5s for V/M's SD PCS - unless they like the color red - for red flag that is. I think someone needs some more time in front of skaters - my vote is human error. Regardless, it needs to be looked at and I am convinced it will be in due course. Thanks for being in touch RPL (my email fan's initials) - nothing I like better than something new to think about!.

**** Don't forget to visit www.takingtheice.com to sign my book site's guestbook ****

The 'SAD'- I started out wanting to highlight a very important story:  50 years ago today, February 15th, 1961 - the entire 18 member US Figure Skating Team perished in a plane crash which also took the lives of other passengers and crew and 16 American coaches, friends, officials and family members.  They were on their way to the 1961 Worlds in Prague which were ultimately cancelled as a result of the tragedy.

The 'GLAD"- I felt an enormous sense of privilege at being able to write this story for CBC's website  - the URL is: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/blogs/pjkwong/2011/02/us-figure-skating-tragedy-still-resonates-50-years-later.html.  I was able to rely on the help of a couple of Canadians, namely Debbi Wiles and Donald Jackson, both of whom are well-known to skating fans as champions in their own righ and both of whom had a personal connection to the story.  In both cases, things might have turned out differently for them had fate not intervened.  The real honour was getting the chance to interview 5-time world and 1960 Olympic champion, American Carol Heiss Jenkins.  She was recently retired at the time of the crash and opened her heart to recount the story and her memories of the people who died that day.  It gave me goosebumps to talk to her.  I heard the pain in her voice all these years later. It gives me goosebumps to write about it here.  Carol told me she wanted nothing more than for people to know and remember.  I now know and I promise, I will remember.

The 'Bad' - The 'bad' is what the kids would say today is "my Bad".  I know how lucky I am to be able to sit in my jammies and live in my head without distraction or intrusion from other people, things or events.  I get to write about what I want - and for the most part I write what I would want to read. My issue is the distraction I feel at having a piece like the one above roll around my head before I write it. When I sit down at the keyboard, I swear its' like it writes itself with very little input from me.  Kind of like a 'wedgie' or an itch in an awkward spot - I am aware of the nagging feeling that a really great piece is creating in my head until it is written. I wonder if the distraction to get it titled and done shows in what I do in the rest of my life?.  Am I walking funny? Does the partial attention I am paying to what someone is saying to me register on my face?  Then miraculously, when the "itch" is scratched I am almost giddy with the satisfaction.  In the past couple of weeks, I have had occasion to work on a number of "dream" pieces for me like this one: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/blogs/pjkwong/2011/02/overwhelmed-by-rochettes-courage.html

On the other hand - there are the 'other ones' - either a subject or client or a situation that represents "gotta get it done" rather than "wanna get it done" writing. UGH. Those pieces are like facing the scariest pair of Spanks - tummy, thigh and body controlling panties. Double UGH!  It takes a while to muster up the courage to wrestle yourself into them - not to mention the sweat involved. When faced with a 'Spanks' piece - my bathroom is rarely cleaner from the top to bottom "avoidance" scrub it gets!  In the end though - my goal is for you to wonder - is she wearing Spanks under all that - or is that just naturally her? You're not meant to know the difference :

Whew!  A loooong day yesterday involving book signings at two separate locations.  The first was a suburban Toronto rink - home of the Richmond Training Centre where Tomas Verner now hangs his hat.  I have to tell you that Tomas (Tommy to his friends Mr. Tommy to me!)  is an absolutley delightful young man, the kind we want our daughters to bring home - courteous, charming and scary smart.  In any event, his Canadian "den mother" Carmen James had organized my appearnace and told me that Tomas would be arriving shortly with his costume designer.  Oooooohh....yay....good news for me as I have to write a skating related story every week for CBCsports.ca and this sounded like I was going to be able to snag a few answers to questions and have something to write about.  Little did I know what was in store.

Suffice to say I got a really cool little story about his costume that will be on the CBC website a little later this week and I have something to share with y'all too!

Tomas arrived at the rink and in a rush tumbled through the doors with a slight, smiling blond man named Jamie Scott in tow.  After hugs and hellos, Tomas told me the man's name and as I introduced myself he said have we met?  I said I didn't think so -  he said "How did you know my name?"  "Well...um...er...Tomas told me." I said.  He chewed on that for a minute still not sure that I hadn't somehow "magic-ked" (my kids' word when they were little for making the "im"- possible) the information.  The guys had to quickly head to the coaches' room in order for Tomas to try on his new costume and hit the ice to make sure it worked.

What interested me was how the two had met?  I mean what are the odds that a figure skating champion would cross paths with a costume designer who primarily works for theatres and opera companies across the US as well as Broadway.  I was invited into the coaches' room after Tomas had tried out the outfit (I really like the shrt :)  and that is when I got the story.  It seems that Jamie is a skater who competes at the Adult level in the US and is a fan of Verner's.  In the summer, he sent Tomas some sketches of costumes that would be perfect for a Dvorak piece of music if he ever used it. (I just found out that Dvorak was Czech!)  In any event, Tomas said that while he was trying all of the different skating schools this summer the letter went to his parents' place and it took a while for him to catch up to his mail.  Once he did, he was sufficiently impressed that he asked Jamie if he wanted to work with him this season.  As Jamie recounted that moment he is still breathless with excitement at the thought.  To say he was thrilled was an understatement.  He told me that they have gone through six sketches but have seemingly hit on the winning choice to be debuted in China.

The other fun part for me was moving on to Mississauga and the Challenge event - the qualifier for Canadian Nationals.  It's funny who you run into in the back hallways of the rink!  More than anything, seeing Bryce Davison on crutches but otherwise looking great was a treat. I also saw Jessica Dube skate a solid free with just three weeks of training - that  should put the ladies on notice for Canadians.

* Don't forget Pj's Book is still available in time for giving @ www.takingtheice.com **

Well...that was a hectic 4 weeks!  I have missed this!  Just writing for fun and not because I have some deadline(s) looming!  That kind of writing is also fun in its own strange way - you know you're going to have to write about something and as you sit in front of the computer - you have no idea from where the words are going to come.  Suddenly an image or even a single word is sometimes enough to get you started.  Regardless - sitting here with about 10 minutes to spare before leaving for a book signing -, my nails drying and my hair in hot rollers - I am smiling to myself and happy to sit and jot down a few thoughts.

For those of you who are skating fans - I am back on track to take all of the interviews that I have done and am going to write them up starting later today.  So please come back and get caught up as I get caught up.

For those of you who like stories about life - this is where I am starting today.

I love my job as a coach and in particular as a coach of young children and I am going to offer two examples why:

Aidan is a very active 6 year old boy who has a very hard time staying still.  He has been learning hockey on his own sort of and is a very strong athlete with a very weak attention span.  He is a skater in one of my groups and I had him pegged from the moment I met him.  He is one of those little boys who only ever hears about how naughty he is which of course makes him even more naughty.  The way around a little guy like this is to make him feel like he is important and accepted - and then he is putty in your hands.  As he was skating around me and away from me endlessly in our first lesson with a face that said "why would I bother listening - you're just going to tell me I am naughty" - I got inspired.  I lowered my voice and in front of the other kids I said:  "Aidan - can you come here please?" He skated over to me: already defeated. "You are such a great skater.  Do you think you could please show the other kids how you can glide on one foot?"  His beaming face told me I was on to somehing.  During our lessons he is now beside me, listening and waiting for his turn to show the other kids something.  He is also still at an age where anyone who looks like a "mom" is automatically high up on the attractive scale.  Quietly, this past week as he slipped his hand into mine he said:  "Hey Pj, maybe one day you could come to my house after skating?"  It was my turn to smile.

Bridget, who is also 6 and a very serious little girl, is the other skater who made me smile this week.  As I was finished with one little girl's lesson, she mentioned that she was going to Viet Nam next week and wouldn't be at skating.  I was appropriately enthusiastic and as I collected Bridget I mentioned that her little friend was going to be in Viet Nam next week.  Bridget said "what's that?"  I told her it was a country and we determined that she had heard of China and Japan and it was sort of in that corner of the world.  She said thoughtfully:  "I had a friend who is from Hong Kong and I thought Hong Kong was in Canada. My friend told me that it took her 24 hours to get to Hong Kong from Toronto and I told her that was CRAZY!!!  24 Hours?!?!  Why didn't her family just take the car and in 3 or 4 hours she would probably be there!!"  (Apparently 3 or 4 hours is as far as you need to go to get anywhere)

I am pretty sure these stories don't happen for lawyers or accountants at their jobs.

As I run to take out the curlers and put on my grown-up clothes, once again I am reminded of how lucky I am.  Have a great day everyone!

More to come :)  Pj