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Laurie's Impression of the Boise Trip
The arrival.... After many misadventures at airports - my flight was an hour late getting in to Boise, and it was raining hard - you'll hear more about this, "with no doubt" from Kim, LOL - we finally made it to the hotel late Wednesday evening. We went up to our room to put everything away and then came down to the hotel bar, of course, to recuperate from our arduous travel adventures, LOL. We ended up at our own table, with Tatiana Tarasova and Tamara Moskvina at the table to the right of us, and Todd Eldredge, Richard Callahan, and Steven Cousins, and a few other people we didn't know at the table to the left of us. Paul Wylie, Rosalyn Sumners, and Tracy Wilson were sitting at the bar. Ooh, we were in skater heaven, LOL! Anton Sikharulidze (no highlights any more) whizzed by on his way somewhere. As Todd and his party were leaving, Todd said something to someone about "Practice tomorrow is at -----" but then someone spoke loudly and we missed the time! So we had no idea when practice was, LOL....somehow, we didn't think it would be cool to call him back and say, "Hey, Todd! What was that about the practice time?" Then we decided to call it a night, but we wanted to know exactly where the venue was in relation to the hotel. One of the valets took us on a tour, and showed us the hotel entrance to the venue, but he said the doors were kept locked. We tried them, and they were, LOL....he said we could get to the venue by simply walking around the hotel side and entering through the main box office entrance. The morning sightings.... The next morning, we went into the hotel restaurant for breakfast, and endeared ourselves to the hotel staff by staying forever (don't worry, the place was never full, LOL) and tipping lavishly. They got to joking with us about staying so long, and supplying us with endless courses of this and that - hey, it was a great spot to watch skaters come and go, LOL.... We first saw Irina Slutskaya walk outside the hotel and head down the street. She was dressed in a very fashionable shaggy white jacket (looked like a shag rug - I instantly coveted this!). Then a little later we saw Alexei walk by (Kim spotted him first, of course, LOL!), with his newly shorn locks, and wearing his familiar beige jacket. He and Maria Butyrskaya (with longer blonde hair that it looked like she was growing out, maybe into a shag cut) went outside and turned to the left (the venue was to the right, so we knew they weren't going to practice), heading in the same direction as Irina. Michelle was having breakfast with her parents at a table set diagonally from us. Shen and Zhao were having breakfast at the table behind us. Tracy Wilson, Paul Wylie, and Rosalyn Sumners were having breakfast at the table across from us. We finally asked what the attraction was down the street that the Russian skaters were so interested in - apparently, that's where all the shopping was, LOL! And, sure enough, Irina returned later, laden with packages, LOL.... We asked our waitress if she knew when practice was and she said she didn't know, but that it was closed to the public and we wouldn't be able to get in. We basically hung around waiting to see when practice was - since Todd had failed to tell us, LOL - and then we saw some of the skaters start to head off to the area where the hotel entrance was to the venue, so we figured it was practice time. Operation Banner.... We went up to the hotel entrance doors to the venue and they weren't locked. So we stood around and debated whether we should try and get in or not. Then we decided that the worst thing that could happen is that we would be asked to leave, LOL - nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Plus, we had the banner with us and figured this would be the best time to get it hung. So we waltzed through the doors. No one was around to stop us, so we just kept walking until we walked through the curtains which separate the corridors from the seating, and we saw that there was black felt paper all along the walls with just the TNT logo banners on it. That looked ominous, because it looked like they had a TNT logo color scheme going. But we went up to a security guard and asked if we could hang the banner and where could we hang it. He immediately called his supervisor on his walkie-talkie and asked "Sean" if we could hang our banner. Sean asked who we were, so we told the guard we were fans who wanted to hang our banner up in support of one of the skaters. Sean told the guard we couldn't hang the banner and to escort us outside, LOL. So the guard took us to the main entrance lobby (he didn't realize we had come through the hotel entrance, LOL), and told us maybe we could ask the box office people if we could hang the banner, but I think he was really just trying to get rid of us... So we asked the box office people if we could hang the banner, and they said they had no authority, but to ask the security guard, and she called him over - the same one we had been dealing with, LOL...so he then called Sean back and said we were still asking if we could hang the banner. So Sean said he would come out to talk to us. After a very long wait - I think they were hoping we would just give up and leave, LOL - Sean showed up. We showed him the banner, and told him that a lot of Alexei fans would be disappointed if we couldn't hang it. And basically whined and whimpered for a while, LOL.... Sean then said that he thought the TNT people would make us take it down, but that we could try and put it up. He then started to escort us back into the rink area. At this point, Ilia Kulik walked through the doors and walked in right behind us, LOL....he was wearing all black, had nice blowing-in-the-wind length hair (I see Ilia is starting to listen to what his fans want, LOL), and was looking good.... At this point, the pairs skaters were going through their short programs, in costume and to each of their music selections. Sean asked us where we were sitting, and we showed him where our seats were. Then he said we could hang the banner up behind us, but not too close to the TNT logos. So we had to go up to the second level to hang it from the banister railings. But the banister railing was solid at the bottom and the velcro straps wouldn't work at all. So we called down to Sean and asked him if he had any tape we could use, LOL.. He sent one of his people to find some tape - I think the TNT people actually had tape and brought it to us (so much for the TNT people being the problem, LOL...). So then we taped the banner to the railing - and we took a long time because we knew they were going to kick us out as soon as we were finished, and we wanted to watch the pairs skaters for as long as possible, LOL...at that point, we saw Alexei and Tatiana down there, but we don't know if they saw the banner or not. Eventually, we finished our task and came down the stairs and Sean escorted us outside, LOL....but we got the banner up! And it was the only one up there. Once Fran and the Todd fans who were all sitting together arrived (when the box office doors opened and all of us were let in), they saw our banner was up and they put up their own Todd banner behind where they were sitting. So you will see only two banners (if the TV people show them) - ours and theirs. It was funny, because we ended up looking straight across at their banner all evening, and they ended up looking straight across at ours all evening, LOL...but the banner was definitely noticed! Todd's agent teased Fran about it when they met up later, jokingly asking how come there was a nice Yagudin banner up at practice and none for Todd....Fran wondered how we had gotten inside to do it, heh-heh.....  After the competition, Dianna (who we had met up with before the comp started), Kim, and I went back to the hotel and sat in the lobby. We also met Fran and Mary there. Kim was hoping Alexei would come back to the hotel to put his skates away and change before heading to the skaters' reception, and she would get a chance to give him her card, her gift, and see if he would autograph one of the photos she took of him at Sun Valley. (He had come out during the ladies' interpretive free skates to lean against the second level balcony railing and had signed autographs for fans, but he was far away from us and didn't stay for very long.) But he had come back to the hotel and probably gone straight up to his room, and then from there straight to the reception on the second floor without coming back to the lobby, but we didn't know this at the time, because we didn't know where the reception was until some skaters started to leave it and came down to the lobby, laden with various bottles of wine from the reception (the bar had closed at midnight). We saw Irina Slutskaya gadding about the lobby, dressed in an absolutely adorable patchwork sweater, another article of clothing I again coveted, LOL. Tatiana came down and chatted briefly with Tracy Wilson in the lobby, and then sat down in the bar area to chat with friends. At about 1:00 a.m., we gave up on Alexei showing up and left. So we have no Alexei encounters to tell you about - sorry! The departure.... Kim and I left for the airport the next morning. Kim ended up riding down the elevator with Tatiana, who was also leaving for the airport. I had breakfast in the dining room because I was on a later flight, and Irina ended up coming in and having breakfast at the table behind me. She walked by me and gave me a nice smile, still the fashion plate, LOL, wearing a very pretty white sweater...and apparently she wasn't leaving early, either, because when she left, the waitress called out to her and told her to enjoy her shopping, LOL! Conclusions.... All in all, it was a fun trip. I got to meet some very nice fellow skating fans, and it was a competition set in a great venue next to a good hotel, and I got to see many of my favorite skaters. There were some excellent performances by many of the skaters, but our mood was dampened somewhat, of course, because it was a comp Alexei had not won, so there was no really celebratory mood for us or for him. Laurie |
