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LOL the SOI trip was considerably more trouble
than our COI trip last year. Total gridlock on the highway and a huge throng
of people stood in front of the entrance! We love our figure skating, LOL! Or
else everyone had heard that this was going to be Scott’s last year, which
probably happened.
Our seats were on the short end again, but this time we were far far far! Way
up on the upper levels! Of course this is what happens when you get
complimentary seats the week before. I’m telling you, the lower levels were
packed to the brim! If it was any consolation, I could see the whole rink
from my seat, but I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to identify the
jumps from this distance. LOL we didn’t even bother to bring the camera,
since we don’t have a big enough lens (like Kim, LOL) but we did bring
some binoculars. My dad used them most of the time – you tend to miss jumps
when you’ve got your face stuck in them. Also with me were my trusty
notepad and pen, LOL.
The program had lots of nice piccies in it, but no stats like the COI program
did. I never thought that Kristi was exceptionally pretty, but in those
photos, she was gorgeous! Tara looked so cute on her page! I never really
thought that Ilia looked like Leo DiCaprio either, but in this one certain
photo he was almost a dead-ringer! LOL! A performance list was included,
which was nice, LOL, considering my family often had no clue who was on the
ice. After the show started, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could
recognize most of the skaters. (Tara with the long blonde hair, Jenni with
the pony-tail, Todd with Jenni, Kurt with the thinning hairline, Renee with
the short brown hair, Gorsha with Renee, Ilia with the loose blonde hair,
Denis as the tall one, Kristi with the long black hair, Yuka with the short
black hair, Steve as the short-brown haired guy, and Scott as the short bald
guy who everyone cheered for!) The theme was Scott’s farewell, as everyone
probably expected.
What was kinda annoying was the paint on the ice. The arena had the boards
removed (which I guess they do for every show, since some skaters jumped off
the ice to say hi after the closing number to the people sitting practically
on the ice) (wonder how much they paid for those seats!) and instead had
sponsors’ names all over the ice instead! It was distracting when there was
some funky lighting going on.
Opening Number (Let’s Get It On)
I don’t have a lot of notes for this, except that it was very nicely
choreographed. I don’t think there were any jumps, just lifts from all of
the skaters.
Scott Hamilton (I Got You/I Feel Good and A Song for You)
-
1ax, 2sal, some cool stag leaps
It looked like a 1ax to me, but it might have been a double. LOL I’m kinda
frustrated with the axel jumps, since I get confused by the extra
half-rotation! I do remember the jump as being on my side of the rink,
sigh…He really got the crowd going. For the “Song for You,” my sister
leaned over, and asked, “Who’s that?” and I answered, “Just a local
kid!” LOL! The little boy was so cute, looked around 9 years old! And he
was good, too! Did a pretty decent sitspin.
Group Number (Reaching for the Stars)
I loved this number most out of the whole show! In the beginning, Tara comes
out just doing edges (a la Dorothy Hamill) and it was some of the most
beautiful skating I’ve ever seen from her. Then Renee, Gorsha, Kurt, Jenni,
and Todd come out doing the same thing. Renee and Gorsha do some lovely
lifts, and Jenni and Todd did some too. Kurt was the only one who jumped.
Beautiful number. I love edges so much! I wish I could do them!
Steven Cousins (Higher)-
3lz, 2ax, 2sal (3? Weird – had
a leg wrap), 3f, 3t
I liked the smooth music transition from one performance to the next. It made
the show more seamless.
Anyway, I LOVE THIS SONG so somebody finally skating to it was a treat! Steve
can really perform!
Kristi Yamaguchi (Desert Rose)-
3lz, 2ax, 3lp (step out), 3t
LOL I love this song, too, but I kinda wished that she used the original song
for the whole program, instead of putting in the funky mix version in the
second half. The hand movements didn’t annoy me as much as that one-foot
glide diagonally down the rink where she moves her arms and legs in a strange
way.
Urgh. Her jumps still look good, kudos to her for still doing them!
Ilia Kulik (Drive/Driven)
Ilia can do hip and funky all right!
His two lunges into the 2ax were really cool. Everyone cheered when he fell
into that half-split and got back up only using his legs! Wow!
It amazes me how he finishes his jump rotation so early, and seems to take
his sweet time coming back down to earth! So light!
Scott Hamilton (Double Bogey Blues)-
3lz, 3t, 2ax, 2ax (turn out)
This was such a cute and funny number! LOL I didn’t realize how short Scott
was until I saw him in that outfit!
It was so funny how the music was timed to his moves and plus they had some
cool lighting going on for this one! Everyone was amazed at how he
backflipped over the bag at the end! LOL I need to figure out how he gets
that club to fly out of the bag...
At the end, a group of people somewhere screamed out, “We love you
Scott!”
Renee Roca & Gorsha Sur (Everything Must Change)
This was a nice program, although I thought that the music was a bit blah.
Amazing lifts, though! Very nice skating.
Kurt Browning (Nyah – it’s last track from the M:I2 soundtrack)
I loved this program! Kurt is the FOOTWORK GOD!! The sad part was that the
audience wasn’t that into it.
(Ain’t Kurt in a tank top enough for them to like the program, LOL?) I
think the people who were really into figure skating enjoyed it more than the
casual fan, considering how many people on FSW, Skatefans, et al really liked
it. My sister confessed later, “I was waiting for him to jump!” No, sis,
you don’t wait for Kurt to jump, you wait for Kurt to do footwork!
The first half of the program was just Latin-ish dancing, and boy, can Kurt
dance!
Then near the end he goes into this amazing straight-line footwork sequence
that was fast, precise, and pure Kurt!
Only a few people clapped though.
At the end of the program, he motions for the audience to clap, and does
footwork to the accelerating rhythm. It was really cool! It was just a pity
that most of the audience was looking for jumps and tricks.
Tara Lipinski (Dance with Me)
LOL, at the end somebody from our corner in the lower level screamed, “GO
TARA!” I must say, she looked painfully skinny during the whole show. She
was cute and upbeat as always, and I think this program suited her better
than the “Genie in a Bottle” one last year. LOL the first time I heard
this song, I was like, “Hey! That’s ‘Hernando’s Hideaway!’ What the
heck?!”
Group Number (Tunnel Vision)
LOL, this was so cute and funny! The whole cast got out and talked about each
other’s alter egos when they’re backstage. The mike work during this
worked fine. Scott as Shaft’s (Denis) sidekick was hilarious! And the
Detroiter, wow! SANDMAN! Whee!
Gorsha was a hoot as well, playing the cast’s Romeo and going up into the
audience to victimize some poor woman! (Scott: “Gorsha, put her down!”
) Tara was cute too!
Intermission: I, as usual, was trying to fix my
notes. My mom was asking what the heck I was doing, and she was amazed that I
could tell the jumps apart.
“Hey, why don’t you become a judge?” she asked.
“Mom, it’s not a paying job. They volunteer.”
“Oh. Then, how about a choreographer?”
Kristi Yamaguchi, Jenni Meno, and Denis Petrov (Both Sides Now)
LOL, I thought that Jenni was Tara, but I got a little suspicious when she
and Denis did a pair spin. (“Hey, Tara learns fast!”
) When they all did double axels, I realized that no, it was not Tara, LOL.
Denis can lift anyone! I was amazed that Kristi was willing to go into
overhead lifts, until it dawned on me later that she had been a pair skater
originally. Duh.
Cool program!
Renee Roca, Gorsha Sur, Ilia Kulik, Steven Cousins, Kurt Browning
(Chairmen)
This was cool! The only thing that really annoyed me was the weird vocal
thing in the music. ("What the heck are they saying?!") It really
reminded me of those Intel Pentium commercials on TV, LOL!
Tara Lipinski and Ilia Kulik (Moanin’)
I think that this was supposed to be a program with Ilia and Katia in it, but
Tara did pretty well. She was cute in the beginning, looking at him like,
“Hellooooo…” But once they started skating, it was pretty obvious that
they were mismatched. A lot of times, their unison needed some major work,
and their styles are totally different. Ilia’s hip and suave didn’t mesh
with Tara’s cute and upbeat, LOL.
Yuka Sato (Take My Hand)-
3lp, 1t (rushed into it), 2ax
(turn out), 3sal (almost)
Whoever said that Yuka was a skater’s skater…ITA!! She flows so well
across the ice, and her footwork is so light! I couldn’t see her cute smile
though.
I really like this program though it the music kind of dies at the end so we
couldn’t figure when to clap, LOL.
Kurt Browning (Don’t Fence Me In)-
3ax (fall), 3sal, 3t-2t (fall on
second jump), 2ax, 2ax, 2ax, 2ax
Both times he fell, I thought he was going to make it, but his foot slipped
on the landing.
We cheered him anyway for the effort. (I had to explain to
my jump-clueless family why he fell twice. No one else even tried a triple
axel or a 3-2.) He got a huge
reaction from the audience at the beginning and the ending. I liked Nyah
considerably better, but the audience liked the jumps and tricks (not to
mention butt-wiggling
) in this one. (When walking out, I overheard a couple of women discussing
the athleticism of the skaters: “Did you see that guy do the one-armed
pushup?!”
) LOL my dad was like, “WOW!” by the third axel in the sequence!
I liked this program better live than on TV. The first time I saw it on TV, I
thought it was ew. It was cute, at the beginning of the program where he went
into the on-ice-level audience and put his hat on some guy’s head, then
picked it up near the end of the program!
Kristi Yamaguchi (Let ‘er Rip)-
? (I totally missed it. Landed
though), 3f, 3t
I was so occupied watching Kristi get roped by Kurt (and her reaction), that
I forgot to write her down, LOL! I was just doing so when the audience
cheered and I looked up just in time to see her land something. Poo.
It was not an axel jump, judging by the straight-line set up. This was fun
program and she really got into it. LOL the whole time, Kurt was on the ice
still trying to rope her!
Kristi, Kurt, Denis, Steven, Renee, Gorsha (Sin Wagon)
LOL everyone just came out in cowboy getup!
I don’t have a lot of notes for this either, except that it was FUN!
Jenni Meno & Todd Sand (I Can’t Make You Love Me)
This program suits them so much! I love their flow over the ice as well. I
had to go “AWWWW!!!” at some parts!
Ilia Kulik (Rockit)-
3lz, 3t, 2ax (out of nowhere!), 3t
I loved the beginning with the toy chest! I really like this here funky
program!
I was amazed at his 2ax; it was entered with absolutely no speed at all! I
wrote here “footwork – wow!” I liked his chin stand, too, but from my
angle it looked like he didn’t have a head!
The cantilever on his boots was really cool! Everyone cheered at his
half-split sequence as well. Needless to say he got a huge audience reaction
at the end.
Tara Lipinski (Tiny Dancer)
I thought this program was so cute, especially the beginning with the swing!
Tara plays upbeat hip very well.
Scott Hamilton (My Way)-
1ax (delayed), 2lz, 3t, 3t,
3sal, 2ax, 2ax, 2ax, backflip, backflip
Whoever did the vocals for this – I love you! He pronounced his t’s! YAY!
(Sorry, as a choirgirl, it irks me that nobody pronounces their t’s
anymore!
) LOL this was so funny! It was “My Way” with some musical interludes and
quirks thrown in. (“And I stand tall….TALL??!!!”
) At one point the music ran amuck with Sabre Dance! Whee!
At the end of the performance, he got a standing ovation!
Closing Numbers
This was a touching ending to the show, with everyone standing while Scott
skates over to everyone. At the end of the show, everyone stood up and
clapped like there was no tomorrow! LOL this time I was prepared, putting
away my notepad and pen extra early.
I think the fact that this was Scott’s last year made it extra special.
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