Figure Skating on Television

[fsk8r]

Broadcasters won't carry Figure events today so why add a burdensome requirement?  Isn't the sport expensive enough? 

The one thing I find highly amusing in all debates harking back to the old days of skating is the argument that Broadcasters won't carry the event. It's made about figures and it's made about compulsory dance. A lot of sports don't get a look in with Broadcasters and don't get worked up about it. We only watch a lot of sports every 4 years when the Olympics are on and then generally only if there's a medal prospect doing well. We all do our sports because we choose to and not to be on TV and we really shouldn't be justifying decisions relating to our sports based on what the uneducated media choose to show the general public. Synchro isn't shown on television in most of the world (I know Canada had some the other year) but we don't worry about changing the rules to suit the media.

One thing to also remember when debating how skaters used to perform figures and how a stiffer boot might aid them is that ice time has increased significantly in the last 40 years. My sister's useless fact for the day was that the USSR got its first indoor rink in 1963. Up until then they'd have been seasonal.


Mod note: TV discussion split out of School Figures discussion.

[ONskater74]

I think what broadcasting figure skating does is to draw in potential new skaters. Here in canada the CBC has a successful show called Battle Of The Blades and it is designed to lure boys/men who would otherwise never think of figure skating to tune in to watch their hockey heroes. Just search it on youtube. It is important that skating generally do what they can to interest people in the sport, by whatever means. This is what will assure a stable future...people in boots and blades (without sticks and pucks playing football at 40 mph.)

[Query]

Perhaps the Canadian Broadcast Company can do this partly because it is government run, and may be substantially subsidized by the Canadian government.

As far as figure skating not being on U.S. broadcast networks, Someone told me that recent competition from pay-for-service networks and Internet have hurt the broadcast of the less popular sports like figure skating. Specifically, broadcast networks can no longer afford to broadcast such sports because advertisers won't pay as much to pay for their reduced viewer ship. I'm not sure if that makes complete sense - networks always looked to maximize profit - but maybe now pay-for-service orgs can compete better.

For whatever reason, there really aren't any wholly or predominantly women's sports that get as much viewer ship in the U.S. as the big men's sports. And it is hard to imagine school figures being especially among those viewers that do watch women's sports. So it has to survive as a principally participatory sport.

In addition, the US Figure Skating Association (USFSA or USFS, depending on context) has chosen to go for the money rather than make it free or cheap for people to watch.

Johnny Wier says that even in Russia, which has traditionally produced a lot of male skaters, it has recently become much less popular for guys to figure skate since the end of the Soviet Unioin. I presume because the Russian government doesn't support figure skating athletes as well as the Soviet government did.

[ONskater74]

I think that the comment referring tofigure skating being "wholly or predominantly' a women's sport is part of the problem. There is nothing intrinsically feminine about skating, and although it was long ago decided to judge men and women separately and not allow them to compete against one another, it is a common feeling among most men that figure skating is a sissy sport for effeminate men and wimps.

I think what the CBC is doing is trying to break down this barrier. If you really listen to what the hockey players are saying in the post-show interviews you consistently find them expressing total respect and awe for figure skating. They just never were asked to even consider it prior to that. As soon as they had to put on figure skates and do it they were flat on their ass and tripping all over. It is one of the hardest and demanding sports today. If more boys could be drawn into this and not scared away by pink toys and teddy bears and ribbons during CanSkate sessions, I think the problem would rectify itself. How many teenage boys take up figure skating? About ZERO. How many teenage boys play hockey? About 90% around here.

Battle of the Blades may be produced by a Crown Corp. but at the end of the day the creators still had to pitch and it and make a case. 4 seasons later it still rakes in viewers here.

[ONskater74]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A85IMmnrfwI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oPWpqCMrBc
et alium...

[Query]

What a neat show!

They sure don't learn like your average adult beginner. What they learned to do in a few weeks is nothing short of amazing.

I wish that CBC would find a way to make this show available to the market outside Canada.

Looking at your video selections, and a few others from Battle of the Blades I found on Youtube, it does have a little of the same flavor as "Dancing With the Stars" - there is still a tremendous gulf between how the hockey players and their figure skating partners move. Not nearly up to the skating level of "The Cutting Edge" movie for sure, but the best figure skating movies have never let the real world interfere unduly with the drama.

They clearly focused their training on tricks much more than on posture and grace. I guess that makes sense from a television point of view - Dancing With the Stars does it too, and the tricks certainly take better advantage of the strength training that serious hockey players must have. I guess it also makes it easier for the hockey guys to get over the feeling that figure skating is an effeminate sport, than if you had them doing something more akin to basic ice dancing.

Torvill and Dean's similar BBC show Dancing On Ice also sounds like it must be a lot of fun. As with Blades of Glory, they clearly focused training on the tricks.

The U.S. equivalent, "Skating with the stars", didn't last very long.

[ONskater74]

What the H--- is internal server error 500? Happens all the time.

Anyhow, what I tried to write was: I think the behind the scenes shots showing the warts and gristle on Battle of the Blades keeps it real. Most Hollywood figure skating films are nauseatingly predictable and we don't even need to read the closing credits to know that the "stars" do almost no real skating. The few clips there are are slow and edges are shaky.(ever notice how those movies tend to use spotlights and fake fog and backlighting in competition shots  most competition is under a halogen hospital like glare which is totally unromantic   ) When we see professional skaters wiping out for real and struggling it proves how tough figure skating actually is - no joke. 
Skating with the stars was taking total newbies and making them skate. Stars or celebs or not, their skating was dicey at best. Most people can go to their local rink and pay 2 bucks for public session watch newbies wobble around...they'd rather watch  something cool on TV. The entertainment value just wasn't there. I had a client tell me once (his wife is a coach) that he never went to the club carnival because it "was like watching paint dry". Harsh as this may sound, it was a typical male view that not much is going to alter, and his wife is a local coach.

Getting back to the movies who use doubles for action shots. It reminds me of the ballerina who danced in Black Swan who protested the farcical idea that a total know-nothing actress could possibly become a brilliant ballerina in mere months just for a film shoot. It insults all the dedicated real artists and athletes who spend their entire lives mastering their chosen art/sport. It gives a totally false impression to many ignorant and innocent consumers who assume a skater or ballet dancer needs only a crash course for a few months and they can perform as the film portrays it.  So reality type shows like BOTB do a good service in dispelling these myths when a hockey pro is humble enough to take an edge class with 10 yr old girls.

[Loops]

I do like Battle of the Blades- I find it much better than the "Skating with the stars." I think it's a great premise to get the hockey boys onto figure skates.  It's even better if it convinces more guys to sign up for lessons.  I find it interesting- at my rink, along with the hockey school, we have the professional hockey team.  A few have young children.  One of them told me flat out that figure skaters are better actual skaters and hence plans to sign his son up in the LTS series next year to compliment the hockey training.  More than one of the coaches have told me that those who start off in LTS and actually stick with it for a while make much better hockey players, simply because they skate better.  I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but we were just talking generally.  If only more of those boys would take LTS....and be converted......

In terms of school figures, which I think is the original source of this thread.....I don't think the networks actually HAD to show them.  I do believe there was some felt need to discuss them to explain the scoring, and how the final placement was calculated.  But I don't remember seeing much more than short clips of them on TV, mostly in that explanatory role.

I am not convinced that pressure from TV networks had anything to do with figures being dropped from competition.  I think it was an "internal" ISO decision- the argument has been hashed out elsewhere and need not be repeated here.  Once out of competition, it did take a while for figures to fall out of common practice; in the mid '90's I was still able to patch at a rink near my college.  To not skate them has been more of an internal choice.  Clearly some rinks still have figures sessions, although I am saddened to hear them referred to as a "novelty" now.  But if MITF serves the same training purpose as figures did, then you know, the sport can evolve.  But I think that's us as the skating community, not the Networks.

In contrast, the compulsory dances are still fundamental to ice dancing.  Am I right though, that in competition now one pattern of the compulsory is embedded in a more creative interpretation of the music?  I feel like I heard my coaches saying that.  To me, that's an acceptable compromise.  It shows mastery of the dances, while freeing more the skaters to express their creativity.  Given that there is a free dance element, I'm not sure it's necessary to have made that change, but that's my personal opinion- like figures I never minded watching the OSP's.  Rather liked them, actually- served as a model to aspire to!  But now, is that change due to pressure from the Networks, or again natural evolution of the sport? While I'm sure the networks would like to have their say, I hope they're not causing such changes; those decisions should rest solely with the ISO and member organizations.

[Query]

One of them told me flat out that figure skaters are better actual skaters and hence plans to sign his son up in the LTS series next year to compliment the hockey training.

When parents here sign their hockey kids up for LTS figure skating, they are pushed into beginner classes (USFS Snowplow Sam 1, Basic 1, ISI alpha). Hockey boys who already skate fast and stop fast, told to spend 6 weeks on "march and glide", etc., soon come up with their own games, which inevitably involve taunting the girls, or otherwise making a nuisance of themselves.

There aren't enough of them to offer "figure skating for hockey skaters", nor are there enough cross-overs in the opposite direction to offer "hockey skating for figure skaters". Though to be honest, no one has tried.

[Loops]

When parents here sign their hockey kids up for LTS figure skating, they are pushed into beginner classes (USFS Snowplow Sam 1, Basic 1, ISI alpha).

Well that's too bad, and no wonder they're bored.  They should have some mechanism for testing them, and putting them in an appropriate level, or  in rinks with a decent hockey program, fastracking them through- if they've already skated a while, they're not going to be amenable to re-learning how to stroke.

When I was skating, there was one woman who was both a hockey and figure coach.  She actually did a power stroking class with us, using hockey techniques.  It was brilliant.  She's probably a rare breed though.

I don't know how it would work in the French system.  The player I talked too didn't realise that he could have already signed his (3.5 yo) son up for skating lessons.   Next year is the first year he'll take both formal hockey and our LTS, so he won't be in the situation you described.  Right now, he's just getting comfortable on the ice.  Because the figure lessons here start so much younger than the hockey there are a number of boys who start with LTS than move over to the Hockey school, or do both concurrently.  They, like my son, are all fastracked through the hockey- my son is skating with boys several years older than he.  So at least at our rink, there's an appreciation. 

[Query]

The same kind of problem affects school figures classes around here.

All the people who go into those classes for "school figures" are already freestyle, synchro or dance skaters. But they still start at very different skating levels. Realistically, some of the skaters are going to start out much better than others at doing a long glide out of a single push, and doing strong power pulls, which are amongst the hardest skills used in intro school figures classes.

And that is despite the fact that those classes skip the most basic school figures.

There aren't enough skaters of each level and discipline to offer them separate classes. It's apparently hard enough to get enough interest to run even one class.

The school figures classes that I've seen don't have disruptive kids making a nuisance of themselves. Most of the students are adults - but a lot get bored, and drop out.

The one-room-schoolhouse environment requires a very special teacher to keep everybody's interest.

[icedancer]

In contrast, the compulsory dances are still fundamental to ice dancing.  Am I right though, that in competition now one pattern of the compulsory is embedded in a more creative interpretation of the music?  I feel like I heard my coaches saying that.  To me, that's an acceptable compromise.  It shows mastery of the dances, while freeing more the skaters to express their creativity.  Given that there is a free dance element, I'm not sure it's necessary to have made that change, but that's my personal opinion- like figures I never minded watching the OSP's.  Rather liked them, actually- served as a model to aspire to!  But now, is that change due to pressure from the Networks, or again natural evolution of the sport? While I'm sure the networks would like to have their say, I hope they're not causing such changes; those decisions should rest solely with the ISO and member organizations.

The compulsory dances are embedded into what is now called the Short Dance at the upper levels.  Regular compulsory dances are still required I believe at Novice and below (at least here in the U.S.) and passing compulsory dance tests is still required for moving up the levels (although a little more lax than they used to be - I believe that you can move up to Senior with only two Gold dances and the Gold Free Dance) -

I like the Short Dance - it does eliminate one level of competition for the skaters (dance was a three-part event) so there are less costumes, practice, etc., but the flavor of the compulsory dances are still there.