With the 1988 Winter Olympics as my introduction to figure skating, I eagerly awaited television coverage of national and international skating events. First, ABC's Wide World of Sports carried some of the competitions and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) aired others. Latterly, it was a mixture of CBC, Canadian Television (CTV) and TSN (The Sports Network - the Canadian equivalent of ESPN) and I taped all the competitions for watching later. Not every skater would be shown and I liked to see the full results. The Victoria newspaper, the Times-Colonist, was not the best at reporting figure skating events and they would normally just include the top three in their Scoreboard section and sometimes did not even include the results of an international event if Canada did not have any skaters in the event.
Not good enough! With my memory and knowledge (and later the Internet), I drew up a results listing of all the skaters I was familiar with. I would also augment the Victoria newspaper coverage with the two national Canadian newspapers. When the Worlds came to Canada or the Nationals were in a particular city, a visit to the Greater Victoria Public Library a couple of weeks after the event allowed me to put several issues aside for purchase and so I had colour reports with full results.
For those readers not familiar with figure skating competitions, there are international competitions governed by the International Skating Union (ISU), the same body that governs speed skating. Each country also has its own figure skating organization. There are four disciplines - men, ladies, pairs and dance. The season starts in October with a six-week ISU Grand Prix Series event. While the cities change each year, the host countries are United States, Canada, China, Russia, France and Japan. The top six finishers in each of the events then compete in the Grand Prix Final, held the second weekend in December.
Then in December and January, each country holds its national figure skating competitions. The European Championships, held mid-January, are the oldest figure skating competition, having started in 1891. In 1999, the ISU introduced Four Continents, so non-European countries had an opportunity to compete in an event similar in structure to the Europeans. This occurs in early February. The skaters then have a break before the ISU World Championships take place in March. During Winter Olympic years, each event takes place but are scheduled earlier in January and February. Many skaters opt not to participate in the Worlds during an Olympic year.
When I met Bob, I found he also liked figure skating and the first live competition we saw was the 2007 United States Figure Skating Championships in Spokane. Both Bob and I are photographers and while we were allowed to take pictures (absolutely no flash photography allowed), we were advised that photographs are for personal use only and could not be shared with others or put on the Internet. With that rule in place, the dozens of pictures I have from each event are kept in albums.
The program from the U.S. Nationals in 2007 held in Spokane. This city opened its arms to all spectators and competitors and a record 154,389 people attended the week-long event. Having watched competitions on television for nearly twenty years, it was completely different to see it live and be part of the audience and get caught up in the excitement of it.
These programs include novice, junior and senior competitors, their coach and choregrapher, music and placement at recent competitions as well as an area to make note of the scores.
Vancouver, British Columbia was chosen as the site of the 2008 Canadian National Figure Skating Competition. There was no question about attending the event, which we both found to be on a much smaller scale than the U.S. Nationals. Autographs were acquired, though!
Skate America, the first event of the Grand Prix season, came to Everett in October 2008. Since Bob lived fifteen minutes down the road from there and it just necessitated a ferry trip and drive down to Everett for me, it was very easy to attend this, our first Grand Prix event. To have international skaters (both new to the senior ranks and others whom we knew) so close to home was quite something and a very enjoyable weekend was spent. With hardly any travel and no hotel costs, we treated ourselves to nearly front row seats which gave us a much different viewpoint from being higher up.
Vancouver, British Columbia hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics to much fanfare. The cost to attend the events were out of our league (although the experience would have been incredible) and the venue was the Pacific Coliseum, which was smaller than Rogers Arena, so less seats. Some ice hockey events were held at Rogers Arena but if I had had anything to do with it, the Coliseum would have hosted hockey and Rogers Arena would have been the venue for skating. In addition, there was a lottery for tickets and the demand far outweighed the seats available.
However, since Spokane had outdone themselves hosting the 2007 U.S. Nationals, they bid for, and won, the 2010 Nationals. So Bob and I considered that competition "our Olympics" and we saw some fantastic skating. Another record-setting attendance occurred in 158,170 spectators (which still stands as of 2020), which broke the previous record also set in Spokane three years earlier.
It was here that we first saw Jean-Luc Baker and his partner at the time, Joylyn Yang. Jean-Luc is from Edmonds, Washington, next door to Lynnwood. Over the years, we followed his career and saw him and his current partner, Kaitlin Hawayek, improve and gain success, both nationally and internationally. We often saw them in person at the various events and breakfasts (see end of this section for details) and while they probably did not recognize us, appreciated our encouragement and enthusiasm for their continued success in the future.
Portland won the bid to host 2010 Skate America and a ride on Amtrak's Cascades and the MAX light rail Red Line took us to the arena for a weekend of world-class international skating.
It had been announced at the 2010 Nationals that the 2011 event was to be held in Greensboro, North Carolina. We both had enough rewards with Southwest that we were able to get free flights so made arrangements and spent five days watching the senior competitions and exhibition (Skating Spectacular). A fantastic time and of course, I was able to get each day's newspaper for full coverage.
The City of Kent, Washington, 21 miles south of Seattle, was the unlikely venue for 2012 Skate America. We could not believe our luck when the host city was announced and spent the weekend at the Showare Centre.
Skate Canada International 2014 was in Kelowna, British Columbia. The dates of this event coincided with the centennial of Kansas City Union Station, an event that Bob wanted to attend. So he spent the weekend in Missouri and I attended my first Skate Canada International. Although I had a 5 1/2 hour drive from Lynnwood to Kelowna (I am not used to long drives), I had a fantastic time at the event and obtained several autographs.
There were no other Pacific Northwest locales for any skating competition for a few years. As such when it was announced that the 2015 Skate America would be held in Milwaukee, we decided to fly to Chicago (there was another event that we attended in Chicago) and take Amtrak to Milwaukee. It was very nice to be back at a skating event again.
It was then that the Pacific Northwest and West seemed to be the gold mine for figure skating events. First it was the U.S. Nationals in San Jose, then Canadian Nationals in Vancouver, followed by Skate America in Everett, the Grand Prix Final in Vancouver and Four Continents in Anaheim! And yes, we went to them all!
It was off to San Jose at the very beginning of the year (due to the Olympics) to immerse ourselves in the American skaters. Over the years, a number of American skaters have won gold medals at the Olympics. 2018 marked a number of significant anniversaries including the 70th anniversary of Dick Button's first Olympic gold, the 50th anniversary of Peggy Fleming's gold, the 30th anniversary of Brian Boitano's medal and the 20th anniversary of Tara Lipinski's gold medal-winning skate. The U.S. Figure Skating Association chose to celebrate those milestones with a Saturday night reception. We could not pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and decided to attend. It was a wonderful time hearing from each of the guests of honour about their Olympic and post-Olympic experiences since three of the four turned those medals into broadcasting careers.
We returned home and about four days later, drove up to Vancouver to see the Canadian skaters! This marked ten years since Nationals were last in Vancouver.
In the second 'ten years since' category, we returned to the Xfinity Arena in Everett to watch all of the 2018 Skate America competition. Since travel and hotels were not a factor, we had seats very close to the ice and had a marvellous time watching this first event of the 2018-2019 season.
The end of 2018 saw us back in Vancouver, at the Thunderbird Centre at the University of British Columbia, for the ISU Grand Prix Final. This was the first GPF we had been to and having been to events where are there between ten and twenty-five skaters in each discipline, having only six in each was rather odd but we thoroughly enjoyed the experience nonetheless.
In February 2019, we flew down to Santa Ana, California to spend the weekend at the Honda Centre and the ISU Four Continents. This was our first such event and it was nice to see skaters from countries that otherwise we would not normally see (except at the Olympics). We had the opportunity to ride a few trains and get together with friends before returning to a snowy and cold Seattle. I have currently misplaced my program from Four Continents so there is no picture to show.
Figure skating will forever remain an interest of mine and I look forward to watching future competitions, or attending them if it is possible. I support the U.S. Figure Skating Association through their Friends of Figure Skating which supports the skaters in their endeavours. In addition, at every event hosted by USFSA (national or international), a Friends of Figure Skating Breakfast is put on for members and skaters. This is a unique way for the two groups to mingle, learn about them, have interviews and autograph sessions as well as to just get to know them as individuals. All the skaters are very receptive to this and Bob and I attended several of these events over the years. I hope they continue.
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