Pretty Neat News

Completely by accident, I just read that the 2009 U.S. Figure Skating Championships are to be held right here in Cleveland, Ohio. Go, Cleveland! Cleveland has already hosted one other U.S. championship, in 2000. For Christmas, 1999, my DH got me two of what were called "all-event" tickets, which meant I got to see every event in Mens, Ladies, Pairs and Ice Dancing, at the Senior, Junior and Novice Levels. I also got to attend open practices at Winterhurst Ice Rink, which was also where the lower level competitions took place, and open practices at what was then Gund Arena.

There were a few quirks with the set-up, at least at Winterhurst. There are just normal bleachers, for watching hockey games, and only on one side of the rink, as Winterhurst is a double rink. There was no way to assign seats, and there were more people there than seats. Perhaps they underestimated the interest in Juniors and Novice skating? But with no assigned seats, once you got a seat, you could not leave for any reason, or risk losing your seat. Or you were stuck standing the whole time.

The set-up at Gund Arena was nice, though. The arena is connected by an underground tunnel to Tower City, a shopping, dining and hotel complex in the Terminal Tower building in Cleveland. As the name implies, there are also subway terminals at the bottom of Terminal Tower. Lots of the skaters and their coaches stayed at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Tower City, so one could see lots of big names in the ice-skating world, walking to and from their hotel rooms, in the tunnel. There were also lots of former U.S. top skaters attending, such as Paul Wylie, so lots of skating celebrities to see.

I had a pleasant surprise, after taking the then-almost-one-year-old Wildchild and just-turned-four-year-old Scientist to one afternoon event, that people who sat in the same area I did asked about them at the next event I attended, and wondered why I didn't bring them back! I was glad they had been well-behaved. I got lots of smiles leading the Scientist around by the hand, and carrying Wildchild in a baby pack strapped on in front of me. :) I also took the girls to a practice, and remember a figure-skating judge of Italian descent commenting on how the Scientists cuteness must be because she was half-Italian. :) She was one of those kids who attracted attention everywhere she went.

There were lots of good skaters to see. Michelle Kwan, of course, Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman, Timothy Goebel. It was Sasha's Cohen's first Seniors championship, and Naomi Nari Nam was still skating in singles. Now she skates in Pairs with Themistocles Leftheris. Lots of good performances were given during that week.





It would be cool if Cleveland could get a world figure skating championship someday. I know I heard during the 2000 event, that the-powers-that-be in Cleveland would like to try to get a world championship located here. A well-planned event in 2009 can only help the cause. I think I will start saving money for a ticket or two in 2009.