Cheers and Jeers

The fall competition season is behind us and what lay ahead are the major championships (including the Winter Olympics). I'm taking a mid season pause to praise and pounce upon some of what we've seen to this point.

Cheers for a Grand Prix Season that kept us guessing to the very end! Lots of the events gave us unexpected twists and turns that none of us saw coming. There was lots of winners this season as opposed to the usual three or so skaters dominating the events and lots of surprises. I loved that the final Grand Prix event (HomeSense Skate Canada) was a true nail-biter and crunch to see who would make the final...exciting!

Jeers for HomeSense. I didn't even see a single HomeSense commercial during Skate Canada but the amount of tweets that were coming from people saying "If I see one more HomeSense Commercial..." had me sick of them!

Cheers for exciting competitive comebacks from Lambiel, Takahashi, and Plushenko. Anytime skaters make comebacks I'm wary that they'll be out of shape from injury or just plain out of shape for not competing. But these three, Plushenko especially, have done it right.

Jeers for Plushenko's cockiness at Rostelecom Cup...complete with ridiculous finger waving at the end of the program. You jumped well, no question about it, but was the show at the end REALLY necessary? Frankly, I think while you out-jumped the field, Kozuka out-skated the field (yourself included).

Cheers for masterful choreography this season! There are some true gems, especially amongst the dance, pairs, and men.

Jeers for unmasterful outfit choices this season. Taking the top prize is most definitely Russia's Khoklova and Novitski. I don't think, at any point during a competition, they looked like anything other than a hot mess. Their outfits made me want to do shots of vodka...perhaps that was the point? I can honestly say I was relieved when they decided to pass-up on the Grand Prix Final.

Cheers for a beyond exciting season of men's competition! The top men in the world are really digging deep and putting on a show!

Jeers for an unexciting season of ladies competition. The high point was the first competition of the season and its been a steady downward decline since. That isn't the way it's supposed to happen.

Cheers for Ice Network! Amazing access to basically every skating event (sans commentary) has been refreshing.

Jeers for Andrea Joyce commentary on NBC. They have got to come up with somebody better than this.

Final cheers for North American Ice Dance Teams for, like the first time in history, seemingly being in complete control of the competition situation. Of course, this may all change when Delobel and Schoenfelder as well as Domnina and Shabalin return...we'll just have to wait and see.

Final jeers for Sasha Cohen an her, thus far, non-comeback.

What cheers and jeers do you have?