Quietly this summer two-time National Pairs Champion Rockne Brubaker has been looking for a new partner after he and Keauna McLaughlin split in June.At one point Rockne was spotted having a tryout with Sasha Cohen and the Internet went slightly abuzz for a day or two but then it quietly simmered down again.
Well, if the little birdies in my ear are correct, it appears Rockne has found a new partner in 2009 U.S. Novice Ladies Silver Medalist Mary Beth Marley. She, like Sasha, was spotted having a tryout with Rockne and it appears a decision has been made.
I had never seen her before so I had to look her up on YouTube and she is a little spit-fire...seemingly fearless (see video below).
Is a new partnership born? No official announcement yet but I'm willing to bet it's quickly down the pike. If they are going to compete this season they need to register for sectionals by September 1st...that would be Wednesday. Fingers crossed Rockne has found "the one." I'd hate to see him get stuck with another, as a fellow blogger once put it, "head case sent from above."
4 comments:
Yeah, you're right, it would have been unfortunate to get stuck with another "headcase" like McLaughlin, who, with Brubaker, won two National titles, a World Jr title, and several other international medals in just four years. Sarcasm off... McBru dealt with more pressure during the lead up to the Olympics than a young team would ever normally face. I don't think that was a fair indication of McLaughlin's competitive ability. Overall, McBru was a strong team with good potential.
With that said, I hope that this pairing of Marley and Brubaker takes their time, and if they become good, I hope that the hype can be kept to a minimum. I don't believe she has any pair experience and needs some work on posture, softening her hands, etc, but looking at her singles skating, she has good potential, decent skating skills, good flexibility, and skates with energy. I hope the 9 year age difference is not a big distraction or makes it difficult to them to skate with a true connection.
She appears to have good speed and energy, but really needs to work on her jump technique (lutz in particular). Hopefully this will be a good match! I'm not too sure how he'll "connect" with someone so much younger, though.
Good luck to them if this is what they've chosen. I do like the fact that she can present but there's work to be done. There are holes in her artistic skating. It looks very much like she knows how to drama it up where the choreographer has told her but her eyes are blank and there is no mouth expression spontaneously. Nice 2A, and as some one else said yes the lutz needs work but then again how many SBS 3Lutz do we see in pairs? Nice post thanks for sharing!
I think this is great for both of the skaters. Marley is full of that something special that makes her fun to watch. Some skaters just have it and some do not. She seems to. Best of luck to them as I am sure we will see a lot of them in the next few years......
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